Movie Review: "Batman: Under the Red Hood"

I'm a big superhero fan, but I've not been so sure about this new batch of straight to DVD films Marvel and especially DC are producing (Green Lantern: First Flight, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Wonder Woman, etc.). They seem for the most part to be rush jobs: a cheaply animated, poorly put-together movie that adapts a comic's script directly, avoiding the need for much time spent developing and rewriting. But perhaps the film Batman:Under the Red Hood is the exception.

Here's a trailer



The movie plays out like a long episode of the popular Batman: The Animated Series. You have to be at least semi-familiar with Batman going into it or it won't make sense (Batman is given no origin and part of the film's charm is that it plunges you without warning into a pulpy, fully-developed animated Gotham). But "Red Hood" distances itself from the older cartoons in violence and depth.

The movie begins with the Joker savagely beating Batman's sidekick Robin with a crowbar. Minutes later, the building where the boy is being held hostage is blown up, killing the "boy wonder". This not only sets up the films story, but also gives the tone of the rest of the film. While, not too much gore is actually seen (the film is only PG-13), blood spatters, severed head, and character deaths are all seen or mentioned in frank detail. While some may find this offputting in a cartoon, I found it much closer to what I wanted in a Batman film, and appreciated that the filmakers were modeling their story off of the tone of Nolan's "Dark Knight" (just listen to subdued music that runs throughout "red hood").

Not everything works perfectly in Batman: Under the Red Hood. The story revolves around a new crime lord/vigilante with a personal vendetta against both Batman and Joker. While the story itself flows fairly smoothly, the dialogue is often forced or simply weak. And while I appreciated the limited cast (too many of these animated movies cram as many characters in as possible), some characters like "Black Mask" never quite become 3-dimensional. The voice-acting is mostly very good (Neil Patrick Harris as Nightwing and Jason Isaacs as Rhas al Ghul), but I found myself missing the gritty voice of Kevin Conroy for Batman. Another problem is the movie's length; with a runtime of only 75 minutes, it feels more like a quality episode than a solid movie.

On the other hand, the film has quite a bit to like. The action sequences are the best I have seen in any superhero cartoon, and the animation is crisp although it relies a bit too often on computer generated effects. Details lacking in other cartoon abound here, birds sit on top of building, minor wounds result in blood, and Gotham City is beautifully dank and dismal.

The movie's ending is not perfectly satisfying, but it's not bad. I think "Red Hood" could have done with another twenty minutes or so. In the end, I didn't love the movie, but I think it's a solid step in the right direction for superhero cartoons in general. If you're an animation, superhero, or simply Batman fan, give it a look. If not, I advise waiting to see if DC and Marvel will make something better.