Review of Batman: Year One (2011) by Ifiok O — 04 Jan 2013

Batman: Year One is what I consider to be one of my favorite Batman stories ever written, so this movie had the unenviable task of trying to live up to that graphic novel's reputation. While I felt the movie was pretty faithful to the source material, that unfortunately becomes the film's greatest weakness.

It's more of a copy and paste than an actual adaptation, so not many risks or liberties were taken by film makers in order to make for a real payoff. Add to the fact that the voice over narration makes the pacing a little clunky.

Speaking of which, the voice acting here is of poor quality from what we're used to hearing from DC Animated movies. Ben MacKenzie, who plays Batman in this, sounds like he's just reading his lines from pages in the script, in a bland monotone.

And while Bryan Cranston, does rather well, the overall quality from the voice cast is just not that good. It pains me to say this, but Batman: Year One is not a good adaptation, and you have been warned to just skip this one.