A mysterious villain uses Catwoman, Riddler, Ra's al Ghul and several of Batman's other enemies and allies in a game to create chaos in Batman's life.
Batman: Hush is based on the critically acclaimed graphic novel of the same name. While very well received and frequently one of the top contenders for best Batman comic story, it was a story that I hadn't read until after viewing this animated release. Therefore, I am going to split this review in a similar way to my review of The Lion King where I'll talk about the feature itself, and then at the end makes comparisons to the source material.
This an animated film that takes place in the DCAU (DC Animated Universe), which unlike its live-action counterpart, has much better consistency and continuity. This means the film has the same style of animation that we have come to expect from the franchise; nice animations when viewing close-ups of one of two characters, but in the larger scenes with multiple characters and elaborate action scenes, the animation quality does fall. The animation style isn't too much of an issue in this sense, as the story does try to limit how many characters we are dealing with at once, and isn't non-stop chain of action scenes (unlike its predecessors The Death of Superman, Reign of the Supermen, and Justice League vs. The Fatal Five).
In fact, this is a very different type of story altogether. While other films recently have been around world-ending events, Batman: Hush is all about developing the relationship between Batman and Catwoman (voiced by Jason O'Mara and Jennifer Morrison respectively). While O'Mara doesn't quite have the booming grit that Kevin Conroy brings, his softer brings a much more emotional performance (which the content really needs). A lot of emphasis is placed on this relationship, and it brings a great deal of depth to these two characters.
Unfortunately, none of the other characters will get this kind of treatment. One can expect an appearance from most of Batman's Rogue's Gallery, and they do all get their own opportunity to shine. They are shown here with no context, so knowledge of the Batman villains in the DCAU to date would be beneficial. It's the one element that could prevent someone from being able to enjoy Batman: Hush as a standalone film (Hush is the 35th animated film in the franchise), but at the same time, many of the rogue's roles are not necessarily specific to their abilities, so nothing is really lost from a narrative standpoint, if you don't know who they are.
The biggest appeal (beyond some great character development) is the opportunity to actually see the world's greatest detective being a detective. The entire story revolves around a series of potentially interlinked cases that allows Batman the ability to show off his skills. It's entertaining, it ups the ante, and shows enough characters that it should be able to please most fans.
When you compare it to the source material though, the continuity in the DCAU does mean that there have been changes to some of the characters in the story. Changes are to be expected in some form as DC tries to compile a year's worth of issues into a single 80-minute runtime. Comic series are frequently rebooted, which gives greater freedom when it comes to character usage and direction, but as the DCAU has established itself as a single continuity, it must abide by its own rules, and take events of previous films into consideration (unlike what we've seen with the live-action DCEU). As such, some characters are not available, or have not been firmly established, and have found themselves replaced or omitted. The short runtime means some story points have been trimmed for the sake of trying to keep a coherent storyline considering the huge array of characters that the source material uses. For the majority of the character changes, however, it had minimal effect on the strength or direction of the Hush storyline. The dialogue was frequently ripped straight from the pages of the comic, word-for-word.
That being said, there are some very significant changes to a couple of characters that have a major role in the story. These changes will be polarizing to anyone that has actually read the source material. If you are open to a drastic departure in the third act, then you could definitely find the overall story to be much more solid and cohesive in this animated adaptation. The changes remove a lot of the over-the-top and convoluted aspects of the comic story as well as removing parts that would come across as predictable when translated to animation.
The animation style of the source material is also much darker and grittier, with some great use of contrast and shadows. It is absolutely gorgeous and helps to accentuate the emotional landscape of the story. This art style was, of course, rejected in lieu of the consistent style of the DCAU to date, which while serviceable, can come across as rather bland and flat. The film also cuts out all of the flashbacks, sticking to a linear narrative with (again) a consistent animation style.
All-in-all, the way the story has been stripped down to fit the 80-minute runtime is impressive. It was nice to see so much of the original dialogue kept, but while it was largely good, there were some parts that lacked emotion from O'Mara. It's the final act that will divide fans. If you have read and enjoyed the source material, then there is a high chance that you will not enjoy this departure, but it does bring up an alternative ending and it worked well at preventing the story from getting too jumbled.