Blu-Ray Review: DCU: Son of Batman

Last week the Son of Batman Blu-Ray came out and I’ve now had a chance to go through everything and determine if this is worth your hard earned moolah! Remember that the special features I’m about to go over are only included on Blu-Ray, so if you’re still enjoying movies at home via DVD, you’re out of luck.

That being said, let’s jump into this!

There are six special features included in your Blu-Ray copy. Three featurettes, one sneak peak of the next DC Universe movie, one section dedicated to episodes from the DC vault, and a last section highlighting various trailers from Warner Bros. Animation.

The first featurette is titled “The Fang and the Demon Head: The League of Assassin’s”. The video explores the mysterious history of Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassin’s. The significance of the character in the Batman mythology is explained by experts on the character. This is really great for anybody who doesn’t know very much about Ra’s al Ghul or the League of Assassin’s. As a person who only knew the surface story of the Ghul family and their legacy, I took away a deepened respect for the character.

The second featurette is titled “Strange Blood Ties: Damian Wayne”. Of the three featurettes I’d have to say this was my favourite. It has the most relevance to the story everyone bought this Blu-Ray to see. In my review of the movie itself, one of my complaints was that this film took a step away from the events in the comics. This featurette goes over a lot of what was left out. Just as the first featurette did for Ra’s, Damian’s history and significance was really fleshed out. You begin to not only unerstand how important Damian is, but how important Robin is. So if the main movie didn’t give you enough of what Damian represents, you may get your fix in this featurette.

The third featurette is titled “Designing the Characters with Phil Bourassa”. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It goes over the thought process of how each character was designed. There isn’t much to say about this, but if you’re big into costume design and the aesthetics of animation, this will be up your ally.

After those there is a sneak peek of the next film coming in the DC Universe. The next film is called “DCU Batman: Assault on Arkham”. It gives you the story of the film, and it introduces you to the characters that will be involved. What’s interesting about this movie is that it will be a prequel to the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game. So it’s nice to see they had those games in mind when producing this movie. Another interesting thing about this film is that it seems it will be from the perspective of the villains, primarily. If you’re a fan of the Joker, you’re in a lot of luck because he plays a big part in this story. If you’re a fan of Kevin Conroy, you’re also in luck because he is back voicing the Dark Knight himself. This movie was also inspired a lot by the film “Ocean’s 11”. Finally, for those of you who are impatient, this movie will be out later this Summer. It looks pretty interesting and I’m looking forward to it.

“From the DC Comics Vault” is the next section of the special features. This is probably my favorite part of the entire special features. It includes four entire episodes of Batman cartoons from the past. The cool thing about each of these episodes is that they are relevant to the “Son of Batman” story in someway. The first episode is from ‘Batman: Beyond’ and it is titled “Out of the Past”. The second episode is from ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ and it is titled “The Knights of Tomorrow”. The third episode is from the king of them all “Batman: The Animated Series” and it is titled “Showdown”. Finally, there is another episode from “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” titled “Sidekicks Assemble!” Expanding on what I mentioned before, each of these episodes feature either Damian Wayne or Ra’s al Ghul. It’s awesome to see how they’ve been interrupted over the years. Also, as a huge fan of the Batman: Animated Series and Batman: Beyond shows growing up, this was a treat. The Batman: Brave and the Bold episodes were pretty entertaining as well. People have explained to me that it’s a modern spin on retro Batman, and it feels exactly like that. It’s fun to take Batman out of the dark and gritty every once in awhile!

The last portion of the special features is just a bunch of trailers for other things Warner Bros. wants you to buy. Among the trailers are ones for “Justice League: War”, “Beware the Batman”, “Teen Titans” Go!”, “Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy”, and “DC Collectibles”.

Overall, I had some fun with the special features. Are they worth your money? Probably not. If you want to know more about the characters explained in the featurettes, then awesome! This will be great for you. The vault episodes can all be found on Netflix though, I’m almost certain. I was just happy they were included because I’m a nostalgia junky and I appreciated the nod to their past. The sneak peek at the next movie may be a good selling point though. It’s very in depth and it’s more like a behind the scenes experience of something that hasn’t even come out yet. So if you’re interested in that, I recommend this. So, I’m pretty happy with my purchase, I know I’ll enjoy this with some friends in the near future and even pick up the next movie when it comes out.