Under The Red Hood is an animated straight to DVD Batman movie that was released back in 2010 and I have to say it is possibly the greatest animated batman film I have ever seen and I even enjoyed it more than the dark knight rises. In terms of animated supehero films I have seen many ranging back to Mask of The Phantasm in the early 90's and this has it all.

Strangely this doesn't have the main Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy who everyone had become used to and no Hamill as the Joker. Instead we have Bruce Greenwood as Batman and John Di Maggio. A number of famous actors make appearances such as Jason Isaacs, Neil Patrick Harris, Jensen Ackles and Wade Williams.

The reason I love Batman is due to him being a dark superhero and one that is tormented by his past. I was sad in the 90's with lighter tone in Batman Forever and let's not talk further about Batman and Robin. So of course I was glad to see Nolan take it back towards its darker place where it belongs. Similarly Under the Hood for an animated film is very dark from the outset and definitely not suitable for kids.

I hope I don't get criticised for the lack of plot line I give in this review but I really don't want to give anything away, not even the first scene as that is epic in itself. What I will say and this won't ruin it is that there are two main antagonists. First is clearly the Joker and then secondly the Red Hood. A mysterious figure similar to Batman in wanting to stop the baddies, however he does not care how he does it or who dies in the process, even if this means Batman himself. He just is hell bent on ridding Gotham of its vile underworld. A number of other famous characters make appearances like Robin, Ra's al Ghul and of course Alfred.

One thing I like about Batman that The Dark Knight rises was lacking is the planning in the cave. The scenes where Batman is in his cave trying to solve mysteries, work out solutions and having discussions with Alfred and this is all her and plenty more. As expected it is a very short film at only 75 min in length but it is the right length in this case.

The ending is stunning and just simply leaves your jaw dropped and how great the dialogue is and the animation. The voice cast was perfect even without Conroy and Hamill and sometimes change can be a good thing as was proved here. I always try to look for disadvantages but I can't really in this case. Let me know if you can think of something you didn't like. Overall I think it is a great animated film and the best that has been produced on the dark knight so far.