Review of Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) by Darik H — 03 Oct 2010

I hate reviewing cartoons. I usually just don't, because I don't think of animated films as real movies no matter how good the animation is; frankly, it takes a feat of screenwriting magic for me to consider a cartoon movie as anything more than goofy, immature garbage. The guys over at Warner Premier, however, have found my Achilles' Heel when it comes to entertainment: comic books. Their line of direct-to-DVD animated films about the DC superheroes have slowly but surely worked their way into my collection, because these well-made cartoon movies are literally like watching a comic book play out on your television- which makes sense, because most of them are adapted from actual comic stories. In fact, this movie, one of their most recent releases, is based on one of my personal favorite Batman stories, which features (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!) the return of long-dead, greatly reviled Robin #2, Jason Todd, as a bloodthirsty vigilante known as the Red Hood, forcing Batman to face the living embodiment of one of his greatest mistakes while simultaneously introducing a great new Batman rogue (who would be subsequently ruined by other writers who either tried to make him into an anti-hero or had no idea what to do with him). The original story was more than a little complicated, featuring elements of the Batman books' status quo that your average viewer would have no knowledge of, and the premise was based entirely in another story that would have to be explained for the narrative to make any sense; so to streamline this story into a one-hour-fifteen-minute framework and have it all come out coherent (let alone entertaining) would have to be a herculean task. Do the filmmakers accomplish this? Well, yes and no; the film has all the characters down perfectly, the plot makes sense (it's actually streamlined a lot of what didn't work so well in the original story into a more logical framework), and the most important moments from the comic are all intact and effective... but like the comic, there are too many outlandish things going on to take anything but the central character relationship seriously, and the movie suffers pretty badly from a case of "comic-book" expositional dialogue (the original storyarc's writer, Judd Winick, wrote the screenplay for the movie as well, and it's obvious that he doesn't quite have the knack for writing dialogue to be spoken aloud). It tries to be dark and gritty (there is clearly some influence from The Dark Knight here), but in the end, it's still handicapped by its own medium.

The movie's subject matter is... well, a little dark, to put it mildly. It opens with the Joker brutally beating Robin with a crowbar in an abandoned warehouse (see? I told you...), while Batman races to the rescue on his motorcycle. Sadly, the Dark Knight arrives just in time to see the warehouse explode with Robin still inside, and sifting through the rubble, he finds the Boy Wonder's body- bloody, surprisingly intact, but clearly dead. Flash-forward a few years, where a new criminal named the Red Hood is demanding the allegiance of all the crime bosses in Gotham, trying to edge out the city's kingpin, the Black Mask; those who don't cooperate, or try to sell any drugs at schools or to children, end up dead. Hood gets the attention of both the Black Mask and Batman, the latter of whom tries to chase down the masked upstart to no avail- but the more he observes the mystery criminal, the stronger the feeling becomes that he knows him. After Hood reveals that he knows who Batman is and Batman helps him fight off assassins hired by Black Mask, it's finally revealed the the Red Hood is none other than Jason Todd, the doomed Robin from the film's opening. It seems that Todd's body was secretly taken by Ra's Al Ghul, a super-criminal with a long and complicated history with the Dark Knight, who had unleashed the Clown Prince of Crime years ago to distract Batman from his own enterprises, but didn't intend for the Joker to actually hurt anyone (obviously, this man did not know the Joker). Full of guilt at having so greatly wronged his most respected nemesis, Ghul decided to immerse the body in a Lazarus Pit, a chemical bath used by Ra's to rejuvenate himself and live for hundreds of years; but when the boy emerged from the Pit, he escaped in a mad frenzy, and, falling from the cliffs surrounding Ra's' lair, Ra's thought him dead a second time. But Todd survived, only to return to Gotham as an adult with a single goal: to do what Bruce Wayne never could, and clean up the streets of Gotham by any means necessary. What neither he nor Bruce realize, however, is that the Black Mask, in his desperation, has turned to the only man left who he thinks can kill the Red Hood once and for all: the Joker.

The film sadly doesn't make use of the can't-miss pairing of Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker, a duo who have been playing the characters on and off for the past eighteen years or so. On the plus side, though, the people that they've enlisted are the next best thing: Bruce Greenwood, fresh off of playing Captain Pike in Star Trek, is the voice for Bruce Wayne/Batman, and John DiMaggio, better known as Bender from Futurama (and a ton of other voice-acting gigs), plays that lovable psychotic clown, the Joker. Greenwood has a pretty good growl to his voice, making him a great Dark Knight (even if he'll never, ever be as good as Kevin Conroy... sigh); character-wise, Batman's in a dark place, dealing with his guilt and remorse about Jason and having the morality of his methods and actions seriously questioned, but beyond that, this is just good old-fashioned Batman as we all know and love him: brooding, stoic, and an ass-kicker extraordinaire. DiMaggio's Joker, however, is quite a departure from the colorful trickster viewers are probably most familiar with; a sort of cross between Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger, this Joker is a lot darker than animation fans might be used to, slaughtering whole rooms full of people without the aid of cartoonish weapons like Joker venom or acid flowers (irony much?). However, he does get all the funniest lines, and while DiMaggio lends Joker probably the huskiest voice he's ever had, he's a great fit for the character, who practically steals the movie in the climactic scene. But lest we forget, this movie is about the Red Hood, a.k.a. Jason Todd, a.k.a. the not-so-dead Robin, who's played here by Jensen Ackles of Supernatural fame (though personally, I know him from an utterly fruitless run as a regular on Smallville for one season- not the best first impression); the guy sounds almost too clean-cut to be a villain (he sounds more like a football quarterback than a ruthless killer), and not snarky enough to be the Jason from the comic books, but for this film, I guess he does alright. It's ironic, though, that he actually sounds older than Nightwing, a.k.a. Dick Grayson, the first Robin (and therefore the older Robin), who's played in this movie by none other than N.P.H. himself, Neil Patrick Harris. Nightwing is a much needed comic relief character (in the sense that he's funny and upbeat, not that he's pathetic or laughable or anything) and a sounding board for Batman to talk to throughout act one, but after he sustains an injury in a chase with the Red Hood, he just goes away for the rest of the movie- excusable in a comic, but not so much in a movie. Jason Issacs ends up with the thankless role of Ra's Al Ghul, the guy who's only purpose in the movie is to explain how Jason Todd isn't dead even though he WAS dead; while the part is small, Issacs does an admirable job making the character seem like more than a plot dump. Finally, we come to my least favorite character in the film: The Black Mask, played by Wade Williams. In the comics, Mask's dialogue always read as dry and sarcastic, and I always imagined this guy making his threats conversationally, rarely letting his temper get the better of him, because he was a businessman- he was smart, not just a thuggish mook. But in the movie... the guy screams ALL THE TIME. Mask is given a lot of the best lines, and they're all ruined by his blustering, ineffectual delivery. The guy has no comic timing- it's like he thinks if he just screams every line, it'll all come out funny. Sometimes he's right, but mostly he's wrong. And the running gag about him punching out his own goons? Yeah, it would have been a lot funnier if Williams wasn't constantly reminding us of Mask's temper. SUBTLETY, people; this is why I don't care for most cartoons.

Judd Winick's script is filled with brilliant dramatic highs and crushing storytelling lows, so it's hard to rate his performance as a screenwriter. On the one hand, this story features some of the most powerful character moments in Batman's 70-plus year history, and the final stand-off between Batman, Jason, and the Joker is undeniably gripping; but the inclusion of a group of cybernetic ninjas certainly feels out of place, and one has to wonder why Winick felt that a superpowered Amazo android was in any way appropriate to include in this dark, gritty Batman story. The dialogue makes the rookie comic-book mistake of describing what the audience just saw happening on more than one occasion; some of the jokes fall flat, too, and the exposition is occasionally rushed out regardless of how out-of-character it is for the person who's saying it (such as how Batman takes the time to tell some common thugs just what an Amazo android is, and later one of the thugs fills another one in on the fact that Nightwing was the first Robin- which I wouldn't think would even be common knowledge). Still, the script successfully tightens what once was a sprawling mess of a story into a compact narrative, even cleaning up some of the more bizarre elements of the books in a logical fashion (in the comics, Jason Todd's resurrection is attributed to a character named Superboy-Prime punching the walls of reality. Don't ask). The animation is stylized, but much less so than in the old animated series; the character models are pretty sweet, Joker's in particular (bleached skin and red lips like the 'toon Joker, but with dark circles around the eyes and longer hair like T.D.K.'s Clown Prince), and the backgrounds are much darker and grimier-looking than in most animated iterations of the Dark Knight. The score by Christopher Drake is pretty standard for these direct-to-DVD animated movies: dramatic, pounding, but indistinct, with little to offer in terms of a memorable theme. And while I don't usually think of animated films as being "directed" by anybody, I suppose Brandon Vietti did a good job of it, even if I couldn't tell you specifically why.

Most of the DC animated films have been pretty decent, and of all of them (save maybe Wonder Woman, an under-appreciated gem), this one stands out as the cream of the crop. It's an incredibly dramatic story told fairly well, which packs plenty of emotional punch in all the right places, but just can't entirely overcome its juvenile nature as a cartoon based on a comic book- the themes are mature, but the trappings are childish. Still, of all the Batman cartoons I've ever seen, this one comes the closest to shedding its kid-friendly shackles and soaring as a real, adult story... which raises the question of why they bothered to include cyber-ninjas and super androids in the first place, and just who this movie is supposed to be intended for. Kids would be too young for the throat-slashing, crowbar-wielding violence in this movie, and adults would never be able to take an Amazo seriously (especially since it comes out of nowhere and just kills time- it has nothing to do with the plot). So is this just for teenagers and/or comic geeks? Yeah, probably; but thankfully, I happen to fall into the latter demographic. So consider this a glowing endorsement of Batman: Under the Red Hood, easily one of the best Batman stories in years... even if it is just a cartoon.