Review of Batman: Gotham Knight (2008) by Trystan C — 23 Jul 2012

With how ridiculously excited I am for seeing The Dark Knight this Friday, naturally I went out and bought this six-film anthology billed as the bridge between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight the day it came out. Not only that but it's writing roster includes some of the best writers working in comics today, as well as David Goyer, scribe of both Begins and Knight.

So, with all this talent, and three of the best animation houses in Japan, why the meager 3 star rating? Well, it's a number of things. While the fight sequences are fantastic, gorgeously animated and incredibly exciting, the stories of the separate shorts are not. "Crossfire," the second one, is a terribly boring look at two cops who the average viewer would not know from the comics. These cops bitch and moan about Batman until he ultimately saves their asses from a gang shoot-out. And then it's over. On the flipside of that, "Deadshot," the final short, is fantastic and straightforward: world famous assassin, Deadshot, has come to Gotham to off Commissioner Gordon and Batman has to stop him. A+B=Awesome.

The real problem with Gotham Knight is that when it shines, it really shines, and when it sucks, it blows too. It is certainly worth seeing, especially with the return of Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as the voice of Batman, but one can't help but wonder how great this could have been had it been one 76-minute animated film instead of six animated shorts.