Film Summary DCCXCVIII (Batman and Harley Quinn)

 

This should have been called ''Nightwing and Harley Quinn''. 
Batman is so secondary that I'm starting to wonder why he's even here. 
He's just a light antagonist questioning Harley Quinn for about a minutes before caving in and letting her join on the adventure. 
Set Adventure being: 

Poison Ivy and a bargain bin replacement for Swamp Thing steal a scientist and his research material to genetically engineer a virus that will turn all of humanity into vegetable people. 

It's all. 

That's the big conflict. 

There's really nothing else given to Poison-ivy or the Evil Jolly Green Giant. They're just trying to turn the world into vegetables... Again.

Most of the movies just Harley Quinn having witty dialogue with Batman or Nightwing. 

Both of which seem to be fairly indifferent to her antics and devoid of any of their unique personality that makes them stand out. 

Makes me wonder why they didn't just make up Harley Quinn movie and cut Batman and Nightwing out of it altogether. 

Harley does have this strange sexual chemistry with Nightwing. Right after her dialogue about being mistreated and abused by Society for her criminal background. 

Only being offered sex work jobs in-lieu of any other type of employment. 

And honestly this could have made for an interesting story if it was actually given time to develop. 

You could argue that Harley's character is flippant and inconsistent with her own actions and personality. 

And you'd be right in this case. But luckily Harley Quinn is one of the characters you can get away with writing that way if you only give her the time of day to dive into those misplaced emotions. 

All we get here is PG-13 fanservice.

And it just feels wrong. Especially given the rapey undertones towards Nightwing*

Maybe, just maybe I could forgive such a ridiculous story flaw if the rest of the movie was entertaining or captivating in some way. 

But it's not. 

It's either Harley Quinn having bad monologues with Batman or just pointless time waste at a dive bar in the middle of nowhere to waste time. 

This honestly should have been a two-parter 40 minute long cartoon. But instead it's pushed out well beyond an hour and it's just filled with padding. 

It doesn't even end in a satisfying way. 

It kind of just stops and the whole thing feels like it should have been a fever dream.

The art style is okay. Drawn similarly to the old 90s Batman cartoon but it's nothing special and some of it just looks bleak and simplistic. 

Animation is livable but once again nothing to stay of note. 

* Why do so many comic book writers always right about Dick Grayson getting raped by someone? Like I'm not trying to sound exaggerated. 

That's a thing that pops up time and time again. 

I can think of at least three other points where this has popped up before. 

Can we stop with the bad rape stories?