REVIEW: ‘Merry Little Batman’ Loses the Batman Lore
Tomorrow, December 8, Prime Video releases its new animated Holiday movie, Merry Little Batman. Directed by Mike Roth, and written by Morgan Evans, Jase Ricci, and Etan Cohen, the story follows the youngest Wayne, Damian Wayne (Yonas Kibreab). As Christmas approaches, Damian only wants one thing for the Holiday, to take on the Batman mantle. However, his dad, Bruce (Luke Wilson) thinks Damian is still way too young to don the mask and cape. When home invaders break into Wayne Manor on Christmas Eve, and with his father away fighting crime, Damian decides his father is wrong and head’s out to take on a group of home invaders and save Gotham as “Little Batman”.
At first glance, you would assume Merry Little Batman would be a quick, and to the point 30-minute special. You would be wrong. The movie is 90 minutes long, which is 60 minutes longer than it needed to be. The movie’s lead, Damian is a very unlikeable character. He comes off as a spoiled brat for most of the movie, ultimately getting his way even though he didn’t listen to a single thing his Dad had to say. It’s extremely frustrating. The movie also didn’t play really into the Batman lore. Sure, everyone’s favorite hero and villains were featured, but their personalities made no sense. It was as if the creative team was writing the movie hoping people would not know the history of Batman or the type of character Batman is.
Wilson voices the Caped Crusader and brings a completely different personality to the character. A character we are use to hearing have a dark and serious tone to him has a more peppy, dumbfounded tone to it. This might have worked for a different DC character like Superman or The Flash, but it didn’t work for the Dark Knight. Kibreab took on the voice role of Damian and did a nice job bringing to life the character. I think I would have liked his performance more if I hadn’t found the character so annoying. David Hornsby takes on the role of The Joker and was decent, but the character gets lost in the movie.
Merry Little Batman is not an animated movie for fans of Batman. You will spend a majority of this movie stating everything that is wrong with it, and everything wrong with the character of Batman, rather than actually engrossing yourself in it. Kids though, may enjoy it. The animation is bright and poppy, plus watching a kid their age run around playing Batman at Christmas is always a fun time. I suggest you let the kids check this one out, while the adults pick another Batman animated movie to watch. May I suggest turning on one of my personally favorites, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker or Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Grade: D