Batman interrupts Gorilla Groddâs time-travel plot with the result that the gorilla, Batmaan, Robins 4, Alfred, Catwoman, Joker & Harley, and a bunch of other villains who get little screen time, are sent back to Japan. Batman shows up two years later than the rest. In that time the criminals have taken over with Joker as the lord of lords. The Robins have joined up with a ninja-bat cult. From then on it is punching, sword play, explosions, giant robots, and monkeys.
I assume the idea for this film came from a string of Batman of Shanghai shorts that were quite clever. How did they go so wrong? Batman Ninja is atrocious. Itâs what you show someone if you want them to hate Batman, comics, superheroes, and anime. DC Animation had been having a rough patch but with the recent Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay, things were looking up. And then this happened.
If youâd previously enjoyed any of these characters, then prepare yourself for moron Batman and his zingy, upbeat son Damian Wayne, and of course, Damianâs intelligent monkey friend. Yes, thatâs âmonkey friend.â Finally, Batman gets the Speed Racer treatment, but not on as mature a level. I was waiting from Damian to gleefully say how great the Mach 5 is. Instead he happily yelled about the spirit of the monkey.
The dialog made me wish for a silent film. Everyone speaks in puns, clichĂ©s, and info dumps. We are well passed embarrassing here. Everything the Joker or Harley say is annoying and anything Batman says, including his bizarre soliloquies, are too stupid to let invade your brain. Youâd do better blasting any random heavy metal albumâitâs not as if anything said will make the picture make senseâas then you might construct a fun music-video. Magic bats attack. Wooden fortresses combine to make a giant robot. Alfred has acted as a butler for two yearsâpossibly for Catwomanâfor no reason. The Penguin has somehow found penguins in Japan which he keeps around ice (no mention of where he got ice from). The Joker is a skilled samurai. A ninja bat cult has a submarine. The Batmobile works without fuel. Monkeys leap on each others shoulders to form a super monkey. And it goes on like that. Things happens because they happen, not because it makes a coherent story or it fits the characters.
The anime-style animation is no help. Some of the basic design work isnât bad, though it is used poorly. At times Batman Ninja is less of an animated movie and more a motion comic. Actually hand-drawing the frames might have helped, instead of what they did, which was doing some shading on computer graphics. Here and there I could see the potentialâusually in those too-often still momentsâthat is never fulfilled. As a whole, it is ugly.
Batman Ninja isnât a waste of time. It is so much worse. Want to keep kids away from comics? Show them this.