Meet Slade Wilson – a mercenary with a tiny, tiny heart of gold…

The latest DC Animation tries to give a new spin on the character of Deathstroke – who at one point was going to be the villain of the Ben Affleck Batman movie, and has turned up in various small screen guises in recent times. The most important thing to say about this new film is that Michael Chiklis nails the part; the second most important thing to say is that some of the action sequences are excellent.

The rest – the dialogue, the characterisation and the plot – sadly are not. Author J.M. DeMatteis has been around the block enough times (and is responsible for some of my favourite stories from the time I was reading Marvel comics) to know that this shouldn’t have become the superhero soap opera – with added blood and gore – that it is. The Knights and Dragons don’t indicate that this is throwing a noir-ish superhero into fantasyland – no, they reference the story that Deathstroke tells his kid.

There’s elements of The Punisher about Deathstroke, but Deadpool deconstructed so many of the tropes in both the comic books and then in his two movies that seeing them played straight doesn’t work half as effectively as it could.

Verdict: Originally intended as episodes of a TV show for CW Seed, this probably would have worked better in those smaller doses; it all becomes a little too repetitive. 5/10

Paul Simpson

 

 

 

Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons is out NOW on digital download and arrives August 17th on Blu-Ray™ and DVD. Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk