Merry Little Batman (Prime)(2023)

I thought the character designs in the trailers and were so ugly and that would be a dealbreaker for me. I admit there is no good reason this movie needs to look as ugly as it does, but the truth is, it all animates well, and smoother than much of the rest of DC's current output. It was not the huge problem I worried it would wind up being.

What I loved most about it is how it refused to tie itself to the Batlore in ways that would hurt it. Bruce Wayne doesn't brood, is an "Aw, Shucks!" everyman, voiced by Luke Wilson, who wears flannel shirts and has a bad beard, and sees a therapist, and who loves his son more than anything. Damian is, believe it or not, a loving son who is both cute and likable, and someone the producers aren't trying to pit the audience against. And this is unlike any other interpretation of Damian outside of maybe the Batman Unlimited stuff. The difference there is Damian there may not be atrocious, but he's also bland. Here they made him cute and appealing.

It's okay in an alternate universe to suggest Batman and the Joker like each other deep down and want to spend Christmas together. That's perfectly all right. Just because the Joker is a purely irredeemable monster in almost everything else, doesn't mean he always HAS to be. It's alternate universe stuff. You'd figure DC would want to surprise the audience about stuff like that and switch it up a bit at times. But I'll take what I can get here.

The thing I loved second most was the soundtrack. Not just Warner Music. They paid for actual songs from other studios too. Honestly, the introduction with the flying bat and the Father Christmas song at the beginning eased all my worries before the first ugly design was ever seen, and my skeptical heart was won over about as quickly as it took me to warm up to Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor after he peeks his head up out of the TARDIS for the first time on Doctor Who. Some moments of joy, especially starting off a potentially polarizing project, can't help but put the audience's mind at ease, and make them stop worrying. It was a VERY good beginning for that reason.

Alfred's design was somehow the ugliest of all, but I will argue the last person to voice the character as well as James Cromwell did here was Efrem Zimbalist Jr.. That's how long it's been since there's been an animated Alfred I really liked.

The MGM titles at the beginning feel incredibly wrong and make me furious all over again at David Zaslav. This is the best kiddie Batman Project since Justice League Action. This was NOT the thing to write off for taxes and if Zaslav thinks it was, that is additional proof that he's bad at his job. I think this movie is going to be VERY popular on Amazon Prime, and maybe one of the most popular things on Prime ever.

Mom is a supervillain? Catwoman or Talia? Unclear, but I bet if Bat-Family is greenlit we'll find out for sure there.

That was a delight! If Zaslav is trying to kill projects this wonderful and with this much wide appeal how on Earth can Warner Discovery trust someone with that bad of judgment with their finances? He sucks at the very thing he was supposed to be best at.

I loved it. It was a nice thing, and I like that Prime allowed us the nice thing. And I'm also aware of who tried to deny us this nice thing and why. 4 1/2 stars.