Batman: Assault on Arkham

The opening two thirds, riding on a wave of the intimate heist genre with a pick-and-mix band of villains, are excellent, self ridiculing and, in the current deluge of “let’s save our city/world/space/existence" DC/Marvel cartoons, refreshing. However at the very end, the hitherto absent Batman for some reason takes the reins and suddenly this turns into a standard “let’s save the innocent by doing a lot of pow, pow, bam". But when the action begins (and it isn’t bad at all), else is forgotten; and so that opening two thirds simply fade into nothing. In any case, it is nicely maturely uncompromising (within the bounds of a mainstream superheroes cartoon) and, for fans of the DC movie and comic universe and Rocksteady games, full of references and tributes. (13/08/2014)

Although it's not quite as perfect as Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Batman: Assault on Arkham is still one of the top episodes of DC Universe Animated Original Movies. How could it fail to live up to expectations when the Joker and Harley Quinn have their place in the film? Puddin'! (05/08/2014)

At first, it starts off quite well and one would think that it will turn into a proper animated film, but the idea from the "Saw" introduction quickly dissolves, and it becomes something like "Thunderbolts" - I mean from Marvel. It's not as intense as it appears, which is a shame because it could have been very interesting. But ultimately, it's just a standard comic book animated film. And Batman looks truly awful here. (07/08/2014)