Batman: Gotham Knight Review
“I’m willing to put my life on the line to do what I have to. But it has to be mine, no one elses,” says Bruce Wayne on being Batman.
Coming out in conjunction with The Dark Knight is Batman: Gotham Knight; 6 animated shorts in one DVD film. A anthology directed by 6 different directors with animation inspired by Japanese Anime; we hear the voice of Kevin Conroy returning to his animated fame as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Have I Got A Story For You
Crossfire
Field Test
In Darkness Dwells
Working Through Pain
Deadshot
With writing talents such as Brian Azzarello, Alan Burnett, Jordan Goldberg, David S. Goyer, Josh Olson and Greg Rucka, Gotham Knight’s story comes to life with directors Yasuhio Aoki, Futoshi Higashide, Toshiyuki Kubooka, Hiroshi Morioka, Shujirou Nishimi and Jon-Sik Nam each bringing their own style to the DVD.
Just like everyone else my anticipation for The Dark Knight has been huge and upon hearing of the release of this DVD a couple of weeks before The Dark Knight I only became more excited. With The Dark Knight, Gotham Knight became one of my most anticipated direct to DVD’s this year right under Stargate Continuum. Now after seeing Gotham Knight was the big anticipation worth it? Unfortunately, No. It wasn’t and I’m disappointed.
To sum up my opinion of this film is a short comment; with the exception of Deadshot, this entire film is terribly boring.
Among other things each anthology was putting me to sleep and nothing exciting happened. They say it’s set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight but I honestly don’t see how. It hardly touches the surface to what Begins was and it basically showed completely useless backstory that I just want to forget especially in the Working Through Pain segment which I renamed Watching Through Crap. I can’t even say that the stories that were shown were character driven because nothing special was shown and what was shown was really bad and BORING! I can’t repeat it enough. On top of the boring movie was really horrible animation. I’ve always liked the Japanese animation but it really didn’t work in Gotham Knight. Batman looked terrible and not for nothing what’s with all the different designs. I understand that each anthology was to have a different style but it became so distracting after seeing 6 different versions of Batman and you can’t even reason that he was wearing different suits because even Bruce Wayne was a different animation in each segment. On of the greatest things about Christopher Nolan’s films is that they’re grounded in reality, as much as it could be for a comic book film. Gotham Knight is simply ridiculous especially with the In Darkness Dwells segment and the big lizard creature or whatever it was. The appearance of Scarecrow was also stupid… he was nothing like what was in Begins. This is supposed to be set in between the two live action films, isn’t it? Then why couldn’t they at least make Scarecrow the same from those movies.
Only two things redeemed Gotham Knight for me. First is the voice of Kevin Conroy. I thought it was a nice touch to ask him to return for this film. It makes the animation feel more legit if anything else. Second was the Deadshot segment. It was a good story with great exciting action, the way the entire film was supposed to be. Other than those reasons….. I got nothing else.
Gotham Knight turned out to be incredibly boring with bad animation redeemed with only one cool segment and the voice of Kevin Conroy. If it wasn’t for Deadshot I would have completely hated this film. If the segments could be sold separately I’d say get Deadshot otherwise Gotham Knight is a big disappointment. Even the images in this review are from Deadshot and as you can see, it looks cool. Too bad the rest of the film isn’t as cool. Overall I give this direct to DVD a 4 out of 10. At least the early word is The Dark Knight is incredible.
-Phil
How would you compare this to the very strong Mask of the Phantasm?
you suck
SBG, Mask of the Phantasm would be a 7.5 or an 8 compaired to this.
Chase, blame the filmmakers for making a big bag of crap.
Hey, i went out and brought Gotham Knight today, i just watched it and was hugely dissapointed with everything up to Deadshot, i completely agree with the different batman thing too, they should have just left it with one and suprise suprise, that one was the one in deadshot.
im a huge batman fan and even for batman i would not advise people to go out and buy this, wast of ten pounds aha.
and just when it got interesting, it was over!!! lol damn you idiots for this film!
This is the worst review I have ever read. That lizard thing is called Killer Croc. (which you would have known if you paid any attention to the film or were a Batman fan) The whole point of Gotham Knight was to bring together different animators and writers to work together to create different stories that link together. I’m sure they are sorry that they confused you. Please try to sound more intelligent when you write a review.
Hey Sean,
I really don’t care if you don’t like my review. The reason why I didn’t know it was Killer Croc is because one: the character is really lame and two: I was bored to tears, I must have fallen asleep.
You said, “the whole point of Gotham Knight was to bring together different…. blah blah.” I know that…. the point of my review and I know you understand what I wrote, is that I THINK IT SUCKED!
Everyone Sean’s comment is an example of an idiot. According to him, I’m not intelligent because I THINK, Gotham Knight sucked. This is my opinion, and if he liked it… thats great and I’m glad he liked it.
Look above his comment, Jamie didn’t like it either. It goes both ways and if your going to comment on this site about any subject, come to argue why YOU like it or YOU dislike it. Don’t come here to tell ME why my thoughts are wrong. You’ll hear my points, and I’ll hear your thoughts. We’ll either agree or disagree.
Well I agree with you in the sense that it was a disappointment, but I disagree with you about the animation. I think it was pretty good, specially the background art, in the other hand the stories were badly executed, it was just poor writing.
Guys, lets not fret over this petty shit… If the movie sucked for you, then it sucked for you… How other people felt about it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment/dislike for the movie…
Just be thankful that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale will make up for it on the 18th
The only good shorts were Working Through Pain and Deadshot. The prior for the story (and an excellent ending), the latter for just sheer action and entertainment with little to no story.
Field Test wasn’t bad, either, but it didn’t really have a purpose or give any interesting insight to the character most of us have grown to love–unless, of course, you didn’t know that Batman has no intention of killing people. On another note, Field Test sported a really generic anime-styled version of Bruce Wayne; I wasn’t impressed with that artist’s particular take on him. Still, it was vibrant and detailed, so saying that the animation was lackluster all the way through these segments (including Field Test) is just foolish. You’d have to be either blind or have no appreciation for good animation to say that, considering every segment (with the exception of the atrocious intro) dwarfs The Animated Series in the visual department. As much as I love TAS, the visuals are bland and dated.
Anyway, I disagree with this review on various points presented, but it’s obvious the reviewer isn’t familiar with the Batman universe (Killer Croc, not a giant lizard) and is incapable of really providing solid reasons to back up his opinions. My impression of the reviewer is someone who is simply incapable of enjoying something that isn’t throwing fight scenes and explosions at you in five second intervals.
Oh, and, Crossfire was also entertaining in the same way Deadshot was.
Lodey, you make a fine argument but all it is, is an opinion. The bottom line is, I disagree with almost everything you’ve said but I don’t even care anymore… Gotham Knight is old news and I still think it sucked. No opinion will change the fact that I really didn’t like this movie.
Take after Z3Ro…
IM A HUGE BATMAN FAN IVE SEEN EVERYTHING OFF HIM AND TO TELL YOU ALL THE TRUTH. IT SUCKED. ANIME FOR STARTERS ANIME IS FULL OF PERVERTS IVE SEEN IT. BUT TO MAKE A BATMAN ANIME IS REALLY PUSHING THE STULE OF BATMAN AWAY SCARECROW LOOKED GAY CROC WAS SUPPER GAY AND IT WAS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE POINTLESS AND RUBBISH. THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT IT WAS KEVIN KONROY. AND U WILL PROBLY DISAGREE SAYING IM RONG BUT I DONT CARE IF U LIKE THIS STYLE THEN U DONT UNDERSTAND DC AND BATMAN U JUST UNDERSTAND HORROR FILMS.
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