Batman: Assault on Arkham is the latest DC animated film to hit shelves. Following the events of the video game Batman: Arkham Origins, the Suicide Squad takes center stage as they are ordered to break into Arkham Asylum to retrieve a flash drive that is valuable to Amanda Waller and her “recruiting” methods. Even though I’ve never played Batman: Arkham Origins, I didn’t have any problems understanding what was going on.
The title is deceiving because Batman’s appearances are kept to a minimum and, when he does show up, it’s not for long periods of time. The story mainly focuses on the Suicide Squad and their mission to get the flash drive for Amanda Waller.
The animation is done in the anime style and looks great on screen. Amanda Waller returns to her classic look and the rest of the characters are drawn pretty awesomely. I was happy to see that Kevin Conroy reprises his role as Batman and Neal McDonough joins the ranks as Deadshot.
The basic elements of the movie can be broken down thusly:
- Amanda Waller sends agents after the Riddler.
- Batman intercepts the Riddler.
- Amanda Waller recruits Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Killer Frost, Spider, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark into the Suicide Squad to break into Arkham.
- One sex scene with Harley and Deadshot followed by three partial frontals later, we get to the real plot point.
- Batman wins.
Sprinkle in some graphic blood splatters and head explosions and you have yourself Batman: Assault on Arkham. Thankfully, the violence and bloodshed in this film were nowhere near the amount shown in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (we did have the severed head thing going on though).
Another downside to this movie is that the chaos can be a little hard to follow. You really have to pay attention while watching or you will miss the sharp left turns it takes at various stages.
Something that really got under my skin while watching this “PG-13” movie was Harley Quinn and Killer Frost being topless at various parts of the movie and the sex scene between Harley and Deadshot. I’m not sure what the MPAA was thinking when they rated this film, but I think it needs a revisit.
On a side note, I found myself drawn to Deadshot as a character because of the affection he showed towards the picture of his daughter and how he led the team. I could see myself reading more about him in the future.
When you break it down, the art was beautiful to watch, even if all of the head-splattering-blood was a bit much for my tastes and certain parts of this film were stereotypical in terms of how the females were treated. They had a few fun “what the heck just happened?” moments that I enjoyed being surprised by, but I’m not sure if that alone is going to get me to watch this again anytime soon.
Batman: Assault on Arkham is available on DVD and Blu-ray for $16.99 on Amazon. It’s rated PG-13, but due to the graphic and sexual content, I wouldn’t show this to anyone under 17 years old. If you’d rather rent it than buy it, you can check it out on Amazon Instant Video for $4.99.
Disclaimer: GeekMom received a review sample.
