- Directed by Jay Oliva
- April 3, 2015 (WonderCon) / April 7, 2015 (Digital) / April 14, 2015 (Blu-ray and DVD)
- Partially based on the Batman: The Court of Owls written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion, aspects of Batman & Robin: Born to Kill by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, and Detective Comics: Faces of Death arcs by Tony S. Daniel
Voice Cast
- Damian Wayne/Robin-Stuart Allan
- Bruce Wayne/Batman-Jason O’Mara
- Young Bruce Wayne-Griffin Gluck
- Talon-Jeremy Sisto
- Dick Grayson/Nightwing-Sean Maher
- Alfred Pennyworth-David McCallum
- Court of Owls Lieutenant-Troy Baker
- Thomas Wayne-Kevin Conroy
- Samantha Vanaver-Grey DeLisle
- Court of Owls Grandmaster-Robin Atkin Downes
- Anton Schott/The Dollmaker-“Weird Al” Yankovic
- Jack-Trevor Devall
- Draco-Peter Onorati
- Jill-Andrea Romano
Damian Wayne deals with Batman’s no-killing rule as he starts to think his path is instead with a secret society called The Court of Owls.
Batman vs Robin opens with Robin going solo to rescue some kids while Batman berates him via commlink for going off without him. The main problems of the story start when Robin decides to be unnecessarily difficult by not directly answering questions for no other reason than to directly not answer them. Writing on the character is that of creating drama for the sake of drama over anything truly birthed of the character or situation. Toss in a blunt introduction of the true threat of the story and we are very quickly off to the races.
Damian reactions often make no sense. For someone who believes they are far more capable than others, the number of times he gets blocked by Batman/Bruce, it never appears to undermine his confidence. If that happened though the writers would have needed to deal with his pointless disposition.
I’m not exactly sure why (or how) Bruce has been keeping Damian’s existence tightly under wraps. One could draw some head canon to prevent some link in the public consciousness between Bruce having a previously unmentioned son and Batman suddenly having a new child protégé. In Damian’s first appearance in Son of Batman, Bruce offered no explanation (at least none seen) when the boy was found by he and staff in the corporate offices. Even the surprise introduction of his son to a new girlfriend comes with no explanation.
Bruce is far from an uncertain father as portrayed so we do not even have that to work with in Batman vs Robin. His guide is the ever-loyal Alfred. Yet Bruce borders on disinterested. He is more upset over his Bat orders being disregarded than concerned with his son growing up right.
Going along with some unnecessary actions meant to create unnecessary drama is a level of predictability when it comes to Samantha Vanaver character. In any Batman movie if a girlfriend of Bruce gets a name and an extended scene, she will come into play later in the story. And depending on how she acts it could be as part of the threat or as someone to be saved. You know exactly right away that the woman he’s having dinner with is going to be part of the threat.
The voice acting leaves a little something to be desired. David McCallum as Alfred is perfect. Stuart Allan as Robin is fine. Jason O’Mara as Batman is acceptable. The rest are mid or so. This period was not the strongest necessarily the strongest era of voice acting for the DC animated films. Jeremy Sisto as main villain Talon leaves the most to be desired mostly because he never sounds tough or dangerous. Voicing an animated character requires more from a voice than performing in live action.
Talon had potential for an interesting story but with a lack of build he was just the villain of the moment. In an info dump after he’s been trying to tempt Damian over to the side of the Court of Owls, we learn his story. Given the breadth of time covered it probably would have worked better spread out over two films as would the discovery of a secret society of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Gotham City that have existed since the city’s founding who are completely unknown to the population outside of an urban legend. Yet it is all wrapped up rather neatly by the credits.
The foot soldiers of this group are essentially zombies (Batman is not sure if they are truly alive) but I’m not sure how that was necessary for the story. Releasing them into the streets was the group’s eventual goal but the main goal was to take down Batman while recruiting Bruce Wayne. The somewhat zombie nature of the talons just didn’t matter. If they were anything like Talon, they were already a threat to Batman based on their numbers and skills. It was a cool idea that went nowhere.
But the biggest dud? The Dollmaker from the opening. That looked so much more disturbing and darker than the generic main story. A genuinely messed up character. Add the boys that he warped to his side that fought Damian and I wanted to see that movie. Not this one. Imagine an animated Batman film centering around a psychologically abused child kidnapping villain converting those kids into underage fighting threats believing it all an act of love and protection.
If anything this should’ve been a Batman movie with Batman in the background. It’s clear he was to on some level flesh out the character of Robin, yet he does little of that. Writers are free to make Batman a secondary character. Perhaps they don’t even know how it is possible to make the main character secondary when needed in a film. Take a look at George Miller with Mad Max: Fury Road. It’s not Max’s story. It’s the story of Furiosa and the women she’s trying to help. Max is along for the ride to help us see the story. Why not try that here? It’s more like they split the difference between this being a Batman story and being a Damian story. If they were working together, I might perceive this as acceptable.
In the end Batman vs Robin is an okay movie. Not disappointing but not great. It passes the time and you won’t feel like you wasted the 70 something minutes but it’s not movie you’ll be thinking about watching again.
