MovieChat Forums > Son of Batman (2014) Discussion > This movie is...bad :/

This movie is...bad :/

posted 10 years ago by thenekassyni
37 replies | jump to latest

First and foremost the voice acting in this movie is really bad. I kid you not. I thought All star was bad but man this is horrible. Almost all character voices are bad. The only redeeming ones would be Alfred, Talia and Rebecca (daughter of the Doc Langstrom). Batman comes in at just barely ok. There isn't much life in the voice acting and when there are they seem to be out of place. This I believe must be the problem of the director. They are not meshed altogether well at all.

Secondly this movie has tons of smart-ass, dumb, one liners and cliches. The beginning part with Talia and Batman was cringe-worthy bad and shameful. So bad I didn't even find it funny but had to turn my head and sigh a big Urgh. I warn you, there are are way too many.

Now to some more of the bad although not as bad as the first two. The animation is a hit or miss depending on the scenes. The fight scenes are the same. The fight scene with Damiam and Ubu was bad and worse when they showed the scene immediately where Nightwing comes in. The scene had Nightwing posing for a few seconds after knocking Damian down on his high horse. This was so stupid I couldn't even laugh at it. They had him catching and holding up the katana like some King Arthur scene. Utter ridiculous. Sometimes you have characters just standing there waiting, in what appears to be surprise, for their imminent death. It's stupid. The slow motion used was acceptable but really not up to standard.

Music is uninspiring to say the least. There are parts that the music just seems out of place, not matching the destruction of the scenes at all. Character designs changes from US style (I guess you can call it that) to almost Anime type. This is a bad thing but it is inconsistent.

The direction where DC is going with the New 52 is not inspiring. It really does not help when they don't select the right voice actors for the roles. I can deal with Sup and Wonder Woman getting it on but this voice acting has got to STOP!

Watch it because you love DC but be forewarn of the dangers.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] TheQuagmire 10 years ago

I agree I didn't watch the movie for its voice acting. I watched it, because it's batman. It was also a pretty good film 4/5 stars.

[–] goddamn_batman 10 years ago

It actually IS bad. OP makes a lot of valid points. If u compare this movie with the pre new 52 ones, say, Doom, Flashpoint Paradox, this movie is sub standard to say the least. And I hated how they ruined deathstroke's character. They made him a whiny little bitch who couldn't deal with rejection, they ruined his strategic abilities and he doesn't throw ONE punch against batman whereas in the comics it took batman, nightwing and robin to bring him down. A sad, SAD attempt at portraying such interesting characters.

[–] DeBolt88 10 years ago

it's true. Deathstroke was a bitch, who whined and was taken down easily. Why did they feel they needed to connect him to Ras? And why the hell was Ras a goddamn jedi, jumping twenty feet in the air and deflecting entire magazines of automatic gunfire from all around him? The entire beginning sequence was weak. Like the league wouldn't have better defences? An arrow gatling gun?
The voice acting was bland, and miscast. The characters postured like mad. Continuity sucks from other features, and why the hell did Jason Todd and Tim Drake get cut from existence?
Grumble grumble. At least the final fight was entertaining.

[–] General_Haberdashery 10 years ago

And why the hell was Ras a goddamn jedi, jumping twenty feet in the air and deflecting entire magazines of automatic gunfire from all around him? The entire beginning sequence was weak.

He was a Jedi, wasn't he?

This one is a real head-scratcher. Everyone seemed out of character.
I'm not sure what they were thinking with this one.
Deathstroke was embarrassing and Damien made me want to choke him out.

[–] joehispanico 10 years ago

I agree, this was my least favorite animated batman by far. Come on, you can't have 4 or 5 assassins firing automatic weapons 5 feet away from the intended target, and expect us to believe that he managed to block all of the bullets with a sword. Oh and they surrounded him in a half circle, so even less believable, even for a cartoon. There were many other instances like this that took away from the excitement.

Just seemed lazy over all.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] Ivan-the-terrible94 8 years ago

Worst part was a ten year old skinny kid beating the crap out of guys up to 6 times his size. l'm all for suspending disbelief but come on.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] kreachyr 10 years ago

I'm a fan. I don't understand people expecting Phillip Seymour Hoffman caliber acting in American animation. There's a reason I NEVER watch anime dubbed, I'll watch it subtitled. (Keep in mind I'm not the hugest anime geek, I know the cult classics and look out for some wild *beep* here and there) American cartoon voiceover acting is plagued by tradition, they cannot figure out that they just need to ACT, they have to overdramatize and make it cartoony. There's an annoying formula for American cartoon voice acting. The best of it you can hear on King of The Hill, Family Guy, etc., but when it comes to dramatics, it always comes off as cartoony and childish, when they should just act as though it's any other movie (like Japanese voice actors). That aside, I was stoked to see American animation not being so sissy with the violence, the action and fighting maneuvers are sweet, the bullet slinging is sweet, the resulting injuries are fatal/wounding, not some GI JOE nonsense. It's well animated and not a blatant anime ripoff. You should expect a certain type of acting in American animation, just accept that and the movie's good. Spawn is an excellent example of badass American superhero animation, but that is a diamond in the ruff

[–] DeBolt88 10 years ago

yeah I did appreciate that they didn't hide the violence.
haha now that you mention GI JOE all I can picture is Jeff killing Destro and various goons in the Community episode.

[–] jimmysmitty 10 years ago

That's the thing. There has been superb voice acting in Batman before, in Batman the Animated Series. Mark Hamill brought a very psychotic voice to the joker, so much that it is emulated by many others. Kevin Conroy defined how Batman should talk as Bruce Wayne and as the Batman without sounding like a sick man choking (Christian Bale). Both of them have provided amazing voice acting and you can feel them when watching things they have done. Honestly the cast from JLU was probably the best voice cast for most of the DC animated universes.

That said, this movie is not that great. I understand they want to make it their own and not just copy the comic dead on but it was a poor choice to take Deathstroke and make him a total wuss. Compare him to what is on the Arrow, a strategically brilliant evil bastard, and it is just sad that he was beaten by a kid.

As well, Batman was just barely even useful. He was more just there to draw in the fane.

I have been reading comics my whole life, mainly DC, and been watching the animated series, started with old 1930s Superman animated toons, my entire life. Some are ok, I have never been able to enjoy the Marvel ones as much as DC, and others are great, Under the Red Hood was pretty awesome. This one just is not that great. DKR, Under the Red Hood and even the older ones based on BTAS are just better in every way.

I hope the next one is decent, Assault on Arkham but it really depends on how well they present it. It does have Kevin Conroy for Batman (thankfully) but no Mark Hamill only Troy Baker (he isn't that bad but he isn't quite the same).

[–] B_Movie_Blues 10 years ago

So someone disagrees with you and you insult him? How adult.

[–] veras_gunn 10 years ago

I thought overall the movie was pretty good and most of the casting was good, particularly Giancarlo Esposito as Ra's Al Ghul, however Thomas Gibson, Greg from Dharma and Greg, was a huge mis-cast for Deathstroke. He tries his best, but it just doesn't work.

[–] sponix 10 years ago

they should have had the voice actor that did deathstroke in batman arkham origins, seems like they find better actors in the gaming business than anime/movie business right now.

[–] callyvan 10 years ago

I agree. I have them all, seen them all, ad this is by far the worse one, and the voice acting was phoned in, this was cheesy, not very captivating, and just overall dull.

[–] OingoBoingo91 10 years ago

I also have them all and have seen them all, plenty of times. I thought this one was very good. It's not the best, but it's far from the worst. Green Lantern: First Flight or Justice League: War is easily the worst. I liked Son of Batman a lot.

I Believe in Ben Affleck

[–] riddick_pcg 10 years ago

This had so much potential to be good. The voice acting just needs to be better. Under the Red Hood blows this away. This was not terrible but not a step in the right direction.

[–] jimmysmitty 10 years ago

It will be hard to beat Under The Red Hood mainly because that is just a better sorry much like the Dark Knight Returns is better.

Plus it had NPH who you can never go wrong with.

[–] pillsdude7 10 years ago

So since Bruce Timm was let go they have made Justice League War and now this. Both these films to me being the worst animated films DC has ever put out. I agree with a number of points the OP made along with how they made Deathstroke one of the best DC villains into a whiny little loser really. I also found the sub plot about the man bat ninja army to be silly I know it is a comic book movie but they could have come up with a better story line then that. DC needs to bring back Bruce Timm and make him producer again twice now they have made bad animated films that are not even close to the quality they had before Batman Under the Red Hood, Justice League Crisis on Two Earths, Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and 2, etc... Bruce Timm knows how to make animated films and movies and I don't understand why they ever let him go.

[–] instinct_09 10 years ago

I agree with the OP as well. I'm a fan of DC animated films and I've enjoyed a lot of them so far...this one however was disappointing to say the least. The voice acting was sub par, I did think Damian did have a good voice-actor, as did Nightwing and Talia. Jason O'mara is a hit or miss so far. He was much better in Justice League: War.

But this is not my main issue with the Movie. It's the portrayal of the characters and the dialogue. Both were horrible. How they dealt with Deathstroke was uninspiring and a caricature of the character. He is supposed to have been engineered as a super soldier with a tactical genius yet he almost always let's his emotions get the better of him in his fights with Damian and get's fooled by the dumbest and most cliche tricks in the book. "Hey look, a huge vat of unprocessed highly pressurized Lazarus liquid, let me jam my sword in the glass part of the pipes right behind Damian because he taunted me, I'm sure nothing bad will happen"...right.

Damian! He was beat by an 9 year old. Really? I don't care how much training he had, Deathstroke is years beyond him *and* he's a super soldier. It was ridiculous. In the comics they had Nightwing, Batman and Damian fight together in order to take him down! Also Nightwing was totally underused in this movie. Son of Batman...Dick is Batman`s son, even if he isn't his biological son. They could have had a great dynamic between Damian and Grayson. They underplayed him in contrast to the comics and unfortunately, he was one of the only character's that had a good voice actor.

The voice over for Slade was miscast as well in my opinion. His ties to Super Ninja Ra's Al Ghul were oh so well explained... Right, because a mercenary works only for one person, especially someone like Slade who's goal is to be the best and make the most money possible, taking the most worthy of contracts (for his standards, that is). Him being the next Al Ghul while they were grooming Damian just doesn't make sense to me, both for Ra`s and Slade`s character.

Damian going up against Ubu was ridiculous. Him beating Ubu through speed and dexterity is one thing, but knocking him a few feet away with a direct hit...seriously? Ubu is like 350 pounds of Muscles from the way they designed the character, forget suspension of disbelief in Animated movies, this is just stupid. The could have showed Damian dominating the fight with his training, not his made-up animated super strength (sigh).

Finally the one-liners were cheesy as someone else mentioned on this thread and the rest of the dialogue completely missed the mark for me. The animation was good in most of the scenes, and the new designs were alright although I didn't like the batman look, he felt too...aerodynamic. His face is too thin he feels streamlined, but again these are just my personal opinions on the aesthetics, and were not my main problems with the movie.

5/10

[–] bayisatool 10 years ago

totally agree with you on the whole Damian super strength. That was stupid even considering the context of the movie. also I was disappointed with how under used Nightwing was. I mean he really was only in the movie to serve as a plot device. 1. so they could leave the scientist in the cave and 2. so they could have someone deliver the serum to the flying bats. 3. so they could have someone capture Damian before he killed someone. If that was all he was going to do they should have not included him in the film. considering I am a Nightwing fan that is saying allot. Also the fact that Damian could swim 50 miles before batman could fly to the the same location was also really dumb. Swimming is it's own thing no other sort of training really transfers to swiming. in the end the movie was really dumb. I mean i did have some fun watching it but it was still a very flawed film.

[–] nunchux 10 years ago

I wasn't expecting much, but wow, this is a contender for the WORST DC Animated film of all time...The days of "Under the Red Hood" are long behind us...

[–] jadedplayer 10 years ago

Agreed...worst DC ...belongs on any worst film list really.

[–] WellHung 10 years ago

I agree. Movie is the worst Batman, or one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. What were they thinking...

[–] shegilson 10 years ago

i thought batman movies are more human and less super power stuff! I think the story writer was a very lazy fellow who didnt bother to put even a small bit of realism into it...and voice cast must have been selected like first come first go!

[–] Huvan 10 years ago

This is the kind of stuff that makes me say "I miss the good old days."