Review of Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) by Jon F — 05 Sep 2010

This is actually a really strong Batman story. It's been a long time since I read A Death in the Family and I've never read Hush so I can't remember if Ra's Al Ghul was actually involved in the story but I liked that touch if he wasn't.

This also does a really nice job of being a "mature" or "adult" Batman story without being quite as deadly serious as Christopher Nolan's films (as good as those are). It doesn't feel like they were forcing the violence or some of the language into the film to make it appeal to grown up Batman fans, it feels very natural.

I had a few problems with the voice cast though. It isn't that Bruce Greenwood and John Di Maggio were bad as Batman and the Joker respectively, but Greenwood basically sounded like he was trying to be Conroy to such a degree that I wonder why they didn't cast Conroy, and DiMaggio is just kind of flat.

It's too bad cause I like both of these actors, but neither of them were particularly good in these roles and considering they're two of the main characters it proved to be a pretty distracting problem in a movie that was for the most part very good.