Warner Bros. and DC kicks off 2016 with premieres of a bunch of superhero stuff like new episodes of Supergirl, Arrow, and The Flash; the premiere of Legends of Tomorrow; trailer for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie; and more stuff coming from the DC Cinematic Universe. Another heapful serving is the upcoming animated direct-to-video movie, Batman: Bad Blood as part of its New 52 line of animated films. Here is my spoiler-free review:
In Bad Blood, Bruce Wayne remains missing for weeks after the incident in which he aided Kate Kate, the Batwoman, from a criminal gang led by the mysterious Heretic, a tall muscular character that sports a Batman-like garment. This has forced Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing and the first Robin, to assume the role of Batman in Bruce's absence while finding clues as to the whereabouts of the original Dark Knight.
Batman: Bad Blood is unique in which Batman himself plays a minor role and giving the spotlight to other members of the Bat Family, similar to the movie Assault on Arkham, which is part of the Batman: Arkham games. Besides Nightwing, we also have the Batwoman; Damien Wayne, the current Robin; and Luke Fox, the son of Lucius Fox and who will become the character Batwing.
Bad Blood is loosely based on the several arcs of the New 52 comics, starting with Bruce Wayne's apparent death and resurrection, towards franchising the Batman name to fight crime on a global scale, forming "Batman Incorporated". Despite this, Bad Blood's plot involving Bruce Wayne is more akin to the plot from the movie "The Manchurian Candidate". If you're not familiar with that movie, then it's similar to the episode in Gravity Falls where the Pine Twins mind-control Grunkle Stan to run for mayor of Gravity Falls.
Without giving too many spoilers for this review, while I admire the other Bat characters taking center stage, I hate the fact that the plot twist involving the main villain is a character from the previous films turning a full 180 because, well, just because. And it makes the overall role of one of the Bat characters a little less sense why that said character exists in the first place. I'm sure those who follow the comics know the character I'm referring to. While charater deaths in the New 52 movies aren't uncommon, the deaths of the characters in Bad Blood seemed forced and totally unneccesary.
Bad Blood has a LOT of fight scenes than in the previous Batman and New 52 films and the choreography and animation is superb. The animators really want you to see how each combat move is executed and the flow is seemless without skips or blurs like you would see in most fighting Animes. They do have to make up their mind as to whether or not they'll include blood in not just this film but in future New 52 films. There are scenes in which a character gets wounded and you see blood, but if it's a fatal wound, or an insant death, no blood at all! What the hell?!
Phil Bourrassa continues his role as character designer for the New 52 movies and as such, does the designs in Bad Blood. My criticism for his designs on this one, however, is that the practice of designing all the characters from one base model, rather than cleanup the design so you won't notice the difference, is very much noticeable. This was the case when I mistook Heretic as Batman because the two share the same base design. And again when I mistook Luke Fox as Victor Stone, aka Cyborg, for the same reasons.
Batman: Bad Blood is the most action-packed of all the Ne w 52 films, with a those of humor thrown in. It suffers however from a plot that makes a little less sense and seemingly forced incidents and a few animation issues. It's still not a bad film overall, and if you're a huge Batman fan, or want to see lots of animated action, then Bad Blood is worth your money. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Batman: Bad Blood, a 3 out of 5.
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