Monday, January 5, 2015

Son Of Batman Tries Too Hard To Be Adult

Here's an obscure one from 2014... DC Universe's Son of Batman.
This is the story of Batman discovering he has a son. And how that son turns out to be far more of a handful than Bruce Wayne has ever really experienced. It's a yarn of overconfidence and mistakes... and understanding your limits and what the differences are between right and wrong. It's also surprisingly over-violent considering what one would assume was its target audience. However, I would never allow that to interfere with my own viewing of the film.
Yet something else would manage to pull me out... Two things to be clear. First, the casting choice for the voice of Batman was just completely wrong... Jason O'Mara was clearly not raised in America and his Irish accent slips in and out throughout the flick. This is a huge no for one of the oldest American heroes. And I can't believe the production company felt comfortable with their decision in the end. Still this manages to take a back seat to the much bigger issue that is terribly bad dialogue. Joe R. Lansdale has written some pretty fun stuff in his day, and while his script does give just enough to carry the audience from one scene to the next, this dialogue is just completely below par. It almost feels like the studio assumed this would sell to its audience no matter what and just took the first draft that rolled out of the printer.
Son of Batman is darker than it needs to be. And it's a mess on paper. But it's still not the worst interpretation of Batman I've ever seen. That being said, I can't imagine I'll ever watch it again.

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