Batman Ninja (2018)

A shit movie, like really bad in my opinion. For starters, a shit title. The writer couldn't have thought of anything even slightly better? I imagine that what happened was the director was like, "Fuck it. We callin' this mutha fucka Batman Ninja". The plot runs as follows: Batman, along with his allies and adversaries, finds himself transported from modern Gotham City to feudal Japan. 

The writing is truly awful. I mean dog shit. Perhaps this is because it's Japanese origin translated poorly but even still it comes off akin to fan fiction. Joker comes off as incredibly cringy, Batman sounds ridiculous and their banter just doesn't work. The dialogue just doesn't sound natural. For example, there is a constant rhyming in a lot of the dialogue which sounds horrible and unnatural forcing the viewer out of the moment. Dialogue also serves as pure exposition and each character talks like their from a 90s first-person shooter video game. There's one scene that bothered me in which Joker and Batman are in their stupid mechs and they are yelling at one another which makes no sense since neither can hear one another cause they're in fuckin robots. There's another scene where Batman pretends to be a monk to sneak into town and he's wearing a beard and has a bat-shaped bald spot yet in the next scene his hair is back to normal when I was looking forward to seeing the bald spot the entire film. Also, where did he get that beard? 

Batman Ninja also suffers from a predictable and obvious plot that reuses tired old tropes but relies solely on its new environment. Each character is a cardboard cutout of their comic self, lacking the complexities that make each of them interesting. When I began this movie, I was really looking forward to seeing Batman out of his depth in a time where he can't use any of his gadgets. And Batman Ninja sets this film up as such with its opening scene. Yet this theme is dropped for the majority of the movie until the end where it feels incredibly forced. The plot also makes Batman seem stupid. He falls for Grodd's betrayal, he falls for Joker’s fake amnesia, he falls for Joker’s trap and he doesn’t prepare for anything which is the opposite of Batman. Also, there's a couple scene where Robin suddenly has a pet monkey that's his homie. This is never addressed and feels incredibly strange. There's also a scene were Joker just randomly falls asleep in the middle of the battle because he feels like it. The sequence where Joker has amnesia has great animation which reflects the situation well but feels unnecessary to the plot and feels like it was added in order to add time to the incredibly short movie. The final battle is incredibly ridiculous but I guess it fits the tone of the movie, whatever that is.  

There's only one good thing about this movie and it's the style of animation. For the rest of its flaws, Batman Ninja does this right. Color usage is spot on and action sequences are done decently well. 

I think the issue with this movie is they tried to shove Batman into anime without considering logic whatsoever. There was a lack of logic and it was filled with cliches from both Batman and the anime genre. I wouldn't recommend this movie whatsoever as there are far better Batman movies and far better animes.
- GL


2 / 10


 (above) My favorite shot:

(below) Runners-up:




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