You remember Escape from NY (or its descendant/sequel Escape from LA)? In that you had Snake Plissken given the task of going into the deadly terrain new New York City in the year 1997 (yeah it was back in the day), but before Plissken, an arch criminal and once decorated war hero, could go into the City he was given a certain drug/device which would kill him if he didn't complete his task. Of course the stakes got raised in the film, but it wouldn't have worked if it had been some other character who was less of a bad-ass, or one who you didn't believe when they turn to the guy sending him on the message and say "When I come back, I'm going to kill you." Assault on Arkham is basically that story with about 7 or 8 more criminals (I forget how many, the list is quite long), and they all make up what's dubbed the "Suicide Squad", which has been a thing in the comics for a while and will be a feature film in summer 2016.
This may actually work as a strong primer for that film, and I have to wonder if the story will be able to trump this if only on the basis of the directness of the mission: Amanda Waller puts this group together (it's uncertain if they've worked together before but my guess is an emphatic no) and they are fit with explosive devices in their neck. They will activate if they - including people like Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang (that's his name, no, really), King Shark, Black Spider and Killer Frost (maybe that's it, I might be forgetting someone) - don't retrieve a device that Edward Nygma has in his cane that could be a thing that has that MacGuffin ring to it. In other words, get the object in Arkham 'undercover' and get out. Of course the twist is that this group can't really do it that way, since they are rough bastards and killers and mercenaries and psychos (the funniest of the lot being Harley Quinn, or just the most unpredictable by way of being Joker's former fling, which comes into play in this story).
I haven't mentioned Batman yet because he is actually a supporting character here - why he is on the DVD box-art is, I assume, because people like King Shark and Killer Frost are basically total unknowns (there's even a threat/taunt from one character to another as a "C-Lister"), and most people wouldn't purchase it unless the main attraction got featured. But Batman does play a role that serves as... well, someone has to stop the madness that Arkham will release, right? The fun and entertainment of the story comes from this group, and the twists and turns that the story invariably takes; what is Nygma *really* up to; does the Joker really have a dirty bomb; can electro-shock treatment really undo the buzzers that will kill the Squad; how many ice puns can be thrown about (actually, it's just one, but the reaction of one character to the pun is about perfect as possible).
There's some wonderful action and intense fights, a relatively new (very good) replacement for Mark Hammil as the voice of the Joker, and maybe just a little too much in the way of being so edgy to get a PG-13 (the language is somewhat expected, not so much the sex, but hey whatever, kids gotta learn sometime). The only downside is that the story, despite having these fun stakes and it being a Dirty Dozen plot, doesn't make as much of a lasting impression as other stories with villains (Under the Red Hood and the Return of the Joker come to mind). Assault on Arkham thankfully doesn't resemble a video game as far as animation - that is left to the consoles - but when one steps back it kind of doesn't seem as sharp as it might have been, despite (or because of) the twists and turns, which seem a little obvious in retrospect. And unless you're Harley Quinn or Deadshot, most of the characters are forgettable, and clearly a character like Killer Frost or King Shark seem like obvious nods(maybe so obvious as to border on satire?) to Mr. Freeze and Killer Croc.
All the same, it gives you some entertainment for 75 minutes and it has meaty, badass dialog in spurts. If you're a hardcore fan of Suicide Squad stories perhaps it'll be the bees knees. For the casual comics fan it's a brisk, bloody primer - and I do mean bloody (they push that PG-13 for all its worth, and I imagine after Deadpool this will be R-rated stuff some day, but I digress).
This may actually work as a strong primer for that film, and I have to wonder if the story will be able to trump this if only on the basis of the directness of the mission: Amanda Waller puts this group together (it's uncertain if they've worked together before but my guess is an emphatic no) and they are fit with explosive devices in their neck. They will activate if they - including people like Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang (that's his name, no, really), King Shark, Black Spider and Killer Frost (maybe that's it, I might be forgetting someone) - don't retrieve a device that Edward Nygma has in his cane that could be a thing that has that MacGuffin ring to it. In other words, get the object in Arkham 'undercover' and get out. Of course the twist is that this group can't really do it that way, since they are rough bastards and killers and mercenaries and psychos (the funniest of the lot being Harley Quinn, or just the most unpredictable by way of being Joker's former fling, which comes into play in this story).
I haven't mentioned Batman yet because he is actually a supporting character here - why he is on the DVD box-art is, I assume, because people like King Shark and Killer Frost are basically total unknowns (there's even a threat/taunt from one character to another as a "C-Lister"), and most people wouldn't purchase it unless the main attraction got featured. But Batman does play a role that serves as... well, someone has to stop the madness that Arkham will release, right? The fun and entertainment of the story comes from this group, and the twists and turns that the story invariably takes; what is Nygma *really* up to; does the Joker really have a dirty bomb; can electro-shock treatment really undo the buzzers that will kill the Squad; how many ice puns can be thrown about (actually, it's just one, but the reaction of one character to the pun is about perfect as possible).
There's some wonderful action and intense fights, a relatively new (very good) replacement for Mark Hammil as the voice of the Joker, and maybe just a little too much in the way of being so edgy to get a PG-13 (the language is somewhat expected, not so much the sex, but hey whatever, kids gotta learn sometime). The only downside is that the story, despite having these fun stakes and it being a Dirty Dozen plot, doesn't make as much of a lasting impression as other stories with villains (Under the Red Hood and the Return of the Joker come to mind). Assault on Arkham thankfully doesn't resemble a video game as far as animation - that is left to the consoles - but when one steps back it kind of doesn't seem as sharp as it might have been, despite (or because of) the twists and turns, which seem a little obvious in retrospect. And unless you're Harley Quinn or Deadshot, most of the characters are forgettable, and clearly a character like Killer Frost or King Shark seem like obvious nods(maybe so obvious as to border on satire?) to Mr. Freeze and Killer Croc.
All the same, it gives you some entertainment for 75 minutes and it has meaty, badass dialog in spurts. If you're a hardcore fan of Suicide Squad stories perhaps it'll be the bees knees. For the casual comics fan it's a brisk, bloody primer - and I do mean bloody (they push that PG-13 for all its worth, and I imagine after Deadpool this will be R-rated stuff some day, but I digress).