Thanks for checking out our Under the Red Hood Review
Genre: Action
Directed by: Brandon Vietti
Staring: Bruce Greenwood, Jensen Ackles, John Di Maggio, Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Isaacs, Wade Williams
Released: July 27, 2010
THE GENERAL IDEA
Batman faces his ultimate challenge as the mysterious Red Hood takes Gotham City by firestorm. One part vigilante, one part criminal kingpin, Red Hood begins cleaning up Gotham with the efficiency of Batman, but without following the same ethical code. Killing is an option. And when the Joker falls in the balance between the two, hard truths are revealed and old wounds are reopened.
THE GOOD
This explores an amazing storyline in the Batman comic books that I never thought I would see in film. Animation was the best way to go about this, but don’t let that fool you. This is not a kids cartoon; it is a very mature storyline.
The story is deep and has a LOT of history in the comics, but the film does an amazing job of illustrating this history appropriately so you are not lost. We get to see the original Robin, we see him grown up as Nightwing. We see the second Robin Jason Todd being brutally beaten and killed by the Joker. Its graphic.
The voice acting on this is amazing. Greenwood is the voice of Batman. And we are introduced to the super chatty and energetic first Robin, his evolution into a grown up Nightwing is perfectly given with Neil Patrick Harris behind his voice. And Di Maggio’s Joker is delicious too. I didn’t think I would ever say it, but I liked it better than Mark Hammil’s Joker.
But doing the voices is only half the job. Its the dialogue that lands it home. You FEEL how important these relationships are, and you sense the history from one character to another. Even the interactions between Batman and Joker are excelent as every word illustrates just where they stand with each other.
But the real star is the new menace Red Hood. Not the first villain to use the name and guise, and that history is explained as well. But Jensen Ackles has a knack for putting PAIN to his voice. And the Red hood is a great Villain. This is what solidifies the story for me. A badguy is fine, but a badguy you empathize with and struggle to see his way with is amazing and that happens here.
THE BAD
Sometimes in the voice actors performances you hear a hint or phrase that pulls you out. DiMaggio’s Joker is Amazing but briefly I hear Bender from Futurama in there. And Neil Patrick Harris does an amazing Grayson/Nightwing, but its still a trademarked NPH in there. This distracted me a few times during the film and while a very minor thing, it did pull me out of the illusion if only very briefly.
OVERALL
The film deals with a LOT of history and character development and still has time for action and excitement with a LARGE cast of players in its run time, and does it so extremely well. There were some changes from the comic book version, but very few and none that ruin the transition. It is fairly faithful.
There are some storylines that while amazing in the books are only amazing because they delve so deep into the character’s history. This makes them very hard to present in a film because you have to share all that history and still keep in the story. I look forward to other feature presentations like this that handle depth as well as this one did.
I give Under the Red Hood a 9.5 out of 10
BONUS FEATURE
On a side note, the BluRay came with a short film of Jonah Hex.
The story kind of picks up midstream as we see a man traveling through a western town fall victim to a very sexy tavern harlot. Then Jonah Hex – a bounty hunter comes looking for the man and finds himself dealing with the seductress instead.
Its a good little story and fun to see. The animation style was good for the most part, but the “glow” effect used to imply the women had makeup on was distracting.
It was a light story that doesn’t touch at all into the supernatural side of Hex, but worth the bonus feature. I dont know that I would have wanted a whole film of that. But it was a cool little side story.
