We begin with a death in the family. Ra's Al Ghul is briefed on the events in Sarajevo. The Joker is beating Robin, Jason Todd, with a crowbar, leaving him broken. Batman races to rescue his partner. He is too late, the building blows with Todd inside.

Five years later Gotham is plunged into another gang war. A mysterious figure in a red hood is taking over the streets that belonged to Black Mask. Batman is forced to chase ghosts and villains as he pieces together the mystery of the Red Hood.

Jason Todd is the star of the show, ironic for a character that fans famously voted to die. In the comics Todd wasn’t really liked compared to the previous Robin, Dick Grayson who had become Nightwing. At first Todd was largely a copy of Grayson. Than like the recent Flashpoint event DC did a multiverse changing event, Crisis of Infinite Earths. In the new post Crisis DC editors were able to do large overhauls of their characters, remaking continuity . Todd was finally turned into his own character. No longer a circus performer, Todd was re-imagined to be a streetwise punk, the opposite of Grayson. Todd became annoying and hard to deal with. Eventually writer Jim Starlin got the OK to write A Death in the Family. At the end of part 2 readers are given two 900 numbers, one number was for if you wanted Todd to live and the other was for him to die. He died. He stayed dead until 2005 when Judd Winick brought him back with Batman: Under the Red Hood.

The violent first half of this movie is its weakest. Not because it isn’t handled well or isn’t entertaining to watch, it felt like action for the sake of action with little emotion coming out of it. We see the Red Hood making moves against Black Mask but are never given any hint at a master plan. He simply just is doing things. The second half what makes this movie great. In particular the climactic scene between Jason Todd,Batman and the Joker who is tied up to a chair. This scene cements what Under the Red Hood is about: the loss of heroism.

Jason Todd: I don't know what clouds your judgment worse, your guilt or your antiquated sense of morality. Bruce I forgive you for not saving me. But why? Why on God’s green earth is he still alive?...Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the entire grave yards he's filled, the thousands who've suffered, the friends he's crippled. You know I thought, I thought I would be the last person you'd ever let him hurt. If it would have been you he beat to a bloody pulp, if he had taken you from this world, I would have done nothing, but, search the planet until I found this pathetic pile of evil death worshiping garbage! And sent him off to hell!

Batman: You don't understand. I don't think you ever understood.

Jason Todd: What? What your moral code just won't allow for that. It's too hard to cross that line.

Batman: No! God almighty. No. It would be too damned easy. All I've ever wanted to do was kill him. A day doesn't go by when I don't think of subjecting him to every horrendous torture he has dealt out to others, and then end him.

Joker: Aww so you do think about me.

Batman: But if I do that. If I allow myself to go down into that place I'll never come back.

Jason Todd: Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because he took me away from you.

Batman: I can't I'm sorry.

Todd has lost the idea of heroism and truly become the antihero. On some level you can identify with what he is saying and doing but he does come off as selfish, constantly talking about how he was not properly avenged, even though he says he “forgives” Batman for not saving him. He isn’t a hero he has lost the true idea of heroism unlike Batman. Batman is right. It would be to easy to finally end the Joker but then he would finally fall into the abyss he stares into every night. The hero has to be better than his villain. Todd no longer holds himself to that standard, without that standard he is nothing but a common vigilante.

You could draw parallels between what Todd does and another famous animated Bat character, Andrea Beaumont. Both characters die and come back as vengeful wraiths. Their connection to Bruce and Batman are different though. Beaumont was a lover and chance to have a “normal” life. This chance at normalcy is taken away from him that reaffirm his commitment to the cape and cowl. Todd on the other hand is a more nebulous connection. Is he a partner, a soldier, or son? Or all of the above? Batman saw the potential for both great good and evil in him when he found him stealing the wheels off the Batmobile. Once again this is taken from him. By the end of Red Hood Batman once again reaffirms his commitment to the cowl stating that it doesn't change anything.

Now this isn’t live action but the animators are able to show Joker and Batmans expressions change. Jason under the red hood has no such expressive capabilities The only expressive quality is the voice of Jensen Ackles. Jensen Ackles voices Todd largely with onenote. That note is anger, all of his dialog is just seething with anger. This is perfect for an angry character like Todd. He commands every scene he is in much in the same way DiMaggio dose

Batman is a man driven by his failures. He wears them on his sleeve, where his heart should be. He failed to save Harvey Dent. He failed to save Dick Grayson's parents. And he failed to save Jason. Despite his name being the first word in the title, Batman is not the star of the show. Batman is relegated to the role of detective always one step behind the Hood, the Joker and Black Mask. Unlike the Burton Batman films Under the Red Hood actually shows Batman doing detective work. He is Ed Tom Bell to Todds Llewelyn Moss.

For the third movie in a row we see Batman remembering his past. A trip to a chemical factory has him relive the events that birthed the Joker. Memories of his first meeting with a young Jason and their first night on patrol come up, showing Batman in a more fatherly role. Batman also looks back on Todd as he grew up and started to show signs of what he has become, breaking a drug dealers collarbone simply because he had it coming. The warning signs for what could've happened to Todd if he had not met Batman. Todd isn’t evil though in these moments. He is simply brash and cocky, hardly major sins. Batman remembers this pain, it holds him to his heroic standard.

Bruce Greenwood is the voice of Batman this time around and for what he is given, does a good job. He gives Batman a grouchy old man quality to him that Kevin Conroy with his Bat voice never really did. Conroys Batman always came off as angry. Greenwood takes that anger and turns it into weariness.

Like Batman, the Joker isn’t the star of the show either. As in Mask of the Phantasm he is a psychotic hitman for hire, that Black Mask is forced to turn to. Voice actor John Di Maggio plays this Joker far more menacing than Mark Hamill or Heath Ledger. Both of them had an air of zaniness to them, I would attribute it to the high pitch of their voices. The Joker in Red Hood isn’t given anything zany to do, he just kills people. DiMaggio, best known for voicing Bender on Futurama, he doesn't exactly have a high pitched voice. His lower tone gives Joker an ominous tone, which mixed well with the overt violence in this movie.

Under the Red Hood more than earns its PG-13 rating. It earns it in blood; lots of blood. The opening scene is a brutal murder. The first half of Red Hood is largely a set of action set pieces that do flow together logically. You have the Amazo fight, the parkour chase, and the Fearsome Hand of Four fight all in about 30 minutes. Interspersed between these bigger moments you have moments of gang warfare with people being killed. Now you never see bullet-ridden bodies, but you do get blood splattering onto walls. The goriest death occurs when a thug is lit on fire after the Hood shoots the thugs Molotov cocktail.

Under the Red Hood tells a good Batman story, fans of the Dark Knight and others will be entertained . I just don’t like it as a whole, for all of its parts. I like certain vertical slices, mainly the climax. Ackles,Greenwood and DiMaggio more than carry the film but the weak first half hurts the movie overall.

MUSIC

Surprisingly Under the Red Hood did get a soundtrack release composed by Christopher Drake as a digital cognizant . Drake has done the majority of Warner Bros. direct to video soundtracks. Drake dosen’t have many moments to shine with his music, most of the time I wasn’t very cognizant that it was even playing. Drakes style comes off as a mix between Hanz Zimmermans The Dark Knight and moody 80’s synth work.

Upon looking up the soundtrack "A Death in the Family","Final Confrontation", and "End Titles" are worth listening to.

I am Michael Mazzacane and you can find on Twitter @MaZZMand at weekntv.com or comicweek.com

I don't understand the complaint about the first half of the movie being weak. It's called a build-up. Jason isn't going to reveal his master plan right off the bat, you need to keep the audience guessing what his true plan is, and keep an aura of mystery around the character. Yes, most already knew that Red Hood is Robin, but accompanying Batman on the journey to discovering this identity makes the movie that much stronger. And yeah, the Amazo fight didn't have a lot of emotion in it, and why should it. It's Batman and Nightwing vs a Cyborg with JL powers, and that's more than enough, that fight's purpose was to establish what Batman's skills in a fight, and Red Hood's first attempts at executing his master plan. You don't need any more than that. And besides, the emotional weight of Jason's death is more than enough emotion to carry the first half of the movie.

@anjales: I think its weak because it's all kind of rote. Of course Gotham is in another gang war. I didn't say it wasn't well done action bits, upon my first watch years ago I was take aback by how well put together they were. That said the death of Jason Todd hangs over this film just as much as everyother death imagined or otherwise Batman puts on himself. Under the Red Hood has the same problem the majority of DC animated features do which is the execution of plot above character. Which more often than not leads to these features operating on and asking the viewer to have a level of extratextual knowledge to really round out characters. Which isn't a "bad" thing there is always some level of that when dealing with characters such as this but I wasn't looking at Under the REd Hood as part of the greater universal Bat-canon. I was looking at it as a standalone pieceof media.

That final scene in the aprtment really saved the feature for me I was wondering man is there anything worth writing about here and man I really loved it the first time why is it not working.

Also wrote this like 2-3 years ago.