"Nightwing: The Darkest Knight" is a Canadian short film that runs for over 20 minutes and was released during the holidays 2015, so it is a bit over 4 years old now. The director is Matthew Campbell and he is also one of three writers working on the script here. Another one from this trio is also part of the cast and this is really something not too unusual for fan films. Maybe it is slightly more unusual that Campbell himself is not in front of the camera here taking into account that he has acted in films before already. In fact, he has apparently worked in pretty much every field of film production, most of all the art department. So I already said that this is a fan movie and I would say if I rated it as a fan film, the outcome is good enough. But by general standards (and it has to be that, for this is not the imdb fan film database), I do not recommend the watch. I think this film was at its best early on and the epilogue was nice as well. It was more during these more showy moments when I was not too impressed. One of these would be the scene when the main character meets Harley Quinn relatively early and tortures her to get valid information about the death of a loved one. The second aspect would be the final fight sequence with the main character taking on Batman himself. Now that was unexpected. Batman was almost the main antagonist in this film and you don't see that too often. However, I did not appreciate the idea of Grayson really being able to defeat Batman, especially as he was basically down and out before his triumphant comeback. Did not feel realistic to me at all. I mean I know this is a fantasy film, but still. So I just mentioned Dick Grayson (Nightwing) and he is really a character that I have seen at the core of the story on several fan films taking place in Gotham, perhaps because the character has not been overused by Burton, Nolan and the others. Same reason may apply if we take a look at the antagonists here. No Joker, no bane, no Penguin, no Scarecrows.. Again, with the exception of Harley, they go again for the lesser known characters and also Suicide Squad (with Quinn/Robbie) happened in 2016, i.e. after this one here. Overall, I am not a fan of the outcome. There were okay moments and it is definitely not on failure territory, but all in all I have to give the outcome here a thumbs-down. Only worth seeing for the very biggest Batman fans.I must say I also do not like the superlative in the title. If they include something like that, they have to come up with better quality and especially seeing three people in charge of the script here, it feels like a bit of an example of too many cooks spoiling the brother. Quantity does not equal quality in this very case. Watch something else instead.
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