Thursday, September 01, 2016

My Review of Batman: Bad Blood (2016)


Written by J.M. DeMatteis
Directed by Jay Oliva

Batwoman: "Just because I wear this, doesn't mean I'm a part of your little cult."

It's been a decade since the most infamous and associated version of Batwoman made her debut in the comics and while we're still due to see either a small or big screen version of the character at some point, this original animated feature made for an impressive debut.

Voiced by former Chuck actress, Yvonne Strahovski, this story works as both an impressive ensemble and a debut for Kate Kane into the animated movie fold as the character's backstory is told succinctly through flashbacks while in the present day, Batwoman is reluctant to join the gang comprising of Nightwing pretending to be Batman (Sean Maher) and er, the Damian Wayne version of Robin (Stuart Allen) who are on the hunt for the missing Bruce Wayne (Jason Mara) within this movie.

It seems that Bruce has been kidnapped by Talia Al Ghul (Morena Baccarin) and is getting quite the mental torture courtesy of Mad Hatter (Robin Atkin Downes). Talia's little scheme is to build her influence among the world leaders and she's certainly not lacking allies in her little cause for this one.

When she wasn't actually manipulating Bruce with Tetch's help, she also had the likes of Onyx, the Heretic (who turned out to be an older version of Damian in a way), Firefly and a group of ninja nun assassins all in her employ. I know Talia can be a pretty cold character but even in this movie, I was surprised just how callous she was, especially to Damian. There was even a moment where she commented about killing him and making another son.

I've never liked Damian that much as a character but even I felt a little bit bad for him in that moment. Other than that though, he was still fairly annoying but at the same time, while Talia's scheme was ambitious, Damian and Nightwing were able to bring Batman back from doing something he would've regretted.

As for Batwoman, this was a great debut for the character and I really do hope that the character pops up in more animated movies but she wasn't the only ally to make their animated movie debut in this one. Lucius Fox getting injured by Talia's men saw Luke Fox become Batwing and to be honest, I really could've done with seeing a lot more of him. Like Batwoman, he's a character I really hope appears in more of these animated movies.

- Loved seeing Kate's relationship with her father in this one and the scenes she had with Montoya were also a delight as well. The movie handled her sexuality brilliantly.
- Other cameos in this movie included Batgirl at the closing moment as well as Killer Moth, Calculator and Black Mask to name a few.
- Morena Baccarin who voiced Talia is also Leslie Thompkins in Gotham.
- There's a reference to Mask Of The Phantasm with the character of Chuckie Sol in this movie.

An extremely fun movie, Batman: Bad Blood gave an impressive debut to both Batwoman and Batwing and while Talia did come across as a bit nastier than usual, she certainly held her own as the main antagonist in this one. Some truly impressive fight scenes and nice character moments as well added to this one.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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