This was a very interesting DCAMU movie in that it was mostly a mixed bag, leaning slightly towards the positive side. There is a mix of both really well done writing and honestly pretty poor writing too.

The start somewhat reminded me of Under the Red Hood, in that both films start off with a shock that shakes up what you think the movie would be going in (at least if you aren’t familiar with the comics). What made this so strong in Red Hood is that that opening added a deeper side to Bruce Wayne - a side of guilt already added onto the guilt he had over the loss of his parents.

The main problem with Batman: Bad Blood is that it’s opening, okay I’ll just say it, twist, doesn’t do anything to shake up the characters in a meaningful or emotionally impactful way. Yeah, it changes the dynamic of the story, but that just leads into my other problem.

The story is not very well written at all. The ensemble group of Nightwing, Damian, Batwoman, and Batwing are cool, but their characters were mostly just surface level stuff that lacked any sort of character depth that should have been there after the movie’s opening. Also, I am completely unfamiliar with the comic version of Batwing, but I really only found him to be derivative of Cyborg here.

The villains were also completely wasted, and once their motivations are revealed, it doesn’t make the opening twist any better. The villain group is cool and reminded me of the character designs from Mortal Kombat (I know I need to stop bringing up that game series in my reviews, but I’m currently obsessed lol), but aside from that they were really just there to be beaten up by the Bat family.

The reason I give it a positive review though, is that despite all of its shortcomings, and there are a lot, the movie still kept me invested solely because of the dynamic of the Bat family. The third act was also surprisingly pretty great despite not a great setup and the payoffs were really well done and very satisfying. This left me feeling overall positive about the film.

I see a lot of potential in these new Bat family characters going forward and am looking forward to watching the rest of the DCAMU. My hot take is that so far Damian Wayne is my favorite of the bunch. Also the way they end his arc built up from the previous two Batman movies (Son of Batman; Batman vs. Robin) with the whole grapple thing was, at least I think, unintentionally hilarious, particularly the end of that scene.

This was a very, very flawed written story, but I can’t lie and say I didn’t have a decent enough time with it.