BATMAN: ASSAULT ON ARKHAM (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

ASSAULT comes very close to being a "Suicide Squad" movie in which Batman happens to guest-star, since he's absent for long stretches of the DTV film. But the Caped Crusader dominates the latter half of the story, and besides, his mission-- to find the Joker's dirty nuclear bomb before it destroys Gotham City-- is more important to the narrative than the muddled assignment given the Squad. The project is said to have been inspired by the success of a videogame series, BATMAN: ARKHAM, though I'd speculate that Warner Brothers might have wanted to inject the Squad into the mix because of projected plans for the 2016 live-action movie.

The original 1980s comics-series focused on the U.S. government's covert use of convicted super-villains for assorted black ops missions, and it was popular in part for having balanced the overall ruthlessness of the career criminals with elements of comedy and drama. Such elements are not to be found in Heath Corson's script. I once found myself thinking of Hobbes' phrase "the war of all against all." That's certainly a valid theme to pursue with this kind of "Dirty Dozen" concept, but without something like humor to leaven the mix, there's really no one to root for in the Squad sections of the film.

Six super-crooks make the cut of the black-ops boss Amanda Waller: Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Black Spider, King Shark, and Killer Frost. The latter three are in my experience negligible characters, while the former three have had many strong character moments in the comics but are reduced to simple stereotypes here. They're assigned to make an "assault on Arkham" to recover an item left there by Batman's foe The Riddler, and of course not much about the mission goes smoothly. A major stumbling block is that although Harley has sworn off her love for the Joker at this point, she's brought into contact with the Clown Prince, and arouses his ire by admitting that she's slept with Deadshot. This sets up a final combat between Harley's two "suitors," though there's little resonance to the battle since there's no real romance involved. 

I can't fault Corson's script for lack of action, for there are almost no slow sections to ASSAULT. But there are so many action-scenes that they all begin to look the same after a while. There are a handful of clever lines, and some decent voice-work, with Troy Baker taking over the Joker from the much celebrated efforts of Mark Hamill, and another of Kevin Conroy's equally prized Batman performances. But should a viewer want action combined with decent character moments, the studio's later SUICIDE SQUAD': HELL TO PAY would be the way to go.