Delta_Assault (Level 11)

Well, for the most part Under the Red Hood was a very faithful adaptation of the comic arc by Judd Winick. That's in its favor. It's got most all of the major events from the comic, like the fight against the Amazo robot, and Jason launching the RPG into Black Mask's headquarters. I'd say that it even has a major improvement over the comic story, because instead of the comic explanation for Jason's rebirth, which was basically Superboy Prime punching the walls of reality (yes, reality has walls, this was a dumb, dumb story) in a fit of sexual frustration, they just go with the much more palateable and not quite as fucking retarded explanation of him getting dunked into a Lazarus Pit. This was pretty much required, you can't just tell mainstream audiences a story about some alternate dimension Superboy punching reality and magically reviving dead people, it's not going to work.

But some things just don't work in this film. First of all, while the Joker is much more brutal than in his previous portrayals in animation, with the scene of him coldbloodedly murdering the Black Masks's henchmen with a glass cup being a particular standout... John DiMaggio just doesn't have a good voice as the Joker. And it's got nothing to do with him not being Mark Hamill. Hamill's great and his voice is damn iconic, but I don't demand that the Joker has to sound like him. I mean, I thought Heath Ledger had a great Joker voice in TDK and he didn't sound much like Hamill at all. So change is fine when it works. And even in this film, Bruce Greenwood does a terrific job voicing Batman, taking over the reins from Kevin Conroy. So it's not a matter of things staying the same, you can have new people who deliver great performances.

But DiMaggio... yeah, he just didn't sound right as the Joker. He seemed to go for more of a New York accent I think, I'm no expert in regional accents but that's what it sounded like, and it just felt completely wrong. The voice became distracting and detrimental to the story-telling of the film. I didn't feel like I was watching the Joker, I just kept wondering to myself why the Joker now had this strange New York accent.

Anyway, we start off with death of Jason Todd at the beginning of the film. The Joker's got him all tied up in a warehouse and he's got a crowbar, just like in A Death in the Family. However, you never really feel the impact of the crowbar blows like you do in the comic. Here, everything seems oddly bloodless. By the end of the beating in the comic, the Joker's crowbar was literally dripping with blood and gore, but you never get that impression here. The visceral savagery of the violence is hardly felt, and the scene loses the impact that it had in the comic.

Then the entire goddamn warehouse blows up. But when Batman arrives and digs Jason's body up out of the rubble, there's barely any evidence of what's happened. His outfit is almost pristine and unbroken, and there's no blood on the body. Now, contrast this with the scene from the comic:
 
Quite a difference, right?

Now at the final scene, we get to the showdown between Jason Todd and Batman and the Joker. All three, all together in one room. Jason's gone unhinged and demands that Batman kill the Joker for what he did. But of course, Bruce can't do that, it's his one rule. So he turns around and walks away. Now, he's about 8 or 10 feet from Jason. Jason holds out the pistol and shoots Batman in the back. See, it's not enough that Batman's motionless and standing a mere 10 feet away, but he's even got his damn back turned to him! We see the bullet in slow motion, corkscrewing through the air towards Batman's exposed back. But somehow, magically... Batman, who now has telepathy, is about to sense the bullet, even though he's facing the complete opposite direction, and pivots out of the way, moving many times faster then a speeding bullet. Now... WTF? What happened? How did Batman suddenly get superspeed? Is he Neo, able to dodge bullets in bullet time? That's basically what he did right there, ain't it? He was able to detect the bullet and dodge it, even though it was fired from a short distance away and his back was turned. I just can't fathom what the hell they were thinking with this scene, it makes no fucking sense. It's not at all what Batman is in my mind, he's not supposed to be magical or possess these kinds of superpowers, it's ridiculous, and it utterly broke the film for me. I could probably overlook my other complaints, but not this, this one scene was inexcusable and ruined the whole film. It's just too over the top, too far gone.
 
3/10