Batman Ninja, So Differently Badass It’s a Must See
Several moons ago, when I was still wet behind the ears new here on Steem, I wrote about Batman Ninja and called it an absolute Whoa moment of last year’s NYCC.
Rereading that post now, I was gushing of happiness then and based on the Internet’s wisdom, and my usual gut feeling, I came to the conclusion that the movie would be ballistically batshit insanely awesome.
Sometimes you just feel a thing is going to be great and you know it’s going to be an amazing ride and there’s no way you’re going to be disappointed.
It’s Male Intuition when all you can think of is Philip J. Fry holding a whack of green notes.
It’s when you don’t feel bad writing four paragraphs of preamble. Because as time would tell you... you were right.
So let’s stop beating around the bush already and get to it. Let me explain you why you should absolutely watch Batman Ninja, even if reviews and the Internet’s opinion are a mixed bag.
For those reading this who haven’t jumped to my old post yet, although you absolutely should, let me briefly reintroduce the movie to you.
With help of the official summary.
Batman and a cast of villains including The Joker are transported back in time to medieval Japan in this ground-breaking anime feature.
As the summary gives away this is an anime feature and thus indeed groundbreaking for fans as it is one of very few Batman animes available. Additionally, the movie is directed by Jumpei Mizusaki, of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure fame, assisted by a rockstar anime team.
It being an anime feature film means that it requires most fans to forget everything they know and put their Expectation Meter on zero, instead being open-minded and allow themselves to discover something else. Something different.
This is not DC Animated. Batman Ninja is something totally new and different. The trailer doesn’t take any prisoners about that.
Normally I don’t tend to pay much attention to trailers as too much money is spent on them trying to create exactly that what will make the audience open their wallet, and more often than not a trailer ends up being two better minutes than the complete movie ever will be. But the Batman Ninja trailer is awesome, mostly because it shows us that we’re going to be in for a crazy ride.
For a batshit insane ride.
And the trailer has Gorilla Grodd in it. What more does one need to be convinced?
Contrarily to many trailer-movie combos, this time the movie doesn’t disappoint.
One of the big reasons why reviews of Batman Ninja are such a mixed bag is IMHO also one of the feature’s strengths. It’s as simple as illogic in a Batman world: Batman Ninja doesn’t make much sense. Maybe for few minutes, a quarter of an hour even, but soon it all goes batshit insane and is full of plot holes and illogical things, errors even. Everything is littered with insane [whoa] moments and events, it’s so totally over the top it’s ridiculous.
Insanely ridiculously entertaining and awesome.
Add to that the great visuals, super choreography and a super Batman crew and villain cast and it becomes obvious those will be 80 minutes of your life you’re going to enjoy.
But only if you can free your mind, turn your brain off and let it all wash over you.
Forget about everything Batman you know. Forget about anything DC Animated you’ve previously seen. Definitely forget about the DCEU and also Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.
Although.... alright, don’t forget about Batman’s fight against Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins. But don’t bring it with you either when watching Batman Ninja.
Forget about Heath Ledger. Forget about Mark Hamill.
Yes, I did just say you should forget about Mark Hamill and his Joker. No, that isn’t heresy. Not at all because rather than comparing to Hamill’s consistently great Joker [voice] give Batman Ninja’s Joker voiced by Tony Hale (of Buster fame in Arrested Development) a chance. Hale is an excellent Joker in Batman Ninja.
Hale delivers an awesome Joker and his voice totally fits the over the top character. Not only does he manage to infuse the character with insanity, he also has the Joker’s laugh down and even managed to add some excellent details to the character like how he says Batman, splitting Bat and Man. It’s almost freaky, just like the Joker should be.
Not one for entitlement and nowadays popular thinking that fans deserve something as can often be read online, but after Jared Leto’s Joker we deserved a great Joker and Tony Hale didn’t disappoint. It’s so excellent a performance that there’s no doubt Hale will be listed high in upcoming best Joker performance lists.
As previously mentioned the movie is visually amazing. More so there’s several different styles used throughout the feature and the visual team has totally managed to pull that off in incredible ways. Sometimes the art comes at the cost of the plot line and at the cost of the story making sense at all, but that shouldn’t be an issue at all.
Not if you’re open minded enough and can leave your expectations - and DC knowledge - behind. Just like you would do with any movie directed by Michael Bay.
Batman Ninja is an absolute blast. It’s totally batshit insanely crazy and that’s awesome. Batman Ninja definitely ranks as one of the funnest movies I’ve seen this year and will see.
And you should watch it too, even if only to experience how amazingly bonkers it is.
Plus, Batman Ninja has Gorilla Grodd in it.
Instead of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, Turtles In Time, back in the USA in 1993, it is Batman in time, and the turtles (TMNT) went back to 1603 A.D. Japan and the turtles are ninjas and I watched the 4 seasons of Gotham which shows the back story of young Bruce Wayne. Didn't know about Batman Ninja until now, thank you for this.
Gotham, just like Injustice and Batman Ninja, is not cannon though.
It shows a back story of young Bruce, as much as TDK Batman Begins shows a back story (based on a not cannon either comics side-arc).
None of the TV series, movies, and even DC Animated outputs are cannon, although quite a lot of DCA movies are direct comic to animated movie, without script altering.
Only the Batman titled comics series is considered cannon and part of the official timeline (anything which happened during The New 52 years is a difficult thing as Rebirth rebooted back to before TN52 and as such TN52 never happened but it is officially not erased in the sense that more recent authors may use it - depending on whether Geoff Johns agrees of course).
Thanks for your comment, @joeyarnoldvn
Too bad Gotham is not part of the original canon. Interesting that Disney may deem Star Wars refreshed with a new canon to separate the new films, the original three films, with the older books and comics.
Disney bought DC Comics and/or Marvel Comics? If Disney bought DC, would they try to create a new canon for Batman? Regardless, what is TN52?
TN52 is The New 52, it was the 4-5 years of comics before the Rebirth reboot two years ago.
Both MARVEL and DC Comics reboot every 4-5 years, that mostly to avoid that newcomers may not want to pick up a series because the actual issue number is somewhere in the 357 gazillion. Easier for newcomers to pick up if an issue number is low. At the same time it also gives new writers an opportunity to quickly reintroduce the character with a brief origin story (recap).
Why would you want to reset 75 years of canon? It’s good to keep movies, TV series, and comics separated, especially if one was earlier. It’s just important that we remember what is canon and what isn’t. We are currently having a whole new wave of fans who read only Injustice comics because of the game. That’s a whole new ball park of canon, their canon I mean.
Also, nobody wants to relive Wookipedia total wipes or similar situations. We need some continuity, and certainty about the history of a character.
Both authors and fans need that. What would happen to authors if they are writing their arcs and suddenly, in an alternate world of moving pictures, the whole origin story is tweaked because of Gotham. How does that influence the character’s evolution? Do the arcs they are writing on even still make sense? That’s why authors like Snyder love things like All-Star Batman. It allows them to go to places they would never or could never have gone within the canon orginal title.
Warner Bros. bought DC Comics.