BATMAN VS TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

               Batman Vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Amazing? Or Disturbing ?

Batman and his allies team up with the turtles to battle Shredder, Ra's Al Ghul, and The League of Assassins.

It is becoming increasingly evident that it has become the norm for DC studios to create content for the young audience, and we understand the need to take comics adaptation back to the roots and make contents to capture the fancy of the young viewers. What is also the new trend these days, which amazingly does not yet have the desired effect is to make genre cross-overs or character cross-overs. We saw this with Batman Ninja, and here we have it with Batman Vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It would not have been such a bad idea to see the guys from Warner Bros and the ones at Nickelodeon working together to bring some of their most popular characters together for an epic cinematic outing, no! However, to do that is not just a question of character mash ups and universe cross-overs, it also has to take into account a brilliant scripting, an all encompassing conflict and a production that considers the character strengths and flaws of each of the characters from each individual universe. Now the question that begs an answer is, has Batman Vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adequately answered these questions in the positive?

  Let's begin with the plot, the plot is basic. Ra's Al Ghoul wants to rid himself of Gotham by turning it's inhabitants to their primal form, and to do that he needs Shredder, who in turn requires the Lazarus Pit that only Ra's can provide. The conflict is set, the principal actors by this conflict, are decided; anywhere Shredder goes, the Turtles go. So if Shredder lands in Gotham, the Turtles will follow suite, and definitely nothing goes down in Gotham without the involvement of Batman. So the plot does not really leave much to be expected in terms of suspense and character / conflict development. In fact, the movie basically started off with a confrontation between the Turtles and the Foot Clan in Gotham. Basic stuff to say the least.
  DC have not always had the very most creative writers, and the plot having started off pretty basic, the entire conflict element ended up being basic. There was nothing creative about it, and where the producers had the chance to allow for some creativity, with the Arkham Asylum scene, it was even more disgusting than usual. There was basically no need for Joker to do what he did, it affected his character strengths as well as those of the other inmates, and it in essence made those character feel off and not appear to act as their usual selves. The mutagenic goo or whatever needn't not have been used to actually indicate the presence of the Turtles in the movie. Their characters are strong enough to not require a validating external element to give credence to their inclusion in the script.
  Character design was poor to say the least. There was no reason why DC studios did not go with the usual character design rather than the choice of a more laid back and threadbare animation type. It really didn't hit home and didn't endear itself to fans of DC's previous animations.

Combat on the other hand is an absolute A plus achievement. Most especially the first confrontation between Shredder and Batman. The moves were good, the pacing was awesome and it reminds you that Batman also had ninja training too. That brings me once again back to the issue of mentioning the animation type adopted, even though it's ugly at best ( why adopt a retro Batman?), it's adoption at least allowed for a smooth fight simulation engine, in fact if there was anything brilliant about co-opting the TMNT into the movie, it's to borrow their smooth motion engine, and that always helps with a more sleek and smooth fight simulation. So that's another advantage.
  Another thing the movie got spot on is it's ability to deliver high end comic scenes. The Turtles have always been a hilarious bunch, and it was no surprise that they were once again hilarious in this movie. This sort of livened things up with Batman who is a sulky not-exciting type of Vigilante / hero. So technically the inclusion of the Turtles brought another fun dimension to this animated movie, making it not all doom and gloom.

In all, it's a fun movie to watch if you are just looking for something different from the norm, and if you can look past the fact that there is basically no plot depth or a character development. Again, it's a movie targeted at a very different audience type than you are usually used to. DC is making so much effort to cater for the needs of the young audience at the detriment of the more seasoned followers. Whether this will work out in the long run remains to be seen. Definitely Shazam was a hit with the target audience, we just hope same can be said of this one too.

Directed by: Jake Castorena
Produced by: Ben Jones
Written by: Marly Halpern-Graser
Based on: Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II
Starring:
Troy Baker
Darren Criss
Kyle Mooney
Baron Vaughn
Eric Bauza
Rachel Bloom
Ben Giroux
Cas Anvar
Andrew Kishino
Music by: Kevin Riepl
Production companies: Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment, Nickelodeon

FCA's AppR: 7/10