Amanda Waller sends the Suicide Squad to retrieve a thumb drive hidden in the Riddler's cane in Arkham Asylum. Batman gets in their way.

That's the plot for this animated feature, which should probably have "Suicide Squad" in the title, rather than "Batman." It doesn't make a lot of sense, since a government agency probably has the authority to retrieve sensitive government information without using violent criminals or sanctioning a whole lot of unnecessary killing to do it. Similarly, if someone had bothered to tell Batman what they were doing, he probably would have helped.

But I guess they needed a plot, and this is what they came up with.

This Suicide Squad adventure tries to be as edgy as a PG-13 rating will allow. So, expect a little implied sex and some subtle cartoon nudity among female characters, and lots of bloodshed, which means a lot of innocent employees -- guards, orderlies and the like -- die so the squad can reach its goal. Some members of the squad die, too, although I'm not sure how much that will affect canon in the comics or movies.

Batman is more of an afterthought, an additional obstruction to their aims, although they shoehorn in a side plot about a dirty bomb hidden somewhere in Gotham by the Joker -- who, apparently, didn't care if it killed him, too. I assume Batman is there mostly because, in 2014, the studio wasn't sure the Suicide Squad could carry a title on its own. Now they know better.

The vocal cast includes Kevin Conroy, a perennial favorite as Batman, plus Neal McDonough as Deadshot, Hynden Walch as Harley Quinn, Greg Ellis as Captain Boomerang, Troy Baker (doing his best Mark Hamill impression) as Joker, Giancarlo Esposito as Black Spider, Jennifer Hale as Killer Frost, John DiMaggio as King Shark (very different from the character's iteration in The Suicide Squad in 2021), CCH Pounder as Waller and Matthew Gray Gubler as Riddler.

The movie is surprisingly short -- just a little over an hour -- but the animation is solid and the story is entertaining enough to pass the time. It's not great cinema, but it does what it came to do.