Film Summary DLXXI (Batman Ninja)

I want to know the fever dream pitch that was put forward to make this movie.
Now it's true that at this point Batman has been on a zillion different Adventures involved with just about every group you can fathom.
You want to see him as a caveman.
There's a comic out there.
You want to see him on the moon?
There's a comic out there.
You want to see him team up with Judge Dredd to fight Judge Death teamed up with a Joker?
You better believe there's a comic out there.

But the story still comes off as incredibly odd. Not so much that Batman goes to Japan, There's hundreds of stories of him doing that. Some of them involved his early days training, another of them involves one of his Batgirl sidekicks being raised over there as a mute assassin.
But most of those stories felt like they were trying to capture a real life moment of Japan or at the very least, slightly grounded version of the nation that exists within Batman's universe.

Where is this movie wants to go in the complete other direction. It turned everything up to 11 and gives you the most ridiculous experience you can imagine. Overly exaggerated Japanese Samurai culture most likely based around the blank. Along with overly colorful visual designs stereotypical artistic design all culminating in an incredibly stupid but send me amusing giant robot battle.

Story.
Batman is over in Arkham Asylum fighting Gorilla Grodd* who has some weird time / Portal Device that's going to take the entire facility and transport it away.
He manages to transport himself, Batman, Catwoman. Several of the robins, Alfred (for some reason) and a couple of the other goons back to feudal Japan. Why no one else got transported given that it's the entire Asylum is left undisguised.
But it seems time travels a bit wonky. If you don't get yourself into that portal immediately you're going to be thrown off by several years as opposed to everybody else.
For some reason Batman shows up two years too late and everybody else is already established.
Catwoman's wandering around wearing a ridiculous outfit and just kind of being indifferent to the plot. Alfred's there in a perfectly fine tailored suits somehow serving up English tea and all the criminals have somehow taken over various districts of Japan and are fighting to conquer the entire freaking country** this is a plot point that doesn't go anywhere and it's kind of a wasted opportunity.
Along with half the villains come to think of it.
They're all there for a couple of minutes and they're built up is having all these interesting armies and Dynamics to them. But the story doesn't do anything with them they just get introduced later on giving a giant robot to fight with fight for about 5 minutes and then form into one giant robot the Gorilla Grod was controlling from the start.

Anyways Batman is able to eventually form of his own clan of ninja warriors with the help of all of his former Associates then take on the Joker who somehow took control the entire operation, so then defeat them all so they can return back to their own native time.

It's a disappointing movie. The drawing style is kind of interesting and it's fun to see a very Japanese take on a bunch of Americanised comic book characters but the story is lack luster in a lot of parts. It drops a lot of great opportunities and it just evolved into the Joker becoming the Big baddy again.
How many times do I have to see the Joker in a movie like this? I mean I like the guy well enough and he's probably the funnest character in the entire film and it would have been nice to see some other character utilize their talents especially given the awkward and unorthodox location.
I just can't see the Joker making all that good on a place like old Japan.

The only character I think it would make sense in this old Japanese setting is Deathstroke. He's the only one that carries a demeanour similar to that of the feuding Warlords who were trying to run the country and he is the only one that could somehow get himself into such a high position.
I guess poison ivy could just conquer  the island with all the vegetation but what would she give a crap about feudal Lord systems when she can just control the Earth.

I want to say the film would benefit if it would just dropped the Batman demeanour but then what would it be? Would anyone even be talking about this movie if it was just generic Over the Top Samurai flick of a bunch of people you've never heard about. Probably not. Which is kind of a shame because I like the Catwoman character in this film I just don't think she makes any sense of Selina Kyle.

The voice acting and script is kind of bad too. Although I chop a lot of that up to the difference in Japanese and English vocabulary. I'm almost tempted to watch the film in Japanese just to see if it carries over any better.
But I'm reluctant to because I was honestly falling asleep during the Final Act. It's just too much ridiculous action and there's no real connection to any of it especially given how over-the-top it wants to get it's one thing to have Gotham City characters influence in Japan so that they have industrialisation that's giving them guns and steamships it's entirely another to give them giant robots.

At the end of it all I'm just sitting here wondering ''who was this made for?''
It's done in such an awkward fashion that it feels like a video game cutscene.
In fact that's what I almost assumed this was originally. A failed game projects that got turned into a mini movie instead. No idea of any of that true, but it's an interesting concept. Probably make for a decent game come to think of it

* Really Batman. You're going to take Garrila Grand as your main villain. It's bad enough that between you and Spider-Man you have a monopoly on all the good villains and now you're going around and taking other people's characters.

** How in God's name did any of these Gotham Asylum Rejects become the ruling class of Japan?
I mean they don't know the language, they know nothing about the culture and they're foreigners.
But somehow they became the ruling people?
It's implied early on but these people all speak Japanese because Batman picks up a piece of paper and it's clearly written in Japanese but everybody speaks English.
And they don't do anything emphasize that these people are speaking Japanese and we're just hearing it is English like they did for Russian in 'The Hunt for Red October' here it's just kind of implied that maybe everybody speaks English already.
And I don't really like that.
At least if you're going to give us Japanese lettering at the beginning. Choose one of the other people don't flip flop and clean both of them cuz it just gets confusing.