The Dark Knight himself.
The film is set to take place between the one year gap of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but casual Batman fans can enjoy this DVD without having seen either film. While set in the Nolan universe, these stories can take place anywhere within the Batman mythos. It gives the films a feeling that is reminiscent of the old “Legends of the Dark Knight” comics that ran from 1989-2007. Continuity isn’t necessarily important, but these stories have add a sense of “timelessness” to Batman.
The stories were written by a team of Batman veterans that comic book fans will recognize including David S. Goyer, Greg Rucka, Brian Azzarello, and Alan Burnett.
Animation enthusiasts will recognize some of the voice actors in the film. Kevin Conroy, who voiced Batman in the DC Animated Universe returns to portray the Dark Knight in the films. Rob Paulson (no, not the character that was ruthlessly murdered in Fight Club), who is probably best known as Yakko from Animaniacs, lends his voice to Gotham Mafioso Sal Maroni. Other voice actors include Corey Burton and Scott Menville, who are veterans to DC Animation productions, portray many minor characters throughout the film. Their performances were impressive and convincing, but the other voice actors sounded like typical anime and action cartoon voice actors. It’s like they’re still on the sound stage of He-Man, and no one’s told them that it’s been off the air for quite some time.
Sal Maroni attempts to court a woman by singing the theme song to Animaniacs.
The folks that wrote and produced the film decided to go for the full anime package. They sent scripts to the studios in Japan and dubbed in the voices after the animation to give it that full anime-imported effect. You would think that they would record the voices first and then have the sequences animated to produce an a more crisp lip sync, saving time not only for the animators, but the voice actors that have to sync up with the mouth flaps as well. But again, they wanted to give the full anime treatment, dubbing and all.
On the topic of bad dubbing, the shorts “In Darkness Dwells” and “Deadshot” by MADHOUSE Inc. is full of it. The way everyone’s mouth is opening, it looks like they’re constantly yelling even though they may be whispering. Despite this, however, these are the most well written and most visually impressive vignettes, minus the copious amounts of CGI. What I liked most about these segments was the solid black shadowing on the characters. It creates a feel of comic books that have come to life. The Scarecrow in “In Darkness Dwells” actually looks frightening, as well. You’d be surprised at how difficult that is to pull off.In the MADHOUSE shorts, Batman is also the least responsible I may have ever seen him. While fighting Killer Croc in “In Darkness Dwells,” Batman puts a bomb inside his mouth and the bomb leaves Croc’s head severely misshapen. Later, the Dark Knight needs to escape the sewers and decides the best way to do so is to ignite methane gas, blow the sewers up, and ride through a pipe like it’s a water slide while fleeing a giant stone statue’s head that is rolling at him whilst protecting a priest at the same time. In “Deadshot,” Batman also gets understandably angry at Deadshot after Deadshot shoots at him. Batman decides to teach Deadshot a lesson by smashing his head against the brick columns that support the tunnel a 60mph train is riding through. Batman fights his battles like I play Call of Duty: recklessly and dangerously overaggressive.
Batman: “And that was the last time I saw Killer Croc…”
“Field Test” by Bee Train was my least favorite vignette. It’s a “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” story that rehashes some of the uninteresting Batman stories we’ve seen a million times. Bruce Wayne looks like he’s sixteen years old, and Batman’s cowl looks like an NFL helmet with extra padding. The characters look as if they’ve walked out of a Yu-Gi-Oh! episode. And Bruce Wayne’s blinking is so distracting that you may miss valuable plot information.
The first segment, “Have I Got a Story for You” by STUDIO4° C stood out. The short focuses on four kids telling the same story about Batman, with Batman imagined by the children as being either a mysterious shadow creature, Man-Bat, or a robot. The artwork is reminiscent of “The Dark Knight Returns,” even to the point that one child is wearing 1980’s new wave glasses.
Batman: Gotham Knight is definitely worth checking out at least once for both Batman fans and anime fans. There are certainly worse ways to spend an hour and a half, say with loved ones or reading an Alan Moore story.
*Batman: Gotham Knight is distributed by Warner Home Video.
- Fallettus
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