Merry Little Batman (2023)

[Silver Nemesis]

I've been trying to watch a different Christmas film on each of the twelve days of Christmas, and last night I gave this one a shot. I'd never heard of it before it suddenly appeared on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago. It's a feature length animated movie about Damian Wayne trying to protect Gotham City from a band of familiar rogues on Christmas Eve.

As you can tell from the trailer, it's a very comedic festive film geared towards a family audience. The art style is pretty unique among Batman movies and the quality of animation is good. It doesn't match the rapid-fire concentration of gags in something like Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, and I don't find the comedy to be on a par with the funniest Batman films, but it's not bad. It contains numerous allusions to other Christmas films and older Batman movies.

The Penguin is clearly influenced by DeVito's version. He has his hideout beneath the penguin enclosure in Gotham Zoo, and at one point he alludes to his origin story and mentions how his father dumped his basinet into the sewers when he was a baby. He also has an army of penguin commandoes with rockets strapped to their backs, which he sends out to steal all of Gotham's presents on Christmas Eve.

Bane looks and acts like the Schumacher version. He appears alongside Poison Ivy and is ultimately defeated in the same way the Schumacher Bane was beaten.

Mr. Freeze speaks in ice puns, almost all of which are taken from Arnold's dialogue in Batman & Robin. See examples in the following clip, from the 1:12 mark.

There are lots of other Easter eggs for fans to spot. It's hardly a must-see movie, but it's diverting enough provided you're in the right frame of mind, and it makes for seasonal viewing at this time of year. There are still several more days of Christmas remaining, so now's a good time to check it out if you have Amazon Prime.