Batman: Assault on Arkham
Batman: Assault on Arkham
PG-13 | 12 August 2014 (USA)
Batman: Assault on Arkham Trailers

Batman works desperately to find a bomb planted by the Joker while Amanda Waller sends her newly-formed Suicide Squad to break into Arkham Asylum and recover vital information stolen by the Riddler.

Reviews
2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
Pjtaylor-96-138044 'Batman: Assault On Arkham (2014)' is the movie that 'Suicide Squad (2016)' should have been. Seeing it through the lens of a world which has now experienced the unfortunate attempt at a live-action incarnation of these characters makes you appreciate this piece even more. It's a unique approach, to focus on someone other than Batman in a feature named after him, more so when they are technically the villains. It's actually a bit of a shame that this wasn't pushed further, having the piece wholly from the perspective of the squad without the 'caped crusader' or with him as an antagonist instead of the strange half-and-half we get here, seemingly only because it is the 'dark knight' who has his name in the title and the star power to sell the picture. Yet, the balance is struck pretty well and our expectations are played with in a few fairly clever ways. Animation wise, the feature is crisp, fluid and aesthetically pleasing. It looks like proper effort was put into every frame - unlike some more recent efforts - and it all comes across as convincing, from the bigger action moments to the smaller character stuff. The voice-work sells a decent script which crafts some great, empathetic and suitably gritty characterisations. The flick is also pretty dark, too, with the stakes set early on and the tension maintained throughout. We care about the bad-guys and that's commendable considering they're properly bad, at times. Overall, it's an interesting, entertaining and unique film that draws you in with its premise and keeps you there with its execution. 7/10
dissident320 I couldn't help but stack this against the live action Suicide Squad movie. Even though the plot is quite different, I wanted to see how they handled character introductions and story setup. In both those aspects this movie is miles ahead of Suicide Squad. The character introductions take up less than 10 minutes and are efficient yet fun. The setup for the story is straight-forward as well and doesn't get bogged down with too many characters.I fully admit to not know what was taken from the comics story-wise but I was kind of fascinated how the Suicide Squad movie does include a lot of the same elements. The Joker does make an appearance but it makes much more sense to include him as he is a part of the main storyline. Batman is in a few minutes too which is explained because he is busy with another problem but does have some bearing on the story.I thought the squad was a lot of fun and the movie didn't lose me until they released everyone at Arkham and then it was just a super-villain fest. It's worth seeing if only to lament what could have been a good Suicide Squad live-action movie if they took more cues from this.
brchthethird I was, quite honestly, blown away by this. It's only the third DCAU movie I've seen, but I am quickly becoming impressed. The basic plot is that Amanda Waller needs something from the Riddler, so she assembles Task Force X and has them break into Arkham to retrieve it for her. Batman and the Joker also have key supporting roles that round out a fast-paced, action-packed story. So, as you might be able to tell, despite Batman's name being part of the title, this is more of a Suicide Squad movie. And in that respect, this film succeeds in every way that David Ayer's live-action one failed. Little time is wasted setting up backstories, opting instead for short clips to introduce each squad member AFTER the title card. There was also a lot more internal tension as each squad member is forced to work with each other to complete their mission, something that was also lacking in this year's SUICIDE SQUAD. Put simply, what I saw here in terms of character work was amazing. The film was also really funny at times. Everyone had at least a couple moments to shine in that regard. In particular, King Shark and Captain Boomerang were comic relief. As for the animation, it had an anime-like style that was very beautiful and fluid. I was also surprised at how mature this was. While not terribly explicit (this is PG-13 after all, but kind of pushes the edge), Harley Quinn and Killer Frost (the female Squad members) were quite sexy in a way that I didn't exactly remember from the animated series. However, what really put's this among the best DC animated films I seen (so far) is the economy and efficiency of the storytelling, excellent animation, and brilliant voice work. The problems I have with it are rather minor. There was a particular score cue that reminded me of the worst electro-house, and the voice actor doing Gordon sounded a little too young for how he was drawn. That's it. If you saw SUICIDE SQUAD and didn't like it, give this a try. If you didn't, see this anyway. And if you already have, maybe now's the time to watch it again.
NDbportmanfan Assault on Arkham is meant as a prequel to the events that occurred during the Arkham video game trilogy. Waller has collected some villains to help her take back top secret information from the Riddler. The Squad most infiltrate Arkham Asylum, find the Riddler and get the device before reveals the secrets to even worse villains.This film really does a good job at capturing how expendable each character is to the mission. At any moment someone could die and the team just has to move to the next objective. This is even tougher because the writers of the movie actually created relationships between characters so the loss hits them and the audience more. Even with all the serious moments there is also funny dialogue exchanged, mainly from Captain Boomerang and King Shark. There are no characters that are left in the background either. Mostly everyone gets a fair amount of screen time in order to fully bring their personality to the audience. I thought this would be heavy movie on Deadshot and Harley, but that was not the case. The biggest enjoyment I got was Harley as that was probably my favorite depiction of her that I have seen. She had the right amount of sweet with a side of insane.Action scenes were fun for the most part, as there was a scene or two where they maybe went a little to over the top even for an animation movie.This was a fun watch and if you are a fan of the Suicide Squad, you most definitely have to see this.