Mini Film Review – Batman Ninja

I have just watched Batman Ninja; and I thought it was rather poor. Directed by Junpei Mizusaki; Batman Ninja follows Batman and his allies as they are whisked into the past by Gorilla Grodd and find themselves face to face with an army of Samurai all wearing a familiar mask. The idea is an interesting one enough to grab your attention, and the animated art style is pretty funky; everything else though is both crazy and poor. It feels like as soon as the film starts, you find yourself not in a standalone movie but rather the next episode in a long running serial. There is no real introduction to anything, everything just sort of happens. The film is host to a cavalcade of famous Batman Villains including Catwoman, Two-Face, Death Stroke and more, but there is no development time for them; they are merely inserted and hang around. There is no development time for anything really; it’s not like The Wolverine where things grow at a natural pace; in this it’s all rushed. It’s like the film is embarrassed of itself and is rushing through to try and finish quickly; (although saying that; the end battle takes absolutely forever, constantly jumping in twists and turns all over the place; even to a point where I was nearly screaming at the screen wondering when this mess was finally going to finish), and whilst the film makes a joke at clichés, the big finale is filled to the brim with Japanese pop-culture clichés which makes the final battle look like a cross between Power Rangers and Tim Burton‘s Planet of the Apes. Altogether it’s an interesting idea which should reward the viewer with a one of a kind experience, but instead provides something that they would rather forget considering.