Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014) – Review

I have a huge Geek crush on Harley Quinn. But who doesn’t. You can tell the creators of this film took that into account and built upon it.

I watched this with my father, this was the first movie we have sat down together in a few years to watch. It was interesting to see his reactions to the scenes, and to build some of my own thoughts around his observations.

As the film started we are introduced to Edward Nigma aka The Riddler. The first thing I noticed was what seemed to be an attempt to make the character more humanized, and not cartoon oriented. Maybe they were trying to relate him to the portrayal by Jim Carrey in 1995? Possibly, but that did not bother me. It actually made me smile a bit to see the humanization of many of the characters, especially the dark knight himself. For the first time that I can recollect beside the live films, you can see his eyes beyond his suit, not just a mystifying white glow. Earlier in the film you see him having some sort of an Ironman like HUD over his eyes as he is in night vision mode, so this explains why you only see a faint pupil in his eye slits.

The story does not follows Batman, but a group of criminals trying to shave time off their prison sentence. This proves hard as hurdles are thrown at them at almost every turn. It was made believable for a story, as hurdles are concerned, as they were between the group and not outside forces. They may have an issue between each other, or a random romance, and this all played into each of their long term plans. You just never realize it till it is happening.

I found my self noticing a common pattern appearing with almost all comic animated based medias lately, their ability to push the line of what is appropriate for the youth watching to see. I noticed the language being used, such as ‘bitch’ or ‘shit’ and thought to myself  how batman animated movies have changed from when I was younger, they still had the same impact on me mentally, as the bad guys being super tough but this was done differently. My thoughts were made even more clear as my father spoke up during a fairly intimate scene, “Kissing was never even mentioned in my youth in cartoons!” He was right. And even if there was, it was between people who were supposed to kiss, maybe a mother wishing her offspring well on his/her first day of school with a peck on the cheek, or between husband and wife wishing one or the other good luck before an interview. But this was a different scenario. Much different, and this was the first time I had really but time into thinking about it.

The animation was brilliant. As mention there was a definite humanization that has been evolving in many of the comic animated movies. The characters were very identifiable, as there was evidently time taken to show the details in each character. The most prominent of which that I focused on of course was Batman. In many animations it is hard to picture him as Bruce Wayne, as his body figure is just too far fetched in a bat suit. But in this case he was not over exaggerated, his jaw line was natural, and his voice was not silly.

The darkness that was introduced in the live action films of the Dark Knight was apparent in the animation. There was no fear to show a blown head, and The Joker holding said head. Speaking of the Joker, he was not a major character in the film, but he grew into a major plot point as one would assume if the film features his beauty of sidekick, Harley Quinn.

All in all, the film brought a different out look into the Batman franchise. As much as it was a Batman film, it hardly focused on him. It merely included him to show it was still Gotham and he was the night’s watch.

On many occassions these films find it hard to finish the plot. But in this case it left you in wonder for some parts, as they had hoped, and gave a definitive answer to some loose ends. As the film heavily revolved around that of the self titled leader of the criminal group ‘Deadshot’, with that of his daughter, you see how his story ends, and it is satisfying. Both for you, and Batman.