Batman: Hush (2019)

I rented this movie from RedBox.

So I really love the animated hero movies that have been coming out over the last decade. Among my favorites being things like Planet Hulk and Under the Red Hood. And while Marvel is more or less dominating the live action hero movie department, DC has been really cranking out some really good films in their direct to video line up of animation. Mostly...
This is not one of those really good ones.

Aside from Freedom Fighters: The Ray, this is one of their worst ones in my opinion. At least with how it utterly falls apart in the third act and ending.

The film sets up a lot of cool things that fans would love to see, like with Batman and Catwoman and their budding relationship. And it sets up some cool ideas, but ultimately it just crashes and burns at the end.

Spoiler warning for the rest of this review!
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Having this film take place late enough in Batman's career where he's more willing to open up and starts a relationship with Catwoman is awesome. Seeing their dynamic and the sexual tension between them really flourishes and makes for some good parts in this movie. But in the end, with it almost having her killed off, playing it off like we're likely to see her die and sets it up for Batman to lose her... well I was already not liking it heading that direction anyways. With the trope of he's finally happy, then loses her and has to be sad again.
Well thankfully it doesn't kill her off, but her way of escaping the situation is so absurd and unrealistic, even for a cartoon. But then at the end, because the villain dies by her actions saving Batman who was trying to save the villain. He has to break up with her or rather she breaks up with him because of his moral code. Is actually kinda worse than them just killing her off. It made me actively angry with the direction they took that.

And now for the villain. A lot of Hush's motivations and actions really don't make much sense in the movie with why and how he does what he does. But also it's seemingly early on set up to make you think that Hush is this long lost friend of Batman from his childhood that came back. Sure, that was the obvious choice to go with but that actually works at least. But then to just have that character killed off for almost no reason, and then reveal that Hush is actually The Riddler after entering the Lazarus Pit just really threw the movie out of the window. Riddler is a fun villain on his own, but this turns him into something completely different. He might as well have been a random dude off the street. The way his plan was laid out, his way of discovering who Batman is, and all that just falls so flat. I get that the Lazarus Pit can have some very bad effects on a person's mind. Heck that's a big plot point of Under the Red Hood which I love. But here, it doesn't work at all with the execution.

The movie leading up to this is pretty good, and having some sexy scenes between the Bat and the Cat, and even some innuendos with Ivy and even Harley Quin. And a lot of the stuff they do in Metropolis involving Superman, while dumb is at least enjoyable. Though the way they beat mind controlled Superman is a bit much anyways. Also, how the hell did Poison Ivy manage to kiss Superman in the first place to be able to mind control him? Now that's something I would want to see and should have been in the movie!
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But over all, I liked the first half or 2/3s of the movie decently enough. But the last third really kills it and so much so detracts from the rest. This really is a bad film, and I hope they don't continue down this path.

Mistake Status: Caught a few on my first viewing, will probably go back to it some day like other animated hero films I love to mistake search.

Quantom X ★