ANI-MOVIES, *Batman Vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

With Disney locking down Marvel heroes with no signs of intercompany crossovers, Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon cut through all that red tape with a trio of team-ups between The Dark Knight and the Heroes in a Half-Shell. This the first time DC Comics officially had an animated team-up with characters from a completely different publisher, even though they've had some with other cartoons like Scooby-Doo and The Brady Bunch. Ben Jones, who directed Batman: Brave And The Bold, acts as producer in this hard "PG-13" blending of both Batman and TMNT lore.

The Foot Clan goes to Gotham to steal tech for the League of Assassins, which in turn, Ra's al Ghul promises to share the secrets of his mysterious life-prolonging Lazarus Pit with Shredder. The Turtles follow the Foot, and clash briefly with Batman(making for the "Vs." part of this title), but manage to track Batman to the Batcave, which is impressive since most of the resident criminal masterminds haven't ever pulled that off. Batman agrees to let the Turtles tag along with him, Robin(Damian Wayne), and Batgirl as its revealed that Ra's traded some of Shredder's mutagen to Joker in exchange for his Joker venom. The Caped Crusaders and TMNT arrive at Arkham Asylum to find the patients have been turned into half-human animals, and a new cobra-like Joker mixes his venom with the mutagen to change Batman into a rampaging Bat-Man-Bat! The Turtles help Robin and Batgirl return Batman to normal, then subdue Arkham's residents. The collected heroes realize that the Foot and League plan on using Joker's venom/mutagen to transform everyone in Gotham into insane mutants, so after an inspirational speech by Raphael, both teams rev up the Batmobile and Turtlevan to stop Ras's and Shredder's army of mutant ninjas.

This was an impressive production for WB and Nickelodeon, which is way outside the scope of Nick's normal family-friendly programming. There's some strait up bloody violence with Shredder flat-out murdering some citizens. The movie is slightly different from the original mini-series, like having both the Turtles and Batman be in the same universe as opposed to pan-dimensional wormholes. The addition of other characters like Batgirl and Baxter Stockman help flesh out the cast, although it was a small shame not seeing the Penguin getting turned into an actual penguin. There were two other follow-ups to the comic book mini-series, including one crossing over the animated version of both shows, but the movie has an original ending that could make for a groundbreaking sequel if it ever gets made. The casting is top-notch too with all four of the Turtles being voiced by actors who've never played them before, plus both Batman and Joker being played by Troy Baker whose done Joker in Batman: Unlimited and Assault On Arkham as well as the original Lego Batman! The film quality is above-average too, even though some of the character designs are slightly off-model, especially most of the Turtles having almost no facial features. This crossover is so far the best cross-company team-ups ever made!