Limited by a Lack of a Decent Plot
When I first saw the DVD cover, I had a bad feeling about this movie. My instincts started tingling even worse when I read the blurb on the back. But my younger cousin was adamant and I indulged her in agreeing to watch. But frankly, I should have listened to my initial instincts.
What can I say about this lackluster disappointment to the Batman franchise? It’s not the utter shame of the Batman series, but I will say it’s not going to win awards either. My cousin found it decent but my own ability to withstand dreck is a lot lower than hers.
I couldn’t help but feel that this cartoonish movie smacked of rampant commercialism to me. The longer I watched, I couldn’t help but feel that they were aggressively pushing a future toyline here. And a badly designed toyline at that. The Flash’s outfit? Yikes. The Penguin was also an appalling bit of design work and why did Red Robin had some hair sticking out of the back of his mask? And I noticed how Bats was such a clotheshorse in this movie, changing outfits at least thrice, which means that they have to make three different action figures for each of his outfits.
Despite their claims that Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts is something for the family and all ages can enjoy—no, not really. It’s geared for children, really young children at that probably 7 or younger. Even my cousin felt it was a bit too childish in quite a lot of the plot and she falls into that age bracket. I know I felt it mind numbing in a lot of places and I spent most of my time; amusing myself by trying to predict just what was going to happen.
And I was actually able to do so with startling accuracy. The only real twist that I missed was the reveal that Silverback was a robot ape. That and when that was revealed, I assumed that he was yet another of the Penguin’s robo-animals under his control. Otherwise, I found the plot to be rather pedantically predictable for the most part. The storyline and pacing is decent I suppose but I thought it could have been tightened up here and there. I suppose what hurts the most is the overwhelming addition of heroes including Nightwing, Red Robin, Green Arrow, and the Flash to balance out the stable of villains.
The movie is about Batman right? He's lost in his own movie since the movie makers had to give all of the guest stars some screen time. I think it would have served the plot better if they had simply cut down on some characters and have more emphasis on the Dark Knight. Red Robin had some emotional scenes with trying to bring back Manbat to his senses but other than some over-the-top bromance between him and Flash for comedy, Nightwing doesn’t really do much and Green Arrow just seems to be a warm body for some characters to talk to occasionally.
The animation is excellent, which is to be expected as DC is usually fairly good at this sort of stuff. The action sequences were spectacular and the only real complaint I had was with some of the character designs as I mentioned above. I also thought that the backgrounds were a bit too futuristic. The signs were all in some sort of gibberish language and the flying cop cars were just too much.
I was also pretty much disappointed by most of the voice cast most of whom lacked the ability to convey much emotion or any real distinctive personality to infuse in their character. About the real exceptions was Dana Snyder (Penguin), Charlie Schlatter (Flash), and Yuri Lowenthal (Red Robin) who were a cut above the rest.
Overall, I can only recommend Batman Unlimited for the younger sect. I fear older fans from pre-teens to adults will be far too disappointed by this offering from DC due to its lame storyline. It’s not the only flaws to it, but it’s probably the most noticeable with the small ones detracting from the rest.
RATING: 1 and 1/2 STAR.