SON OF BATMAN
(2014, Blu-ray released May 06, 2014 – MSRP $24.98)
THE FILM:
- “Hidden atop a secret mountain stronghold lies the League of Shadows and its fearless leader, Ra’s al Ghul. Together with his equally dangerous daughter Talia, he oversees a trained army of assassins with plans for global domination. But an uprising from within the league now threatens to shift the balance of power and sends Talia and her young son, Damian, fleeing to Gotham City. With assassins on their trail, Talia seeks the protection of Batman, who, unbeknownst to him, is the boy’s father. With his son in tow, Batman wages war against the villain Deathstroke and the League of Shadows, all while teaching his headstrong boy that one can’t fight crime by becoming a criminal. With help from Gotham’s finest, including Commissioner Gordon and Nightwing, Batman will soon discover that his son and most trusted ally are one and the same.“
REVIEW:
That’s right, Batman has a 10-year old son. His name is Damian and he likes to play with swords. His mother is a member of the League of Assassins, you see, and raised the boy right. Batman slaps a mask on him, takes him under his wing and wages war against the Gotham City underworld, as any good father would do.
This animated film is as silly in content as any superhero flick, but most certainly not for kids. There’s more bloodletting here than in Nolan’s entire Dark Knight film trilogy. Character development is limited and scenes seem to buckle under the rushed runtime. Such is the danger of tight-budget animated feature production. Fans of the DCU will have fun with this. Others might find it too paper thin to swallow.
As usual with these DCU animated features, the source that the Blu-ray transfer is created from appears to have limitations. There’s a ton of colour banding here and even some macroblocking. It won’t get in the way of your enjoyment of the colourful, contrast-y image if you’re not overly sensitive to such things but video-philes have been warned. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is fairly flat but impressively dynamic.
DC and Warner have returned to short changing their bonus features, leaving out any sort of director commentary this time. What they provide is a handful of featurettes that are entertaining enough and the usual assortment of old Batman cartoons in SD.
SCREENSHOTS:
Click to enlarge
(Note: All screenshots are created in the lossy jpg format which may cause additional compression artifacts and noise in the image.)
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Strange Blood Ties: Damian Wayne
- The Fang, and the Demon Head: The League of Assassins
- Designing the Characters with Phil Bourassa
- A Sneak Peek at the next DCU Original Movie Batman: Assault on Arkham
- Masterpiece: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns Sneak Peek
- Four “From the DC Comics Vault” Bonus Cartoons:
- Batman Beyond: “Out of the Past”
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: “The Knights of Tomorrow!”
- Batman: The Animated Series: “Showdown”
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: “Sidekicks Assemble!”
