Review: Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014)
★★★½
Everything “Suicide Squad” should’ve been: a frenetic maelstrom of backstabbings, betrayals, and double-crosses carried, not so much by plot, but by a wide cast of colorful, compelling, and complex characters. “Batman: Assault on Arkham” effectively juggles numerous B and C list supervillains in a sprawling narrative that illustrates just how rich and deep the DC Rogues Gallery (and in particular, Batman’s) is.
Relegating Batman to a supporting character that kind of ties together our many villains’ subthreads is a stroke of structural genius that the live-action movie should’ve learned from. We already know everything about Batman, his motivations, and his abilities, so he can easily play a supporting role in a narrative that centers on villains whose perspectives we rarely witness events from.
Bringing back longtime voice actors from the DCAU for Batman and Amanda Waller is a welcomed reminder of their chemistry as resolute, even obsessive, crime-fighters operating in morally grey area but feeling nonetheless righteous because of it. Kevin Conroy in particular, and despite clocking in over two decades voicing the character(!), delivers one of his best Batman performances yet; one that makes great use of his limited screen time and plays off the villains well.
Troy Baker delivers his very best Mark Hamill impersonation, which makes for a pretty memorable Joker. While “Batman: Assault on Arkham” takes full advantage of its freedom to portray violent and sexual content, it does approach Joker with a refreshing subtlety, depicting him as perhaps more evil than many of his incarnations (he revels in physically abusing Harley) but never indulging in that aspect of the character for mere empty shock value. And while I’m not the biggest fan of the animation here, Joker is drawn to look positively vampiric, which makes for a nice (if disturbing) touch.
The main characters are also approached thoughtfully with quirky and often hilariously zany characterization as in the case of Harley (whose voice actor reprises her role from “The Batman” and does a pretty good Tara Strong impression), Deadshot (whose sympathetic-father storyline is executed much better here than in “Suicide Squad”), King Shark (one of the rare Dumb Strong villains who gets a distinct and humorous personality), Killer Frost (another welcomed reprisal from the DCAU), Black Spider (as far as I’m concerned, Gus from “Breaking Bad” should play a villain in every superhero movie), and Penguin (who gets a brief but enjoyable semi-Danny DeVito depiction). Not to mention the cameos by Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Bane, and even Scarface (!) that put a smile on my face.
It’s also nice that “Batman: Assault on Arkham” eschews its live-action counterpart’s approach to music, which was to lazily throw as many well-known pop songs at the viewer as possible so maybe they remember the joy they felt watching “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Instead, this movie turns to a lot of oddball EDM-style music to mirror the kinetic energy of its directing and characters, giving many scenes an almost music video vibe that keeps the plot moving forward at break-neck speed.
As far as I can tell, the only reason to place this movie within the canon of the Arkham video games is to just piggyback off their success. It’s not actually connected to those at all. This is a pretty sleek, stand-alone little story from the perspective of villains, their grey morality and all. “Batman: Assault on Arkham” doesn’t reach the peaks of the DC Universe Originals, but with excellent voice acting and a smart script, it manages to be a fun little installment.
