Rise of the Black Bat

Director - Scott Patrick (Raiders of the Lost Shark)
Starring - Jody Haucke (My Fair Zombie), Richard Groen (Lord of the Onion Rings), and Dixie Collins (Iron Soldier)
Release Date - 2012
Genre - Action
Tagline - "Justice is blind...no more"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     My no horror January is still going but the end is now in sight.  This month has almost been maddening not watching a single horror flick.  Most of the month I have been watching sexploitation, vintage porn, and all around sleazy films.  Luckily, I have received some actual films to review that were not horror or porn.  One of those films was the Brett Kelly produced flick Rise of the Black Bat which is a super hero movie medley of other super heroes tossed into one.  The film is, in a way, a mockbuster that was sent my way by MVD several months back.  I knew nothing of the film before receiving it but I have to say that this was one that I was not excited about seeing.  After watching it, I was right to want to avoid it.  

     The film follows district attorney Tony Quinn (Haucke) who is trying to shut down the local crime boss.  The crime boss is on to him and has one of his goons toss acid in his eyes blinding him.  He thinks his career is over and settles to live the remainder of his life in a drunken stupor until he is a approached by a beautiful young woman who offers to has his eyes repaired in order for him to continue his work to bring down the crime boss.  The surgery to repair his eyes is a success but he can only see at night.  He decided to use his new vision to battle the forces of the mob while wearing a bat costume and using pistols in order to bring justice to the streets of the city.
     This movie was a huge breathe of fresh air after watching ugly bitches with afros between their legs take a pounding.  With that being said, the film was far from perfect and even further from being entertaining.  The film had no depth, no character development, and some of the worst action scenes I have ever seen.  The acting in this one is decent for an indie film but far from amazing or award winning.  The film's lead, Jody Haucke, was good at keeping character but was not the right fit for an intimidating district attorney and even further from being a convincing vigilante.  The remainder of the cast is a bit of a improvement over Haucke and his characters.  They are actually believable and very convincing.  The story for this one is a mashing of the comic book characters Daredevil and Batman which may sound amazing on paper but did not transfer well onto film.  Both characters are hugely popular and everyone knows about them and their origin stories so combining the two and tossing them into one movie feel cheap and not entertaining.  Finally, the film does have a few on screen kills but they are gun shot kills with computer generated images.  The kills are unimaginable and not very entertaining.  The film also uses computer generated images to shape the background and enhance the buildings and so forth which resulted in a cheap looking film.  Overall, Rise of the Black Bat is a forgettable film that has no humor and tries too hard to be something it will never be.  I recommend skipping over this one.