Batman: Hush Review

Well, it happened.. An adaptation of one of Batman's interesting stories. And it really delivered right from the entire storyline with some changes to that of the comic to the voice cast's perfection.

Now I knew they were not going to give us the exact thing page by page from the comic into scene by scene in the movie due to the differences in the universe the story is based on and the events that have happened before it. But the writers introduced a really nice alteration to the end of the movie, something we didn't get from the comic.

A few hours before I saw the movie, I thought of something 🤔.. When I checked the Wikipedia page for the animated movie, I noticed that they revealed Thomas Elliot as Hush which is like a secret in the storyline. I kept wondering why they would spill such a secret but then again, it had already been spilled in the comic. Plus anyone can always get that information with a few surfing on the Internet. But I was thinking based on people who hadn't read the comic but are interested in seeing the movie. There's a chance they already know Bruce's friend (Thomas Elliot) is his enemy in the story. Well, I got my answer after watching the movie 😊

Now the movie is divided into two halves.. The first half followed the comic storyline strictly with a few changes. Batman had to rescue a kid Bane kidnapped for some ransom money, have a few words with Lady Shiva about an intruder violating the Lazarus Pit, then chase Catwoman (who was being mind controlled by Poison Ivy) for stealing the ransom money before having his grapple cut in mid-air and he had a "not so good" experience of the law of gravity. Then, he was taken to the hospital to have his severe injuries tendered to by his friend, Thomas Elliot. He resumed to his Batman life by helping Amanda Waller and her goons arrest Bane. Next, he and Catwoman went to Metropolis to get Poison Ivy. A part of the story where he had to face off with a mind controlled Superman. Lol, Batman was ready for that. He and Catwoman were able to make him snap back to reality eventually.

One major plot point of this story (both in the comic and the movie) was Batman's romantic relationship with Catwoman. It was well adapted and even portrayed the story as a sorta love story. What made it quite interesting was that while Batman knew Selina Kyle is Catwoman, she didn't know Bruce Wayne is Batman. Turns out Bruce and Selina knew each other (they had even dated before). It got to a point where Selina was kinda telling Bruce he had competition (Batman) 😂.. And Bruce went on to call this competition a mystery man. Eventually though, Batman took Nightwing's advice (though he kinda snubbed it at first) and revealed his identity to her which is when their relationship blossomed. A big shout out to Jason O'Mara and Jennifer Morrison for their work on these two characters.. 💯

The animation also featured interesting scenes where Batman had a conversation with his son (Damian Wayne) about Catwoman, when he went to Lex Luthor @3:00am for some information to get Poison Ivy's location in Metropolis and Nightwing's constant teasing of his relationship with Catwoman 😆.. Now the second half of this story which featured more of Batman's and Catwoman's relationship had some bigger changes to the comic than the first half. The writers carefully mapped out a turn of events to give us a better ending. Back to my question of "why spoil who Hush is before people see the movie?". Turns out Thomas Elliot wasn't Hush in the movie. We didn't even see much of him except for when Bruce introduced him to Selina, when he treated Bruce in the hospital and when he was killed. Yup, that happened (in a way to deceive Batman that Joker was the killer).

So who was Hush in this movie? Edward Nygma aka The Riddler 😏
At first, it seemed a bit off to me. But then, it made sense. That way, the writers have introduced their own approach to the story instead of just giving us the same thing from the comic thereby giving us a plot twist. In the comic, the Riddler and Thomas Elliot were the ones who formed the plan to manipulate people and events in Batman's life. They met when Dr Elliot was treating the Riddler of his brain tumour. Riddler even came up with the name (Hush), the bandaged mask and costume. But in the animation, Edward Nygma is the mysterious manipulator. Dr Elliot couldn't treat his brain tumour in this storyline, so he found out about the Lazarus Pit and used it (which is why Lady Shiva came to see Batman earlier in the movie). As Edward came out of the pit, he experienced a flash of increased intellect and strength. All this turning his mind towards one question that the answer was always in front of him. Who is Batman? Right there and there, he figured out it was Bruce Wayne. And out of the anger of always losing to him and being neglected by pretty much everyone, he carefully mapped out his revenge plan by taking on a new identity, Hush.

He was able to orchestrate the following events:

1. Bane into kidnapping a boy for some ransom money.
2. Poison Ivy into controlling Catwoman to stealing the ransom money.
3. Killing Thomas Elliot and then pinning it on the Joker.
4. Harley Quinn into robbing an event where Bruce was to get him to see his friend killed just in time.
5. Clayface (who he was controlling as the Riddler) into more deception.
6. Scarecrow into using his fear gas on Nightwing and almost doing the same to Catwoman. 
7. And finally kidnapping Catwoman with the intent of killing her. 

At the very end, Batman found out where exactly Catwoman was after solving a whole lot of puzzles and tricks Hush set up for him which Edward had anticipated. This set up a final fight scene that ended with Catwoman stopping Batman from saving Hush who was about to die. Catwoman and Batman broke up though, because they can't work together especially with Batman's code of "no killing" even when it is the worst kind of people like most of his villains. Catwoman even mentioned the fact that this same guy almost killed her and Nightwing and would have no issue doing the same with other people in his life that he cares for and he still wants to save this same person from an impeding death. Batman insisted by saying that, "without a code, he's no better than them and he has to try if someone can be saved".

This ending is different from the comic in the sense that, we didn't get a complete showdown with Batman and Hush after a long series of manipulation and plot twists here and there. The movie is more like a compressed version of the comic book with major and minor changes throughout, leading to a satisfying end.
Another worthy addition to DC's list of animations 👍