Deathstroke Knights & Dragons: The Movie

Not much to say about this film.

It seems to have a brief origin story of Dealthstroke and the impact of him being a hired gun on his family which is a nice way to humanize him, especially in the latter half of the film with his son.

Nice fights, but that is about it. Not one of DC Animated best but I think it's serviceable if you want an animated feature on Deathstroke.

When written by someone who actually cares about the source material, Deathstroke the Terminator has less to do with Teen Titans and more to do with being the shadowy scourge of 3rd world dictators and despots across the globe (for a hefty price). This is a character that can hold his own with Batman.

The story deserved better than cringe dialogue from the empowered when it's convenient ex-Wife. The tragic father routine loses all merit if you can't make the family dynamic in this story at least passable. Yet everyone's motivations seem completely at odds with with that end state. A strained relationship makes sense, but upon watching this you can't believe they ever cared about each other.

I know Greg Berlanti is the the DCEU rosters most consistent hit maker (except for Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and late series Flash, and the unforgivable Stargirl), but a hard R rating is useless without a story to push it forward. Why is the script seemingly the last thing that people care about?

80% of this movie is just exposition and flashbacks and every tropes and clichés you can think of is here. Slade is berated by everyone the entire movie and it gets tiring really quick. The villain is the villain in every movie and animation you can think of. The story is the same and there's nothing new here. Enemies are the most re*** ****s ever. DC's animations were always better than Marvel's, but jesus christ this is repetitive and stale. I want something new, not another 1 hour and half movie with expositions everywhere and a predictable plot and no good characterization. The animators didn't even bother to actually draw cars and buildings in one scene! We've had years of DC animated movies like this and it's 2020, just stop making movies like this and focus on making new good shows or movies that have something new and it's not full of clichés and exposition and actually put effort in it or I won't even bother watching another one.

Regrettably, the writing of the movie prefers to tell than show, in most of the conversations characters pause the movie to explain to the viewer something that could have been better integrated, and most of these times the other characters know the information already. Exposition is important and it is everywhere, in every storytelling format, but this movie is a good example of how to not do it.

The villain has an interesting character design, but he is poorly developed, with a horrible motivation to drive the plot, without spoiling it, you will find his reason for ruining Deathstroke's life quite laughable, and entirely his fault, it feels like an afterthought from the writer, added at the last moment, hurting the plot more than helping.

The animation style matches the theme of the movie pretty well, but it is sadly let down by a generic story that fails at any and every twist and turn. I am not sure why the movie is so violent when it seems to be written for a younger audience, trying to make Deathstroke into a relatable antihero.

Despite it's overly melodramatic approach and a forgettable villiain, Deathstroke Knights and Dragons: The Movie is still a really good DC animated movie that's fun and action packed. Michael Chiklis gives a great lead performance and Sasha Alexander, Griffin Puatu and Faye Mata are all really good. Sung Jin Ahn's direction is really good, it's well paced and the animation is also really good. The music by Kevin Riepl is good.