Equinox of Insanity - ‘Batman: Gotham Knight’ Review

‘Batman: Gotham Knight’ Review

Premise: A Batman animated film, produced by the creator of the great Batman: The Animated Series, done entirely in the style of Japanese anime.

I know what you’re thinking, “Sweeeeeeeet,” right?

WRONG!

First of all, this isn’t actually a film, it’s a series of short story vignettes that are loosely held together. Something that comes up in the third story, for example, is paid off at the end of the sixth, and stuff like that. Cohesion is minor, and there’s no real story arc to reel you in as a viewer.

Worse, most of the stories will bore the pants off you. I mean, your poo will literally try to crawl out of your anus to escape watching this thing. For example, the first story is about a bunch of kids sitting around telling stories about their supposed encounters with the Dark Knight, and at the end Batman actually shows up. Hmmm… wasn’t that the plot to one of the episodes of Batman: The Animated Series? It sucked the first time, but thanks.

In a weird move, they decided to have each story done in a completely different, though still very much anime, art style. As a result Batman looks totally different in each story, making it even more difficult to get into what you’re watching. This trick worked all right in The Animatrix, because there was almost no overlap between the stories, but here having each Batman look different really makes things tough. And, honestly, some of the Batmen look really bad.

– That’s supposed to be the same guy? Riiiiiiiiggggghhhht.

Yeah, so the first Batman is about 15 pounds overweight, the third Batman looks ridiculous, and the art in the forth Batman’s story is all-around terrible (plus he looks kinda like a pedophile). I wish they got the guys who did Heavy Metal to do some of the art. That would have been awesome.

In its defense, Batman: Gotham Knight features the voice work of the magnificent Kevin Conroy, who provided the voice for Batman in The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and The Justice League. To me, his voice is as much Batman’s as Peter Cullen’s is Optimus Prime’s.

I’ll also say this, the last story is by far the best, and actually pretty good to watch. Titled “Deadshot,” the story revolves around the notorious assassin Deadshot coming to Gotham to spill some blood, and the inevitable face off between him and the Batman. The characters are spot on, the story is interesting, the animation is great, and it is full of action. Honestly, if the whole film was like this the movie would have been a home-run. But, alas, it really, really is not.

– Batman fights Deadshot on a choo choo train!

I just feel like mentioning, too, that the stories here are clearly in the Nolan Batman Begins universe, and not the Bruce Timm animated universe, though they jump through some hoops to try and obscure that (for reasons I can only guess). I’m not surprised they did that, but it’s not really used all that effectively. Whatever.