So this popped up outta nowhere. An animated movie with Batman and the Turtles? Yes please! Now can we have the same for Batman vs. The Predator? Anyway so this is apparently based on a short comicbook series of the same name, but with a little bit of research they are not entirely the same plot-wise.
In short, Shredder has come to Gotham to work with Ra's al Ghul. Shredder is helping Ra's build a machine that will throw Gotham into chaos by infecting all citizens with a mutagen. Said mutagen is also combined with a powerful venom of the Joker's creation. In exchange for this Ra's will give Shredder the secrets of the Lazarus Pit. The Turtles follow Shredder to Gotham to find out what he's up to and who he working with; whilst Batman, Batgirl and Robin think the Turtles are working for Shredder. Much fighting ensues before they all team up to fight for the same noble cause.
The Visuals: As with any comicbook creation there are many variations of designs and styles. The same can be said for various animations too. In this movie there seems to be a cross-over going on. Clearly they have taken elements from various Batman and Turtle incarnations and thrown them together to create their own unique look. Essentially so this movie stands on its own and doesn't assign itself to any specific era of the characters. That's fine, but some of it I didn't really like to be honest. I'm no connoisseur on either entity but for me the whole WB hand-drawn style isn't that visually appealing. The whole movie looked like a slightly better than average weekday cartoon. I also didn't really like the look of the Turtles who looked more like green rock people than anything. Didn't like the Batmobile either, too many wheels.
It was strange how some sequences did look really decent whilst others looked kinda cheap. The inclusion of obvious CGI segments didn't help, especially with this specific WB hand-drawn style. For example, all the sequences where Shredder fights Batman looked really good, really manga-ish and quite mature/gritty. Then many of the sequences where Batgirl and Robin appear, or where the Turtles are in clear view, all look kinda childish. Some of the Batman villains looked good, some looked too weekday cartoonish. In fact much of the final showdown all looked a bit weekday cartoonish. I get this is aimed at a wide spectrum of fans but I can't help but feel a more mature approach would have elevated this immensely.
The Villains: Yes they all show up. Pretty much every well known Batman villain makes an appearance for one Arkham set sequence, except for the Riddler. This is where the Joker uses his venom (combined with the mutagen) on all the baddies to mutate them into animals. Now whilst I kinda liked this idea, it again felt a bit 'weekday cartoonish' for me (Saturday morning cartoon silliness). You see, the Turtles turned into humanoid turtles because they were turtles beforehand, so why would all these villains turn into specific humanoid animals?
The fact they also turn into humanoid animals which conveniently resembles their individual superpower or characteristics was also kinda dumb. Mr. Freeze turns into a humanoid polar bear...because of course. Scarecrow turns into a humanoid crow...because crows sit on scarecrows? Joker turns into a Cobra because he's a slippery poisonous character (but being a large snake also seemed more of a handicap to me). Had the Penguin been in this scene you can guess what he would have turned into. The others turned into random mammals like a dog, wolf, big cat etc...I just think this would have played out better if they had merely mutated into monstrous versions of themselves (Batman mutates into a huge bat...ugh!).
Target Audience: I'm not too sure about this to be honest. There seems to be a clash of ideas going on as overall the entire movie is definitely aimed more at the younger crowd, but there is still some pretty hardcore action here. Simply put there is blood, not lots of blood, but there are scenes of bad guys getting their faces punched in with teeth flying and blood splattering. Bad guys clearly get killed either on or off-screen with blood-curdling screams and there is an actual decapitation to boot! The Turtles even curse a tad here and there! Although not really harshly.
I think one of the highlights of this animation is actually the splatterings of humour throughout. Again like the violence it's not crazy in your face but there is definitely a nice acceptable current of goofy gags and visual tomfoolery. The bulk of which, I might add, is mainly from Michaelangelo. Yep he's a pizza lovin' dude with a tubular attitude even in face of death, kinda. There is a crap-tonne of exposition in this movie but luckily Mikey is always there to lighten things up and even point out obvious flaws in the plot and characters in a meta-type of way. They clearly use Mikey as the viewers (us) perspective on everything. He asks the questions you find yourself asking. He mocks the things you will notice and probably chuckle at. It's all quite cleverly done really, gives this a whole new angle. One regular joke being Mikey pointing out the blimps in the Gotham night sky and his constant questions about what they're for.
Overall I found myself flip-flopping over whether I rated this or not. I do love the idea of the cross-over and I genuinely think it could work on the big screen, but once again I have to sway towards a more mature rating for it to work (in my humble opinion).
So enjoyable but it has its ups and downs. The Turtles seem short-changed in my view, they seem to be useless at fighting anyone with skill. Batman seems to be invincible and really should have lost against Shredder. Whereas all the other villains felt like aimless cameos which had to be here because its Batman. It is good don't get me wrong, its solid fun for sure, but I really think it could have been better. Just a bit more polish with the animation and less Saturday morning crap. Can't help but get the feeling the real highlight here is simply Batman vs Shredder, the rest not quite up to par.
6.5/10
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