DC Animated Superhero Retrospective Series - Batman: Under The Red Hood (2010)

Written In January 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

At a manor in Sarajevo, Ra’s al Ghul ruefully realizes his mistake in allying himself with the Joker, while his assistant informs him that the Joker has captured Jason Todd, the second Robin. In a warehouse, the Joker brutally beats Jason with a crowbar while Batman races there. Joker then leaves the warehouse and traps a half-dead Jason inside. Although Jason attempts to escape, a planted explosive destroys the building before Batman can rescue Jason.

Five years later in Gotham City, a masked criminal called the Red Hood takes command of the drug trade, assuring eight prominent drug lords protection from Batman and crime boss Black Mask and more money in return. Elsewhere, Batman intercepts a stolen truck carrying Amazo, anandroid weapon, and Nightwing arrives to help take it down. The drivers reveal they were under Red Hood’s orders before being assassinated by their employer. Batman gives chase and eventually ends up at the chemical plant that created the Joker, who was the original Red Hood. The current Red Hood confronts Batman and comments, before escaping, that it is the site of Batman’s first great failure.

Regrouping, Batman and Nightwing check on the Red Hood’s movements; since the Red Hood had appeared, drug trafficking is high, but crime as a whole is down in Gotham. Afterward, they interrogate the Joker at Arkham Asylum about Red Hood; the clown merely taunts them with Jason’s death and denies involvement. Angered over his stolen android, Black Mask puts out a hit on Red Hood, who promptly hijacks another weapon shipment, with Batman and Nightwing interrupting. During a chase over the city rooftops, Red Hood displays physical skills similar to Batman and Nightwing’s. Red Hood then eludes them at a train station, where a planted bomb explodes and injures Nightwing’s leg. Back at the Batcave, Batman sends Nightwing home and then discovers Red Hood knows his secret identity.

Batman also recalls that Jason once used such escape maneuvers, and that he became violent and impulsive as he grew older. Meanwhile, Red Hood is attacked by the Fearsome Hand of Four, a group of four assassins working for Black Mask. He stalls them to lure Batman out, and together they incapacitate three while Red Hood kills one. When Batman confronts him about it, Red Hood insists that he is doing what the Dark Knight is unwilling to do: killing criminals who step out of line. Batman offers to help Red Hood, who refuses and leaves. Batman later uses a blood sample from the battle to confirm that Red Hood is in fact Jason Todd, back from the dead. Meanwhile, Red Hood fires a rocket-propelled grenade into Black Mask’s office, nearly killing the crime lord. Pushed to his breaking point, Black Mask cuts a deal with the Joker: He will be released from Arkham in exchange for killing Red Hood.

Bruce discovers the body in Jason’s coffin is a fake. Enraged, he visits Ra’s al Ghul for the truth. Ra’s reveals that five years previous he commissioned the Joker to distract the Dynamic Duo during their investigation of one of Ra’s' terrorist plots, but the clown kidnapped and murdered Jason, which Ra’s saw as unnecessary. To make amends, Ra’s chose not to make war with Batman anymore, and attempted to revive Jason in theLazarus Pit, which yielded disastrous results: Jason was driven over the edge by the chemicals in the pit, and fled. Meanwhile, the Joker abducts Black Mask and his associates and tries to burn them alive in a bid for Red Hood’s attention. Red Hood reveals his plan the whole time was to intimidate Black Mask into freeing the Joker so he could arrange a meeting. Batman intervenes, saving Black Mask and his underlings, but Red Hood gets away with a captured Joker in tow.

Red Hood takes the Joker to an abandoned apartment and savagely beats him with a crowbar the same way he was beaten five years ago. He then meets Batman in Crime Alley, where they first met, and they get into a fight that culminates with Jason holding Batman at gunpoint and demanding to know why he has not killed the Joker. Batman says that although he’s thought every day about killing the Joker, he can’t bring himself to do it — he knows if he starts killing, he’ll never stop. Jason gives Batman a gun and an ultimatum: Either Jason will shoot the Joker, or Batman has to shoot Jason to stop him. Batman silently declines participation, drops the gun, and walks away. Angry and hurt, Jason shoots his gun at the back of his former mentor, but Batman dodges the bullet. Batman then disables Jason’s gun with a batarang. Jason activates a bomb, and slumps to the ground, defeated.

Batman tries to defuse the bomb, but the Joker stands in the way, determined to see that they all die together. Batman knocks the Joker aside to try and save Jason as the explosive goes off. When the smoke clears, the Joker and Batman are revealed to have survived, but Jason is nowhere to be found. In the aftermath of the incident, a news report reveals that the Joker was returned to Arkham and Black Mask is back on the streets after paying a million dollars bail. At the Batcave, Alfred Pennyworth asks Batman if he should take down the memorial holding Jason’s old Robin costume. Batman refuses, saying nothing has changed. The film ends with a flashback of Jason’s first day as Robin, in which the boy declares that it is the best day of his life.

This movie broke my heart. When Jason stood in front of the Batmobile, in the Robin costume, you could see just how PROUD he was! And then they made it even worse with this line…

Literally My Reaction:

 

If a freaking direct to video animated movie about BATMAN can create that level of emotion in you, it shouldn’t have been direct to video! There are some bits of acting here that I don’t think I’ve seen in some major movies, animated or live action. Time for some pros and cons!

PROS:

• Jensen Ackles is fantastic as the titular Red Hood, young, weary, arrogant, hotheaded, and at some points kind of noble. I really love how emotional he gets in one scene where he criticizes Batman for having never killed the Joker, especially when Bruce Greenwood and him were likely never in the studio together.
• Bruce Greenwod is a wonderful Batman, you can really hear the heartbreak and feelings of failure in his voice when he finds Jason’s body. And when he argues with Alfred over whether or not Jason’s situation was in fact, his fault, you FEEL his anger. He knows that he screwed up, and he won’t let it go. We even get some nice moments of levity at the end where he’s joking with Alfred about why Jason’s is taking so long. He’s just really great! I’m glad he got to even better work in Young Justice!
• Wade Williams as Black Mask! I already loved this guy from his days on Prison Break, but God almighty was this guy hilarious! I especially loved how over the top angry he was! ESPECIALLY the bit where he was punching his thugs in the face because he was so damn pissed off! I also the few moments where he wasn’t being funny though, where he’s actually considering the situation. Like the moment where he stops to wonder, maybe he isn’t actually the Hood’s target, but a casualty of his war with someone else.
• Jason Issacs as Ra’s Al Ghul, I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of this guy as a Batman villain. I kind of think that for the same reason I think Dracula was a random choice to have him go head to head with in The Batman. You have this ancient war lord who has lived on 4 centuries due to a mystical fountain of youth called the Lazarus Pit. And then you have Batman, a billionaire vigilante detective who fights to protect Gotham City. This guy is WAY out of Batman’s league! He’s not a threat to Batman, he’s a Justice League villain! But, all that being said, Jason does a pretty good job here. He sounds genuinely upset that he wound getting Batman’s ward killed for no damn reason at all. And he sounds honestly regretful that he underestimated that Joker. And I buy that he honestly wanted to help Jason.
• John DiMaggio’s Joker! I love this guy! He’s such a sick bastard! You see him laughing his head off about beating a teenager to death with a crowbar! And simultaneously awful and wonderful about this performance is he manages to makes something so terrible so entertaining! I also love how he sort of tells the same joke twice, but it really doesn’t work either time, it makes me think about how this Joker was apparently once an awful comedian, in this version at least. And what I also adore, are some of this Joker’s expressions. Like the bit where he challenges Batman to go ahead and kill him, saying “Are you gonna do it this time? Are you just gonna put in another body cast for six months?” Or when he realizes that Jason is the Red Hood and he’s just like “OH MY FUCKING GOD! BEST FUCKING PLOT TWIST EVER! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” He also does a good job with the love of making Batman angry. Like the bit where he’s in prison and he’s talking about killing Jason, he knows he’s gonna piss Batman off, and he’s looking forward to it. Or the scene where Batman throws a batarang at Jason and causes his gun to explode, and he praises him, proclaiming “YOU ROOTIN’ TOOTIN’ EAGLE EYED GOTH LOVING MARKSMAN! YOU FOUND A WAY TO WIN! AND EVERYONE STILL LOSES!!!!” He’s just such a delightfully sick fuck!
• Vincent Martella as Robin is fantastic! He does great work throughout the flashbacks, but his first scene where the Joker is beating the crap out of him, he conveys so much so well through just some grunting, groaning, murmuring and stammering. In fact that entire scene was perfect on the part of both the actors and the animators. Jason tries to stand up and makes it just two steps when he’s trying to get out, and then he falls over, so he crawls over to the door and tries hard to get it to work. His face is determined, then frustrated. He thinks he’s just screwed up and he’s never gonna hear the end of it from Batman, but then he sees the bomb counting down from 9 seconds on the clock. He looks at in horror then lowers his eyes in resignation. He knows he’ll die, and he’s made peace with that knowing that he’s done good work and that even if he doesn’t make it, Batman will avenge him. All of that is conveyed through some sighing from an actor and a handful of hard working animators who put their soul into this movie.
• Neil Patrick Harris as Nightwing! Like I said last time with Justice League: New Frontier, perfect casting is perfect! I couldn’t say I could see him returning to the role, but I’m glad he got to do his great work here. He comes off as someone who’s used to working with Bruce, and while he knows he gets pretty rough with crooks, he doesn’t come like he’d be doing that himself if he were in his place. And of course, by obligation, he is quite the snarky bastard.
• This movie has such a great sense of humor! Not just with Black Mask and the Joker, there’s even some humor in the flashbacks. There’s a scene where Batman walks down an alley and finds the Batmobile with it’s wheels removed. He calls this unbelievable but he doesn’t even sound angry, he sounds genuinely impressed someone could fuck up his car while he was out. He’s just like
  
• The score is wonderful.
• The animation is awesome.
• The story is wonderful.

CONS:

• Ra’s Al Ghul is 400+ year old war lord and the Black Mask is a hardened criminal mastermind, WHY THE FUCK WOULD EITHER OF YOU HIRE THE JOKER?!?!?!?! YOU KNOW HE’S NOT GOING TO DO WHAT YOU WANT! HE’S JUST GOING TO FUCK YOUR SHIT UP!!!!!
• It feels like they tried to write Jason as a bad apple from the start, which really bugs me, because the entire reason Bruce took him in is because he was impressed that he could even manage to steal from him. And all of his interactions with Bruce where he’s acting rebellious were nothing you wouldn’t see any other teen do. Jason may have been a hothead, but he was a good kid. He wasn’t a bad seed.
• This wasn’t isn’t for something that is in the movie, so much as it is for something that isn’t in it. I would’ve liked to see Dick have a flashback about Jason. It wouldn’t have been difficult for a couple scenes with them. One with Jason as Robin and one with him as Red Hood. I can’t think of any time where they’ve been portrayed as being on good terms and that really bugs me. I get they’d be on bad terms now, but wouldn’t they be good together beforehand?

All in all, I can’t say this is the best DC animated movie or the best Batman movie, but it is definitely a grand one and I can’t help but love it! Batman: Under The Red Hood gets an 8.5 out of 10!