DC Showcase - Batman: Death in the Family

DC Showcase - Batman: Death in the Family Review

What if Jason Todd's tragic story took a different turn?

Updated:Oct 13, 2020 9:06pm UTC

Note: this is a spoiler-free review of Batman: Death in the Family, which is available now on Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD, DVD and Digital HD.

DC's direct-to-video animated movie line has been in need of a creative shake-up for a while now, and 2020 has been the year that finally delivered on that need. The decision to wrap up the mediocre DC Animated Movie Universe withJustice League Dark: Apokolips War and start fresh with a new continuity and new art style inSuperman: Man of Tomorrow has been just the jolt these movies needed. And now DC goes for a hat trick with Batman: Death in the Family, the first of these projects to dabble with interactive, choice-based storytelling. It’s not an entirely successful experiment, but it’s still worth experiencing this interactive movie for yourself.

Death in the Family is ostensibly a prequel to 2010's Batman: Under the Red Hood, easily among the most critically acclaimed additions to the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line. But rather than settle for simply adapting the infamous 1988 comic and revealing more about that fateful day Joker killed Jason Todd, Death in the Family is trying something a little different. The film is built around a "choose your own adventure" element. At several key points during the course of the story, viewers will be prompted to make a choice with their remote control and alter the flow of the plot. So while one version of the story will follow established continuity and show a resurrected Jason returning to Gotham City to claim vengeance against the Joker, other versions might play out differently.

It's certainly a novel approach, and one that makes sense given that the original comic's ending was dictated by a 1-900 dial-in voting campaign (spoiler - apparently DC readers weren't very fond of Jason Todd at the time). It's certainly preferable to a feature-length, in-canon Under the Red Hood prequel. The original movie already showed us all the back-story necessary to appreciate the present-day Batman/Red Hood/Joker dynamic. Instead, this is a chance for writer/director Brandon Vietti to think creatively and explore the different paths Jason's story might have taken. What if Batman arrived in time to save him? What if Jason managed to save himself, but only after suffering severe physical and psychological damage? Suffice it to say, this story could have gone down even darker paths.

The novelty of the interactive element aside (andnot all versions of the movie include that option), it's genuinely fun seeing these different takes on an iconic Batman story. While pretty much every branching path results in Jason becoming some violent vigilante or another, there are some fun surprises and left turns along the way. The movie includes plenty of clever visual homages to the comic and even draws inspiration from a completely unexpected yet weirdly fitting Batman comic.

It also helps having the main voice cast from Under the Red Hood - Bruce Greenwood as Batman, Vincent Martella as Jason Todd and John DiMaggio as Joker - back in their old roles and reinforcing that connection to the original movie. Greenwood may well be the most underrated Batman voice actor around, though the lack of distinction between his solemn, gravelly Batman and his equally solemn, gravelly Bruce Wayne is a minor sticking point. Happily, though, Martella does a great job of distinguishing between the younger, more idealistic Jason and the various incarnations of his post-Joker self.

Batman: Death in the Family

Death in the Family is technically a short film, with each individual storyline spanning 10-20 minutes, hence the "DC Showcase" branding. Still, the branching story paths ensure that viewers will probably spend as much time actively watching it as they do DC's full-length animated movies. The disc makes that rewatching process easy enough. Whenever the credits start rolling, it pulls up icons for all previously viewed chapters and allows you to instantly jump back and try out alternate choices.

That being said, there is a repetitive quality that grows with each new run-through of the movie. Many of the storylines wind up culminating in similar scenarios. There's a fair amount of footage that's recycled for different stories or repurposed from Under the Red Hood. In fact, one of the main storylines becomes little more than a retelling of that movie's events, with Greenwood's Bruce recounting his ordeal fighting his ex-sidekick. Maybe that's handy as a reminder for casual fans who haven't watched Under the Red Hood since its release, but it is disappointing to see so much screen time devoted to a glorified clip show (though at least it ends on a fun note).

Enjoyable though it is, Death in the Family is hindered by its small scope. Though it subverts a familiar Batman tale in new and frequently clever ways, no one story thread is given much room to expand and unfold. Some storylines end far too soon, and there are moments practically begging for interactive choices that the movie glosses right over. The movie is a unique and worthwhile experiment for DC, but in some ways the company might have been better off simply choosing one of these alternate universe ideas and building a full-length movie around it.

Verdict

Batman: Death in the Family definitely wins points for originality. Rather than simply rehash a familiar story and deliver the Under the Red Hood prequel no one asked for, this DC Showcase movie honors the spirit of the source material by giving viewers a chance to dictate the course of Jason Todd's story for themselves. It's a novel approach that gives Death in the Family more rewatch value than most. But ultimately, the movie is let down by its small scope and the fact that so many of the possible storylines wind up leading Jason down similar paths