To be honest, I've never liked story-arcs with Ra's Al-Ghul and everything involved much. To me it just doesn't seem that much fitting for the dark knight and, quite frankly, I think he is kind of a boring villain so the idea of Batman and Talia having a son never was appealing to me. Having watched "Son of Batman" I can say it is more about having another Robin, rather than about the son-aspect.
The movie starts off strong with an action-packed scene where it reveals its villain - Deathstroke. Now Deathstroke I find to be an interesting one, but unfortunately the way he is portrayed here is disappointing to say the least. His background was completely changed - that's something I am really open-minded about; but why they had to take any badass-factor out of him is beyond me. Seriously, he is the one who gets abused the most on-screen, by a preteen no less.
Poor villain aside, "Son of Batman" isn't actually all that bad. A good portion of why is thanks to the pacing. The movie, for its run-time, tells just about the right amount of story for each character with the right amount of action. It doesn't waste much time. Batman isn't as much present, but that's forgivable since it's more about Damian himself. Naturally the downside of that is that there isn't nearly enough father-son relation, but as already mentioned: it's more of a Robin tale. Damian, while at first seemed could be annoying, comes off as a solid addition, nothing special and probably the Robin I like the least, but still good enough. The only thing I found unnecessary in the story was the inclusion of the man-bats. That felt out of place and didn't add anything to it. They could've just mentioned them - it wouldn't change much, but it's a minor part anyway.
The action is well done. It consist mostly of stylish katana-sword fights and ninja-acrobatics and is fun to watch. There are some scenes that go over the top, mostly the constant deflecting of bullets with a blade while being completely surrounded, the main protagonists being too invincible and even injuries don't influence their fight in the slightest, but if you can look past that, there is fun to be had. It's quite brutal too, surprisingly so considering the rating.
About the voice-acting... well, it's a mixed bag. Main problems being Batman and Deathstroke. Batman sounds as if he doesn't care and just goes with everything, kinda lush. There is a fine line between sounding unemotional and sounding uninvolved and Jason O'Mara missed the mark here. Part to blame is also the writing, which is very cheesy at certain times. While the Deathstroke voice-actor does a fairly competent job himself, his voice just doesn't fit right. He has that kind of a deep, warm-voice, which made me think he's a good guy deep inside. He does sound manly, just not evil enough. Damian, Talia, Nightwing and the others, while not perfect, were good.
Overall a satisfying DC animated movie. Definitively better than the disappointing JL:War as it has more of a story, but not as good as "Under The Red Hood" with which it shares some similarities. A solid entry, nothing more, nothing less.
