Son of Batman [Blu-Ray]

Director: Ethan Spaulding

Cast: Jason O’Mara, Stuart Allan, Thomas Gibson (VOICES)

Release Date: Own it on Blu-Ray Combo Pack & Digital HD May 6, 2014

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 9/10

Plot Summary:

Batman learns he has a violent, unruly pre-teen son, secretly raised by the terrorist group the League of Assassins.

‘Son of Batman’ tells the tale of Damian Wayne, the secret child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul who was secretly conceived without Bruce’s knowledge. After training his whole life with Ra’s al Ghul and Talia to take over the empire, Ra’s is taken down permanently in a brutal full out attack on his headquarters by Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke. Following the attack, Talia is forced to take Damian to Gotham and insist that Bruce take him in for Damian’s own protection. Not even having been aware of his son’s existence until now, he reluctantly agrees and tries to teach the boy his own ways of doing things after having so long being taught by the ever extreme Ra’s. Disregarding Batman’s insistence that he not pursue Slade, one thing leads to another and soon it will take Batman, Damian and even some help from Nightwing and Gordon for them to have any chance of surviving the inevitable confrontation with Deathstroke.

As many of you might already be aware, I’ve been a huge fan of the DC Animated Movie’s since their beginning with ‘Superman Doomsday’ so many years back and I own a large number of them on Blu-Ray with the intention to purchase the ones I don’t have at some point as well. Fellow fans of the DC Animated Movie’s can rest assured, because ‘Son of Batman’ is fantastic and definitely holds its own as one of the better DC Animated Feature’s. The voices are all well selected (far better than a number of the DC animated titles, though I usually don’t take much issue with their selections either) and the action is top notch. On top of the nonstop action and impressive fight sequences, ‘Son of Batman’ also gets surprisingly bloody. The use of Deathstroke as the lead villain was a huge treat to see as I’ve recently been becoming a pretty big fan of the character.

In short, Batman, Deathstroke and general DC Animated fans in general will all definitely not want to miss out on ‘Son of Batman.’ I would definitely feel comfortable picking this one up as a blind buy myself and even if you don’t want to go that route, I would highly recommend at least renting it on disc or Digital HD because I think you will be pretty thrilled you decided to do so. I can’t imagine many Batman or DC fans not having a great time with this one.

VIDEO:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘Son of Batman’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The colors are vibrant, perfectly placed and never bleeding out in any way. Everything looks pretty great regarding the video aside from some banding elements that become visible in a number of moments. Even with that taken into account, overall this is a pretty good looking high definition video presentation and should likely have the fellow DC fans quite pleased for the most part.

AUDIO:

The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, which as per usual with the DC Animated Movie’s is flooded with activity throughout and sounds absolutely fantastic. The large amount of bloody action present in ‘Son of Batman’ provides the perfect opportunity to have a number of noises and effects flying throughout the five channels during the majority of the film’s runtime, while never causing any of the dialogue to be inaudible at any time. Everything from the voices to the sound effects sounds top notch and discrete; certain to leave most of you fellow audiophiles quite thrilled with this lossless multichannel soundtrack.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘Son of Batman’ includes a pretty nice collection of bonus content, though do note that a number of the features included are Blu-Ray exclusives and therefore aren’t available on the DVD release, just one more reason to pick up the Blu-Ray if you have the option to do so. Included on the Blu-Ray release are 3 featurette’s that feature an in depth look into ‘Son of Batman’ and include comments and interviews with number of individuals involved in the film. The three featurette’s are titled: ‘Strange Blood: Damian Wayne’ ‘Designing the Characters’ and ‘The Fang and the Demon Head’. Other special features on the release include 4 bonus cartoons from the DC Vault and of course a sneak peek at the next DC Animated Movie ‘Batman: Assault On Arkham’ which includes a lot of insight and information on the film with glimpses at clips and comments from those involved with the movie.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 9/10

Own ‘Son of Batman’ on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD May 6^th, 2014 from Warner Bros. & DC Comics.