Written by Morgan Evans And Jase Ricci And Mike Roth
Directed by Mike Roth
The Joker (to Damien): "We set out to only steal Christmas but you, you destroyed it. And now, thanks to you everyone is waking up to no Christmas."
Yeah, I have to admit something here. I very nearly didn't even watch this, let alone review. With Batman being overexpanded in animation, it felt like this one might have been a too childish, even for me. Make no mistake, it's certainly aimed for kids but surprisingly, it's better than expected.
With Damien Wayne soon to make his live action debut in Andy Muschietti's The Brave And The Bold (date tbc), this Christmas themed animated movie offered a somewhat different take on the most recent version of Robin. I mean, it's very different from both the comics and other DC animated films.
Here's a version of Damien (Yonas Kibreab) who's a rather happy and fun eight old year boy. He doesn't want to be Robin, he wants to be the next Batman and he's determined to follow in his semi-retired father, Bruce Wayne's (Luke Wilson) footsteps. Only his father doesn't think he's up to the task as of yet.
Damien's overzealous enthusiasm to prove himself resulted in his safety utility belt being taken off him while getting scolded by his father. As the latter got dragged off to an unknown mission and Alfred Pennyworth (James Cromwell) was directed getting marshmallows, Damien was up to mischief.
Mostly he was defending Wayne Manor from robbers working for the Joker (David Hornsby) but when his utility belt got stolen, Damien caused a lot mayhem in order to try and get it back, while also getting his own Batman suit with a BatDad ai assistant to boot. The Joker took full advantage of that and he had his own helpers in the mix.
With Mr Freeze (Dolph Adomian) distracting Batman, the Joker had the likes of Poison Ivy (Therese McLaughlin), Bane (Chris Sullivan) and the Penguin (Brian George) to aid in his cause to steal Christmas from Gotham and to make a supervillain out of Damien/Little Batman for good measure. To the Joker's credit, he almost succeeded.
However this is a children's movie and good definitely triumphed over bad with Batman and Little Batman defeating the Joker and his friends while also saving Christmas for the citizens of Gotham. Oh and the Joker got at least one little win of his own too in a very sweet and cheesy scene.
- We nearly got Catwoman in this movie but instead there was a tabby cat named Selina who was Damien's pet.
- Talia is a supervillain in this universe but a complicated one. Both Riddler and Scarecrow appeared in flashbacks. Vicki Vale also appeared in the movie.
- The late comic book artist, Carmine Infantico has an audio cameo in the movie.
- There's a spin off series called Bat Family so this universe will be expanded on. Originally this was supposed for HBO Max but now it's Amazon.
- Standout music: The use of certain songs from other Batman properties brought a smile to my face.
- Chronology: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the present year.
Merry Little Batman turned out to be a good case of never judging a book by it's cover. I didn't like the animation and the trailer didn't initially grab me but the actual movie itself turned out to be a delight with various nods to some of my favourite Batman media. It's undeniably aimed for a much younger audience and Damien's tooled to cater to said audience but it worked better than expected. A feel good festive delight that now has me eagerly wanting another live action Christmas Batman movie.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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