Movie Review: Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Aiming to capitalize on the various crossovers between Batman and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the pages of DC comics, Warner Bros Animation and Nickelodeon present this animated feature.Â Borrowing from the various mini-series of the same name; this movie pits Batman, Robin (Damian Wayne), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and the turtles against a full compliment of Gotham villains, Splinter and The Foot Clan.

The plot of this film, while nothing novel, dovetails nicely into other Gotham crimes of the past.Â Splinter and The Foot Clan, in partnership with a mysterious partner, have come to Gotham to steal technology.Â That technology will be used in conjunction with the mutagenic ooze responsible for the turtles and such characters as Rok-Steady and BeeBop.Â I will leave it to you to find out the exact details of the plot, who the mysterious partner is, and what the criminals are hoping to achieve.Â Along the way the turtles will discover The Bat Cave and the crime fighters will have to respond to an emergency in Arkham Asylum.Â Â

While the actual plot may be adequate the writing on the movie is very inconsistent with genuine moments of cringe.Â Not even the excellent voice acting of Tara Strong and Troy Baker can save dialogue that sometimes skips right over cheesy and straight into painful territory.Â Also, while some of the voice actors are wonderful as they reprise past roles (Troy Baker as Batman/Joker, Tara Strong as Harley Quinn and Tom Kenney as Penguin), others are cliched (Kyle Mooney as Michelangelo), tired (John DiMaggio as Mr Freeze) or downright bad (Ben Giroux as Robin/Damian Wayne).Â Â I was loathe to single out Ben Giroux but I’m afraid that his voice acting and production choices, which I will go into in a moment, did not do the character justice.Â Â

Additionally, the producers and animators of the film made some rather odd decisions in both art design and character choices.Â The art design on the turtles was oddly simplistic with Donatello standing out as looking singularly odd.Â On the other hand, the animators hearkened back to the classic Batman 66 look for Penguin and it worked rather well.Â Meanwhile Robin was drawn,voice acted and written as a impotent seven year old.Â While he has moments where he is able to take part in the action, he is often the butt of jokes and a pale shadow of the fierce Robin of the comics and other animated features.

In short, this is a disappointing effort from an animation studio I usually have a lot of time for.Â I was looking forward to watching this and, quite frankly, I’m glad I got to watch a review copy instead of shelling out money for the movie itself.Â If you are interested in taking in some Batman vs Ninja Turtles action I’d encourage you to buy the comics and save your money on this video.

Writing – 2 of 5 Stars
Animation – 2 of 5 Stars
Art Design – 2 of 5 Stars
Color – 2 of 5 Stars
Voice Acting – 2 of 5 Stars

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

CAST:

Troy BakerÂ asÂ Batman,Â Joker
Eric BauzaÂ asÂ Leonardo
Darren CrissÂ asÂ Raphael
Baron VaughnÂ asÂ Donatello
Kyle MooneyÂ asÂ Michelangelo
Ben GirouxÂ asÂ Robin
Rachel BloomÂ asÂ Batgirl
Brian GeorgeÂ asÂ Alfred Pennyworth
Jim MeskimenÂ asÂ Commissioner Gordon,Â Scarecrow
Andrew KishinoÂ asÂ Shredder
Cas AnvarÂ asÂ Ra’s al Ghul
Tom KennyÂ asÂ Penguin
John DiMaggioÂ asÂ Mr. Freeze
Tara StrongÂ asÂ Harley Quinn,Â Poison Ivy
Carlos AlazraquiÂ asÂ Bane
Keith FergusonÂ asÂ Baxter Stockman,Â Two-Face

TRAILER:

Author Profile

Nemesis

Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.