Genre: Action/Superhero
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Wyatt Allen
Based on DC Comics characters and the animated series
Cast: Tanner Buchanan, Jason Isaacs, Donald Glover, Nonso Anozie, Kevin McKidd, Molly Parker, Alexa Demie, Amandla Stenberg, David Tennant
Plot: 2070 in Gotham City. High school student Terry McGinnis (Tanner Buchanan) sits in the subway on the way to school, while the monitor in the subway shows a report about Derek Powers(Jason Isaacs) the CEO of Powers Tech and probably the most influential person of Gotham. Suddenly a guy who is dressed like a clown enters the subway and decides to tag the subway walls with the sign of „The Jokerz“ a local street gang. He then starts to harass a women sitting nearby Terry and is asking her for money. Terry defends the woman and starts a fight with the guy until he manages to make him flee.
Dana Tan (Alexa Demie) is at her locker and is greeted by one of her friends Maxine Gibson (Amandla Stenberg). She is asking Dana if she would like to go get something to eat but Dana tells her that her boyfriend has wrestling practice and she would like to watch him practice first, but she would be in after that. Maxine wonders since when he’s been wrestling since Terry seems more like a karate kind of guy and Dana tells her it’s his first practice. They both go to the school’s gym where Terry is already wrestling another guy. The wrestling match is pretty even until Terry decides to mock his opponent because he is already as good as him on his first day which makes the opponent spit in his face. Terry reacts to this with a punch in the face of his opponent. The coach only sees the punch and suspends Terry from the wrestling team.
Warren McGinnis (Kevin McKidd) sits in his office and works on his computer, as he gets a call from his co-worker Harry Tully. Tully wants to meet him urgently because he has to tell him something very important. They meet outside of the Powers Tech Tower. Harry Tully is bathed in his sweat and seems very nervous. His arm is covered with weird dark spots. Tully gives Warren McGinnis an USB stick and tells him to take care of it for him. Warren has some questions for Tully but they get interrupted by Mr. Fixx (Nonso Anozie) who is Derek Powers’ personal assistant. Mr. Fixx reminds Warren McGinnis of his meeting with Mr. Powers. Harry Tully panics and tries to runaway but there suddenly is security everywhere that has no problems catching him. Mr. Fixx is telling Warren that they have to get Tully into the hospital because of an allergic reaction. Warren McGinnis goes to the office of his boss Derek Powers, where he is ensured once again that it only was an allergic reaction to an experiment they were doing and Harry Tully will be fine. Powers is asking McGinnis to keep everything that happened to Tully to himself. He also asks if Tully said anything about an USB stick and Warren lies to Powers and tells him he didn’t.
Back home Warren McGinnis puts the USB stick inside his computer and is shocked at what he sees. He is sure that Powers has gone crazy. His son Terry McGinnis comes into his dad’s room and is asking his father to go out tonight, but Warren tells him he is not going anywhere after what he did at the wrestling practice today. Terry is angry at his dad and they start to argue. It gets heated and Terry tells his dad he would be better off living with his mother. After that Terry leaves anyway.
Terry meets up with Dana at her place. They lay on her bed and Dana is painting her toenails while asking Terry if he likes the color. Terry doesn’t really give an answer and Dana senses that Terry is stressed out. She asks him if it’s about what happened at the wrestling practice today. Terry tells her that it really has nothing to do with it, it’s just that he feels so lost lately with everything and that’s why he is trying so many new things like wrestling. He says that every time he tries something new, he has that feeling that he is just wasting his time. Dana is really supportive of him and tells him he just needs to be patient and after a while he will find his place. Terry goes and tells her everything about the fight with his dad and Dana says that she can understand the perspective of Terry’s dad. Terry can’t understand how his girlfriend sides with his dad instead of him and leaves his girlfriend alone. Terry now walks around the upscale area his girlfriend and her parents are living in, as it’s already late at night. He overhears a group of people laughing and chatting around. It’s the Jokerz the local street gang and there a up to no good. Terry follows them carefully and sees them trying to break into a house. Terry comes out of his hiding place and tells them to stay away from the house. At the same moment the security system goes on and the Jokerz quickly escape. Robotic security guards catch Terry and make him out to be the burglar. Terry tells them he just wanted to help but they don’t react to anything he says. A man (Donald Glover) shows up and tells Terry his inventions are never wrong. Terry says that this time they are wrong, because he didn’t do anything. The man tells them the guards will bring him inside and then he will have a look at his security camera and if he sees anything that could get Terry in trouble, he will call the police.
They go inside and it turns out that Terry did nothing wrong. The man introduces himself as Jace Fox and he apologizes to Terry for everything and offers him something to drink but Terry tells him it’s already pretty late and he has to be home soon. Jace Fox says he at least will pay him his taxi so he can get home safely. Terry accepts the offer. On his way out he sees a black suit laying around with a red bat on it. Terry asks Jace Fox what the purpose of the suit is and Fox tells him that his grandfather used to work for Batman. This suit was the last thing he started to work on but he never got to finish it. As an inventor himself, Jace took huge pride in finishing the last idea of his grandfather. Terry is really interested in the suit but Fox tells him his cab already arrived.
While sitting inside the self-driving taxi car Terry phones his girlfriend Dana and apologizes to her for his behavior earlier that night. The car finally arrives at Terry’s place and Terry already sees a lot of police cars around the place. He runs up the hallway where Jokerz graffiti is all over the place. He goes inside the apartment where his mother Mary McGinnis (Molly Parker) is already being comforted by police officers. When Mary sees her son, she hugs him while she starts to cry. A police officer explains to Terry that his father Warren McGinnis was murdered. The main suspects are the Jokerz.
A couple days later at the Funeral of Warren McGinnis. A lot of people are there to pay their last respects to Warren and offer their condolences to his remaining family. Even Derek Powers is there, he made sure that everything is paid for, with the intention of showing that he cares for his employees. He also loudly declares that he won’t rest until the guilty get what they deserve.
Terry is sleeping at his mother’s and little brother’s place for now. He opens up to his mother how his last words with his father were in an argument and that things would have been different if he would have just listened to his father and had stayed at home. But his mother tells him she is glad he wasn’t there. Telling him that who knows what would’ve happened to him. Terry brings all of his things over and moves to his mother’s place permanently. His little brother Matt is helping him to bring over his stuff. Suddenly Matt stumbles upon something laying on the ground which brings him to fall down with everything he is carrying. A framed picture of Terry and their father gets destroyed in the process. Matt is very sorry but Terry tells him it’s ok, he will just buy a new frame. When Terry picks up the destroyed frame he notices there is an USB stick hidden inside of it. A couple hours later, when he is alone in his new room he inserts the USB into his PC. He is not completely sure if he understands all of it, but he at least can tell that Powers is up to no good and Terry’s father Warren knew about it.
The school is worried about Terry’s well-being and so they send him to the school psychologist Ira Billings (David Tennant). Billings wants Terry to open up and to express his feelings but Terry is visibly annoyed by Billings’ questions and just wants the session to end. Billings thinks that Terry should stay at home atleast a week before returning to school. And speaking of home, Billings also asks Terry if his mother lives in a bigger house than his father was, which makes Terry look at him confused. After being allowed to stay at home for a week, Terry finally returns to go to school. When Terry meets Dana at the hallway, she asks him if there is anything she could do to help him, even if it’s just to help him distract himself from the situation. Terry thanks Dana for being there for him and tells her he will be fine, but he needs a drive to one of his friends who lives pretty close to Dana. Dana says that she can drive him to his friend.
Dana drops Terry in front of Jace Fox’s house off. Terry rings the doorbell and Jace lets him in. He tells him everything that has happened and Jace wants to take a look at it. He shows Terry his basement which is filled with technology, they take a look at the data on the USB stick together. Jace is pretty sure Powers tries to make nerve gas and will probably try to sell it for a profit. Terry wants them to do something about it, but Fox tells him there is nothing they can do. Best chance is to inform the police and hope they figure it out. This wasn’t the response Terry was hoping for. He is devastated and storms out of Jace’s basement. On his way out he sees that black suit with the red bat on it that he saw on the first time in Jace’s house, again. He notices Jace isn’t around and puts the suit inside his backpack. He leaves the house.
After being in safe distance from Jace Fox’s house, Terry puts on the batsuit and tries it out. He finds himself having superhuman strength and agility which makes it easy for him to lift off a parking car close to him. He also finds batarangs and grappling guns in it, but wonders if the suit is bulletproof. Terry uses his grappling hook to move fast through the city where he lands on the Powers Tech Tower. From there he spies on a customer meeting Derek Powers has with a client. We see inside the building. Derek Powers is showing his client how the nerve gas works on a rat. Within a very short time, dark spots spread over the rat’s fur until the rat dies. The client is asking if Powers had the chance to test his nerve gas on a human. Powers shows him pictures of Harry Tully. On the first picture Tully only has the dark spots on his arm, but in the second one his body is completely covered with dark spots. Powers explains to him that it basically operates the same way on humans, but it takes longer. The client is very excited and expects an immediate delivery. Powers tells him they will send it to him as quick as possible. They shake hands and the client leaves the room. Powers asks Mr. Fixx who has been in the room the whole time, if he has any news about the USB stick that went missing. He thinks that Warren McGinnis’ son might be problematic if he finds the data. Mr. Fixx calms Powers down, he tells him that he teenager doesn’t even know what to do with these type of information and at worst Fixx will take care of him just like he took care of his father. Fixx also mentions that he sprayed Jokerz graffiti all over the crime scene to lure the police on the wrong track.
Terry tells himself he knew it couldn’t have been the Jokerz that killed his father, just as he gets spotted by the Powers-Security guards. They shoot at him and he glides away from the building. Powers gets informed that Batman was sighted, or atleast someone that looks like him. Terry flees into a parking lot where he fights the security guards. Suddenly a voice is noticeable, it comes from the suit. It’s Jace Fox, who tells him that his computer is connected to the batsuit and he can see everything that Terry does. He also tells him it was a dumb idea to steal the suit and even dumber to put it on, as Terry is not qualified to act like a superhero and it’s too dangerous for him. He wants Terry to bring it back. Terry explains to him that this is very bad timing, while still fighting with the security guards. Suddenly the batsuit starts to vibrate and Terry is not able to move. Fox explains to him he just made use of the emergency button, which he installed incase the suit ever gets into wrong hands. Terry begs him to turn it off, as the security guards beat him up. Fox watches a completely helpless Terry for a while until he decides to turn it off again. Terry manages to fight off the guards, but there are already more on their way. Jace Fox looks up the blueprints of the parking lot online and helps Terry to escape. After Terry is safe, Fox again wants Terry to bring back the batsuit, but Terry tells him he still has to stop the man who is responsible for his father’s death. Terry waits on Fox’s answer but he still seems to think about it. Then Fox explains to him where to go to stop Powers, which makes Terry grin.
Terry is hiding close to the ceiling of the warehouse where Powers and his people are moving nerve gas canisters into a cargo airship. It doesn’t take long until the security guards find Terry. Terry glides down and tries to fight them all off. Mr. Fixx starts to shoot at him, but Terry moves to quick and clever for Fixx. Powers takes the gun away from Mr. Fixx and now starts to shoot at Terry. Who can deflect most of the bullets with his batarang but he misses one that directly hits him in the chest area. He looks down to his chest and can now be sure that his batsuit is in fact bullet proof, because the bullet wouldn’t go through it.. Powers is shooting around wildly without thinking about the possibility of shooting something he is not supposed to hit. Terry is moving closer to Powers, who hasn’t stopped shooting at everything. He suddenly shoots a canister filled with nerve gas, pretty close to him. The gas is spreading right around Powers and dark spots are spreading on his body. Fox screams at Terry to quickly get out of there. Terry can escape with the help of his grappling hook.
Meanwhile Mr. Fixx is at the wheel of the cargo airship and is about to take off. Terry uses the grappling hook to hang on to it and to enter it. Inside of the cargo air ship Terry is fighting off more security guards, making his way to the cockpit. To his surprise he finds the airship is on autopilot. Mr. Fixx hits him from behind with an electric brass knuckle. The two get into a fight in which is Terry is slightly inferior. Mr. Fixx tells him, that he doesn’t fight bad at all for a clown who thinks he is Batman. Whereupon Terry wrestles him down and screams at his face: "I AM BATMAN". Batman hits Fixx so hard that he rams into the control unit, which makes the autopilot fail. The cargo airship is out of control and Batman can just escape. The airship and Mr. Fixx fall with the whole load of nerve gas into the sea.
Terry shows up at Jace Fox’s house to finally bring the suit back. Jace Fox tells him he already informed the police and they are now trying to recover the airship. Terry hands him the suit and Fox thinks for a moment and then gives it back to Terry. He tells him he was wrong earlier that day. Gotham needs a new savior, a new Batman and Terry is the best Gotham could hope for and he also loves that his grandfather’s final inventions finally is in use. Terry is happy to hear that and asks if Fox has anymore of those inventions he wants to show him. Fox tells him he made some plans for a flying batmobile a while ago as they both make their way to Fox’s basement.
Post-Credit scene: Derek Powers lays on an operating table surrounded by people in protective suits. One of them tells Powers that they were able to keep him alive through radiation therapy but there is one drawback. Powers stands up and turns into the greenshining translucent monster Blight.
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