Review of Batman: Gotham Knight (2008) by Jonathan C — 28 Sep 2009

A strong, highly entertaining anthology of anime-styled animated shorts set somewhere in between Christopher Nolan's two Batman blockbusters. It's a lot of fun for a Bat-fan like myself, particularly having Kevin Conroy back as the voice of Batman and also getting to see some underrated characters in vibrant action who will probably never get their big screen versions fleshed out (I'm thinking of the super cool Deadshot and the legendary Killer Croc, a childhood favorite of mine).

The 6 stories aren't necessarily consistent in their entertainment or story quality, but none of them are terrible, and one thing I enjoyed was that the film used the 6 stories to highlight and emphasize different aspects of the Caped Crusader's moral code and psyche, much more so than some of the movies have even done.

Batman is a comic book character, and he works best in a wild, hyper-realistic form, so I've always been a fan of his animated adventures. While not as strong in the story department as "Mask of the Phantasm" and "Return of the Joker" as far as the animated Batman films go, this is rewarding entertainment for the Batman fanboy as well as those enjoy enjoy wild, gritty anime.