Batman doesn't even know that Damien exists until Talia presents him to Bruce at age 10. Due to circumstances that happened in the opening sequences of the movie, Talia now believes Damien should go live with his father and continue his training with him.
The remainder of the movie consists of Bruce/Batman attempting to be a father to an extremely intelligent, highly skilled, 10 year old killer. Damien isn't all bad, he was just brought up this way and Bruce tries to correct the twisted nature of his son.
The Good - David McCallum (Ducky from NCIS) is great as the voice of Alfred Pennyworth. I would love to see him in that role in a live action movie. Nightwing also appears and adds a lot during his limited screen time. A full length Nightwing animated movie would be sweet. He is a truly outstanding and undervalued character in the DC Universe. His relationship to Damien is also a very important one, especially in the comics that this movie was based on. Overall the animation is wonderful. The backgrounds look great, and the League of Assassins are rendered nicely. The helicopters are drawn amazingly well, and the Batmobile is cool as well. The colors are done well. There is a lot of blood in this movie, a surprising amount of blood. Damien has a true talent for making people bleed, which is a bit of a departure for these movies.
The Head Scratcher - Joseph Lansdale and James Robinson were involved in the writing, and this is a bit of a head scratcher for me. Lansdale has been a favorite author of mine for 20 years. He writes many southern fried weird novels that cross somewhere between Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino. As an example, he penned the short story that later became the cult classic movie Bubba Ho-Tep. He is great. James Robinson is a tremendous comic book writer, one of the top writers over the last 20 years. The story is based on comics written by Grant Morrison, well known for his over the top wild and mind blowing storytelling. The slightly head scratching part to me is that with this ridiculous amount of creative talent involved, the script should be brain meltingly good, but it isn't. It's not bad, but it could have been much much better. Slightly disappointing in this regard.
The Bad - Talia admitting to Bats that she drugged him and raped him to get pregnant is pretty harsh for a cartoon movie. Then she says to him, "it wasn't all bad, was it?", as she attempts to seduce him once again. That is some pretty twisted stuff, and if the roles were reversed in that scene people would be having a heart attack over it. What makes that scene even more disturbing is that during that exchange, Damien is standing in the shadows in the corner of the room watching, and Talia knows he is there. WTF is up with these weirdos?
Another thing that didn't work for me was during a huge scene near the end, Damien is engaged in one on one combat with Deathstroke the Terminator. You know, Deathstroke, one of the deadliest and most vicious killers in the world? Anyway, when Damien is dueling with Deathstroke, Batman is sitting a few rooms over next to the Lazarus Pit with Talia. Making out with her! Yes, their 10 year old son is in mortal combat with a legendary killer, but Batman would rather get his freak on than go help out. Batman would not do that. Just doesn't mesh with the character of the character. Not well done.
A couple other problems for me. Why is Ra's Al Ghul depicted as a samurai or something? Strange.
Voice acting was good in some areas but Batman had no emotion ever. No matter what was happening he maintained the stoic "I am Batman" monotone. I know he is a badass but it is possible to have a slight variance in his speaking tone from time to time.
Also, Deathstroke is one of my favorite DC characters, but why is he in this movie? I just didn't get that at all. Seems he was there cuz he looks cool and people like him, but he didn't really have a need to be there. Maybe it's just me.
Conclusion - I enjoyed Son of Batman.There are some problems with the story and some odd stuff happens that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but still it was pretty good. Pretty good, but should have been better. It never moved me emotionally like a top shelf movie does (ie Captain America). Still worth a watch for dedicated Batman fans.
I give Son of Batman a 3.5 out of 5 rating. Stay creepy my friends.
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