While fans wait for the Dark Knight’s next live-action adventure, they can dig into a new animated flick called Batman: Bad Blood. When Batwoman (voiced by Yvonne Strahovski) appears on the scene, this doesn’t make Batman (Jason O’Mara) happy, as he feels she lacks the necessary crime-fighting skills and also relies too much on deadly weaponry.

After one encounter with baddies, though, Batman goes missing – and possibly dead - and that leaves a hole in Gotham’s ability to combat villains. Into this void, Nightwing (Sean Maher) and Robin (Stuart Allan) step up their activities. Batwoman takes on a lot of the battle as well – and a newcomer named Batwing (Gaius Charles) also enters the fray. We follow their efforts to fight various villains as well as attempts to locate Batman.

A Batman movie essentially without Batman seems like a dicey proposition, but Bad Blood manages to create reasonable entertainment. In some ways, I like the focus on the secondary heroes, and the film allows them to get more time to shine.

That said, Blood can suffer from “too many cooks” syndrome. Perhaps in an effort to compensate for the film’s absence of its title character, Blood spreads pretty thin. Not only do we get a bunch of heroes, but we find subplots related to a mix of villains.

Some of these story areas work reasonably well, and they add more depth than expected to the tale, but they simply don’t get enough real estate to flourish. Blood runs a mere 72 minutes, so that doesn’t leave a lot of time to explore all its character and narrative elements. This means we wind up with snapshots of the various areas that don't have the time to really explore the themes.

Despite those issues, Bad Blood entertains, largely because it boasts very good action scenes. The movie packs a real punch in that regard, as it invests the tale with lively, vivid sequences. These compensate for the lack of story and character depth.

All of this results in an erratic but mostly good film. I’d like a version of Bad Blood that gets the chance to explore its characters and plot elements in better detail, but Blood still delivers enough excitement to succeed.

Batman: Bad Blood appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. From start to finish, the movie showed nice visuals.

Sharpness excelled. The movie always came across as tight and well-defined, so don’t expect any signs of softness. Jaggies and moiré effects also remained absent, and the image lacked edge haloes or artifacts. In addition, print flaws were a non-factor and didn’t appear at any point.

In terms of colors, Blood went with a dark palette that favored blues and subdued hues. The tones looked solid, as they showed positive richness and vivacity. Blacks were deep and tight, while shadows showed nice clarity. Across the board, the image worked well.

I thought the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Blood opened up the comic book material well. The forward channels brought out the majority of the audio, but the entire package added a lot to the movie. Music presented strong stereo imaging, while effects cropped up in logical spots and blended well.

The surrounds also contributed good information. For the most part, these reinforced the forward channels, but they also contributed a fair amount of unique material. These instances mainly occurred during storms or bigger action scenes. The back speakers brought out a nice sense of space and environment.

Audio quality always satisfied. Speech was warm and natural, without edginess or other issues. Music sounded lively and full, while effects displayed good definition. Those elements seemed accurate and dynamic. All of this led to a positive presentation that deserved a “B+”.

A smattering of extras complete the Blu-ray. Putting the Fight in Gotham runs 26 minutes, 26 seconds and includes comments from director Jay Oliva, producer James Tucker, live action stunt coordinator Damon Caro, comic book historian Alan Kistler, and DC Entertainment Creative Director Mike Carlin. “Fight” examines the action aspects of Batman programs, with an emphasis on the battle choreography found in this movie. That’s an interesting topic and “Fight” presents a good examination of the subject.

Expanding the Batman Family lasts 13 minutes, 46 seconds and features Carlin, Kistler, Oliva, and Tucker. “Expanding” examines the secondary crime-fighters under the Batman umbrella. This one offers a nice overview of how Bat-sidekicks evolved over the decades.

We also get two episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. We see “The Knights of Tomorrow!” (23:07) and “The Criss Cross Conspiracy!” (22:49). As expected, these boast some connection to the story/characters of Blood. “Knights” looks at an alternate version of Damian Wayne, and “Criss” includes a Batwoman story.

The Bold episodes take on a comedic/campy feel that I wouldn’t like in live-action but that seems fun in TV animated form. The series can be up and down, but I mostly enjoy the wackier orientation. “Knights” delivers the more enjoyable experience, as it gives us a fun alternate universe tale. “Criss” isn’t as good, but it’s still entertaining.

The disc opens with ads for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Lego Justice League: Cosmic Clash. Trailers also provides a “sneak peek” at Justice League vs. Teen Titans and a promo for Suicide Squad.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Bad Blood. It includes the trailers but no other extras.

As an animated adventure, Batman: Bad Blood offers a decent experience. I don’t think it excels – partly due to too many characters and too many plot points – but it boasts enough excitement to keep us with it. The Blu-ray provides solid picture and audio as well as a handful of supplements. This winds up as a fairly enjoyable Batman flick.