With a new year comes new animated DC films. I tried to not follow much about
Bad Blood before seeing it. Now that I've seen it I'd love to dissect the film and analyze it. So let's get started.
Before I watched the movie I intentionally didn't look up anything about the film. I didn't read the synopsis, I didn't watch the trailer. Nothing. So perhaps this was laid out in the trailer but the movie once again relies on the League of Assassins as villains.
Before people can me a Marvel fan boy, I really do like the League of Assassins. I really do. I just think that the animated films have relied on them too much. We've seen them in
Batman: Under The Red Hood where Ras played a prominent role and even more recently they were featured prominetly in
Son Of Batman. Even outside the animated films, the Nolan films used them twice, and
Arrow has used them for some time now. I'm finding myself bored of the League now!
When this movie started I called that the League in some variation would be the villain. I was choked that I was right. The group shouldn't be so heavily used. There's a lot more villains in this. Having Talia be the ultimate baddie in this wasn't a shock and didn't do anything for me.
Even if I was excited for Talia/the League being the villains, there's a lot more here that feels recycled from past films. Dick Grayson is still trying to handle being the oldest Robin, Damien is an impatient asshole, and Batman has trust issues. This works for a few films but at what point are we expecting these characters to grow? I expect some growth from these characters. There was one scene where Damien is trying to save a villain from death but fails. He just shrugs it off. I find this irritating that in his third film he's still an obnoxious brat. He needs characterization outside of just being the same character.
Now that I've groaned about what I didn't like, let's talk about what I did like.
I liked that the focus wasn't entirely on Batman. In fact the movie is pretty much Batwoman and Dick Grayson's film. Sure Batwing gets a predictable arc and orgin but it's nonetheless exciting to see someone else besides Batman fight villains.
I liked that they used some lesser known villains like Mad Hatter and Blockbuster.
I liked when Talia died, now perhaps they'll stop using the League of Assassins in every film.
The voice acting was pretty on point. There wasn't a real sore spot in the cast.
All in all I'd say this is a pretty dissapointing movie. While it has an interesting twist with Batman disappearing, the plot never uses this to it's advantage. It doesn't take time to develop many of the characters and instead just seems content to give an average and servicable Batman story.
200/500
Uncle Joeys