The newest entry in the DC Universe animated features stars Batman again. So far the Batman features have been the better ones and Batman Under the Red Hood is no exception. Under the Red Hood focuses on the 2nd Robin in Batman’s history, namely Jason Todd.

In the comics Jason Todd was killed by the Joker and was one of the landmark comics where a high profile character dies and it’s nice to see it being referred to in this movie. 

The movie starts with the Joker beating Robin. From the beating you do see the blood on the floor, but you don’t see the Joker actually hitting Robin and blood flowing from Robin. The actual action is shown via shadows or Robin’s body shaking.

For a mature oriented feature I wanted to see the action and more blood, but I guess that’s just me.

John Di Maggio does the Joker’s voice and doesn’t sound looney like Mark Hamill’s Joker in Batman the Animated Series. But very quickly it becomes better as you can hear the menace in his voice and the change from low and intimidating to a higher, crazier pitch especially when the Joker starts his laugh. Although very different from Mark Hamill’s interpretation it’s actually very good.

The main villain of the story is Black Mask who looks like a Red Skull rip off. But then again Under the Red Hood isn’t really about Batman fighting against some villain like Black Mask, but all about Jason coming back to life as a different person than before and how Batman deals with that.

The clues were somewhat obvious and pointed in the direction of Jason Todd being resurrected throughout the movie. It would’ve been a nice twist to see it otherwise, like in the comic story Hush where it was revealed to be a trick and Jason wasn’t brought to life.

On the other hand it’s a bold move to bring Jason back as the Red Hood and have him fight it off against his former master.

The joker plays a very good role as the mad man that he is and unpredictable as hell. Seeing Nightwing and even the Riddler in a flashback was also a nice touch. It’s especially fun to see the interaction between Batman and Nightwing with the comical replies from Nightwing and having their interaction remind of the old days when he was Robin.

In terms of visuals, the backgrounds are in a similar style as the Animated Series but with an update so that it looks more detailed and polished than before. Blended with CGI it looks stunning.

The animation itself is very good as can be expected from the DC animated movies.

The story is one of the better ones and realy gets you into it, the animation is top notch as always as well as the designs as the voice cast fits all the characters.

Without a doubt one of the better DC animated movies.