Batman Ninja (2018)
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Batman Ninja Movie Review
Batman Ninja is a 2018 Japanese animated superhero film produced by Warner Bros. It’s a very flawed and simplistic, but artistically impressive flick.
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“Isn’t a gorilla eating a banana a little cliche?
Says the cat burglar wearing a cat costume“
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It’s exactly about what its title suggests. Batman time travels to Feudal Japan and there he must stop Joker and various other villains of Batman lore. Although crazy, I still really liked this concept as the mix of Batman and anime is intriguing to me and it ultimately worked so well as the two concepts blend surprisingly smoothly together.
However, after that initial adjustment and coolness factor, the movie quickly succumbs into generic storytelling and the movie never really overcame its concept meaning that it’s just a concept come alive with no genuine story arc or progressive plotting. That bothered me so much as did all the excessive action.
Batman is great. I absolutely loved his costume with more blue color in his cape which suited him so well and it was so cool. His use of gadgets also appeared to me as did the overall similarities to ‘Batman Arkham Asylum’ which remains one of the best pieces of Batman entertainment ever made.
Joker is also great and fitted this time period so well. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are pretty good too. But Gorilla Grodd is ridiculous and Robin is forgettable as are the other villains. The characterization is solid for the major characters, but weak for the others. At least it’s truthful to the comics which I appreciated.
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Batman Ninja looks impressive. There is no denying its sheer spectacle of visual finesse and it’s the only truly big reason to see this flick in my opinion. The mix of western characters and anime styling worked splendidly and the character designs, weapons and gadgets all look great. But the most impressive thing about it is that it looks like a concept art brought to life and that I simply ate up. It looks gorgeous and thankfully 2D. It’s even artistic in a way. The score is also pretty good and the action is fun, but the pacing and terrible direction left me wanting for more.
Batman Ninja has quite weak plotting and terrible direction. It relies so much on action and it never becomes anything deeper than its initial concept on paper. But it’s fun in well executed action scenes, the characters are solid, the score is cool and it’s worth seeing for its animation alone which is absolutely impressive in its artistry, cool designs and anime style. It’s literally a concept art brought to life which was intriguing to witness.
