Son Of Batman Has Heart
The Son Of Batman is easily 10 times better than Justice League: War in terms of storytelling. It feels much more directed towards a single point. That is a major advantage of doing singular character stories though. So I guess it’s automatic.
The story of the movie does kind of jump around a bit though. There are moments where I thought “Why put this here?” But despite some being out of place, every moment adds more to the story. There’s never really any wasted time. Every scene has a purpose and keeps things moving.
The movie also never really stops in that regard. There are moments of calm, but they’re filled with conversations that affect later things. Son of Batman really just throws you in head first and does not stop. The movie opens with Deathstroke’s forces just ambushing and tearing through the League of Assassins. R’as Al Ghul is dead within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Which works as a really good inciting factor for the story as a whole.
It forces Damien to meet Bruce. Deathstroke takes over all of Ra’s’ ongoing plans/deals. Talia jumps into action and begins hunting down Deathstroke. No one in the movie is without purpose.
The characters and story work to tell a compelling tale of finding new purpose and realising that how you’re raised isn’t what defines you. It’s about the choices you make. Which, ultimately, Damien makes the right choice and accpets Bruce’s teachings and does not kill Deathstroke. All this comes after him struggling with the need to avenge his grandfather. Which one could say he did by following the lessons of the only man Ra’s saw fit to become the head of the League of Assassins.
While the characters and story are great, there are some not so great aspects of this movie.
Particularly the voice acting. Damien’s pompous tone comes across as very forced and disingenuous. It makes him feel monotone and lifeless at certain points. Another issue I had was that Talia and other characters’ accents were constantly dissapearing and reappearing scene to scene. Or even line to line. The quality of voice acting in this movie is rather sporadic along the spectrum of bad to good.
Also, Talia openly flirts in a rather sexual way with Batman. Which I have no issue with. The issue I have with it is that it’s then revealed that Damien was standing within earshot and she knew. So that was rather…uncomfortable.
Either way, I’m actually glad I’m doing this rewatch marathon because I forgot how fun this movie was. Alfred is also one of the best characters in this by the way. Let’s face it, he’s one of the best characters in anything Batman related.
