Review of Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) by Kenneth L — 23 Oct 2011

This is an entertaining, rough little Batman animated movie. It kind of looks like the old 1990s cartoon version, but the darkness of its tone actually puts it closer to Christopher Nolan's films on the Batman spectrum. One of the many great things about Batman is that there are so many Batmen - the gritty, realistic Nolan one; the noir-influenced 1990s cartoon one; the Gothic Tim Burton one; Frank Miller's tired and maniacal one; the goofy 1960s one; the cheesy and terrible one from Joel Schumacher's films; and so on. This movie presents yet another Batman, living in a less realistic world than Nolan's but troubled by guilt.

The story is classic Batman, though it does its best to throw in a couple of twists (which are pretty easy to see coming). Business is proceeding as usual in Gotham, when suddenly a masked vigilante known only as Red Hood starts bullying around all the other crime lords, including the Black Mask, and killing their henchmen. Because Batman doesn't approve of actually killing bad guys, he decides to stop Red Mask. There are other plot complications involving, of course, the Joker.

They assembled a pretty high-price voice cast for this particular Batman movie, and most of the actors do very good, very cartoonish work. Bruce Greenwood (Captain Pike in the recent Star Trek movie) is a surprisingly good Batman, gruff and serious. Jensen Ackles is fine as the sarcastic and mean Red Hood. John DiMaggio (Bender from Futurama) is pretty good as the Joker, and it's surprising how little he sounds like Bender in the role. Neil Patrick Harris shows up briefly as Nightwing, a grown-up former Robin, but unfortunately his character isn't in the film very much. Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films) also turns up briefly as a haughty Ra's al Ghul, and Wade Williams (from Prison Break) is a fine snarling, angry villain as Black Mask.

Although the movie is animated, it's not for kids. It's surprisingly violent: there's a decent amount of blood, and the film opens with the Joker mercilessly beating Robin to within an inch of his life with a crowbar. The film even tries to pose a philosophical question about violence - given how much suffering a villain may inflict if allowed to live, would it be acceptable for Batman to kill that villain? It's not Kalifornia or anything, but I was surprised at its depth given that it's a straight-to-DVD animated superhero movie. It's fascinating just what a renewable resource Batman is.