A Ryan's Review: Batman - Gotham Knight

[Nayrman]

What's this? A Batman anime? Well, for ten bucks (had a coupon, yay!) it can't be that bad. I mean, I know batman has been bad at times but he has yet to royally intercourse  up an animated show right? *pops in DVD* OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS SHIT!?!?!? *smashes disc with a baseball bat*
ALSO: PLEASE COMMENT! I write these to generate discussions on the topic/post my opinion! If anyone has a difference of opinion or agrees, PLEASE POST IT!

Batman: Gotham Knight


Premise: Well, the origional premise of this combination of shorts is to be a "bridge" between the excellence that was Batman Begins and the going to be equally as good Batman: The Dark Knight (July 18th). This wouldn't be a problem except for one thing. THIS ISN"T A BRIDGE! It's six random shorts about Batman. There is NOTHING connecting this to the recent theatrical movies of the caped crusader. In fact, the ONLY mention of the other movies is a very brief mention of the villain "Scarecrow", and even then he isn't a main focus. There is no point in advertising something as a "bridge" if it isn't one to begin with!

I also have a lot of problems with the "shorts" aspect of this DVD. Superhero's don't really work in shorts. Just a note, one of the studios who worked on this also did hte Animatrix, so you would think they'd know what they were doing, but apparently they don't. It's a series of six odd shorts that don't have much to do with anything. Superhero movies don't work if there is no plot...or at least no sensible plot (see: SPIDER-MAN 3).
Premise: 1/10 - None of the claims are true about this movie besides it being "short"


- How did something that sounded good go so wrong?

Characters: It's Batman, you've seen one, you've seen them all. Batman, Alfred, and Gordon show up, but that's it on the list of characters that we know of. It's very generic in terms of what the characters actually try to bring. Besides the breif Scarecrow cameo, there are a total of ZERO famous Batman villains. No Joker, no Mr. Freeze, no NOTHING. Everyone knows a superhero is only as good as his villains, and this movie fails at that. It's rather pitiful we don't even get a mention of good 'ol Jack, since he's the reason everyone is going to see the next movie.
Characters: 0/10 - No good villains = instant fail

Execution: Well, they did what they set out to do...sorta. They did do a whole bunch of shorts, but they're too short to have any sort of continuity. In fact, two of them are basically the same thing! Not to mention that pretty much all of these can be considered "non-canon" because they're so worthless. Using six different studios probably didn't help. I seriously just don't know what they were trying for. This will go down as one of the biggest missed opportunities in superhero history...ugh....
Execution: 3/10 - At least they got hte short thing down...each one is only about 12 minutes long

Performance/Animation: The only noticable thing about the performance is that Batman is done, once again, by Kevin Conroy, who has been the voice of animated Batman for ages now (starting with the early 90's Animated Series). He does a rather good job, sincce he's done it so much, but everyone else is half assed and it seems like they don't care. I understand why they didn't use the film actors, but still it would've been nice to try to emulate them.

As far as animation goes...I have only one thing to say about it. The animation...is...HORRIBLE. I think there was only one short where Batman looked normal, and the rest of the shorts look like they drew it and then splattered black or "crap" colors over EVERYTHING. It looks really bad, and some shorts look nothing like they should (espeically the last one...I thought it was the Crimson Chin instead of Batman...MIGHTY MANDABLE it looks wierd). It's odd they'd use such high quality studios and turn out this crap. It's rather pathetic. Even "Batman: The Animated Series" looks better the movie (cept that one short). I'm very dissappointed at this. Superhero movies can be bad, but they never LOOK bad...this is the first...
Performance/Animation: 2/10 - At least Conroy is as good as ever. We need good VA's like him in the world.

Entertainment: Virtually none if you're not a Batman fan...and even then this movie pushes your loyalties. It's boring, looks bad, and has NOTHING to do with the movies/anything considered canon. Frankly, and I'm going to go there, even the Naruto FILLERS make more sense than this movie. Frankly, it was a waste of ten bucks for me...so don't spend money for the DVD, let alone the Blu-Ray one (your eyes will BLEED if this is in high-def).
Entertainment: 1/10
Overall: 1/10

Explination in one sentence: "Batman - anything good + a whole lot of BULLSHIT = Batman: Gotham Knight"

Please comment, and I warn you to NEVER watch this movie...unless you're into really bad movies. Then might I interest you in "Batman and Robin"? Hell, even that looks like gold compared to this movie... X_X;;