Batman: Gotham Knight

Just before the release of the masterpiece, The Dark Knight, Warner Brothers decided to follow the success of what they did with the AniMatrix, releasing a DVD of short Anime films. I was disappointed by AniMatrix, which was marketed essential viewing before seeing the second two Matrix films. They were a damp squib and only one of the shorts had anything to do with the main films. But luckily I quite enjoyed Batman Gotham Knight.

Batman Gotham Knight is six short film, around 12 minutes long, telling different stories about the Dark Knight. One includes a very interesting one about some skater teenagers saying they saw Batman, and came up with three very different versions of what Batman is. That short was good, and that was the weakest one as well. Other stories include Batman fighting against the Russian and Italian Mafia who are in the middle of a gang war, fighting the sewers against Scarecrow and Killer Croc, testing a new bit of equipment, a flashback story set in India and stopping Deadshot killing Lt. Gordon. My personal favourites out of the shorts are Working Through Pain and Deadshot, both telling good stories, and wonderfully action packed.

Batman Gotham Knight was marketed as a number of shorts set in-different the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. To me it felt more Christopher Nolan's films were more an influence then directly linked. Another influence must have been the great 90s animated series, with Kevin Conroy reprising his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman. The direction and the art is so wonderful to, I love anime and I like it when American and Japanese ideas are combined together. The storytelling and action is excellent. There are detailed character designs, like in Working Through Pain you got a real scene of India and young Bruce Wayne looked and fought like Bruce Lee. There are top writers and directors working on the shorts, including David S. Goyer, the writer of Batman Begins and the Dark Knight. Like the Nolan Batmans, the shorts try to shot a dark, more unpleasant Gotham, in a realistic city. There is corruption, and crime from low level thugs to organised crime leaders. Batman here is a symbol of hope and change for the city. The storytellers also try to take a more grounded view of the villains, even trying to make Killer Croc a little more believable (i.e. not a mutated crocodile).

Unlike the AniMatrix, the stories are interlinked in some way, making the shorts as a whole stronger, more like a good TV series. They are recurring themes like the gang war.

If I had to complain, I would have like to have seen more. I would have liked the shorts to have been longer, like 20 to 30 minutes. I think this level of animation and storytelling could, and should work as a excellent TV series, with a more adult audience because of the themes and violence.

Worth watching if you can get it at a good price.

Batman: Gotham Knight is an anthology of six Batman stories with a Japanese Anime style.

It has been influenced by Batman Begins and The Dark Knight with the cartoon opting for a darker tone.

The first story are a group of skater kids recalling stories of their encounters with Batman, which all differ.

The last is Batman taking on Deadshot hoping to put his own past to rest.

Given the nature of six short stories it does zip along well before anyone gets bored.

However it comes across as a minor piece. This would had been evident if anyone watched The Dark Knight which was released in the same year.

This movie uses the good and original concept of picking 6 different short stories done by different directors and animation style and put them all back to back on one DVD. It's a welcome addition to the still ever growing Batman franchise.

The variation in story and style of course ensures that every short is a special and interesting one in its own way. It doesn't really get distracting that the animation style for each short story changes. Each short can be watch as one separately from the others but it's also good to watch back to back, even though the stories get hardly connected to each other. The movie doesn't have a constant chronological order and each story is about something different and features also different characters.

The first shorts don't really focus on the Batman character himself but more on the other people in Gotham and how they see him and think about him. The others are still purely about Batman though and his fight against evil. There is a nice balance between the first shorts and the later ones.

Of course not all of the shorts are as good as the others and the quality of them variates between great and entertaining to just plain boring. But overall it just purely entertains. Some of the shorts are also really spectacular to watch with its action and violence involved. I wish some of the shorts were a bit longer, since the stories felt like they had even more potential to be developed more.

Because they are shorts, the story and character development remain very restrained. This is obviously the problem with basically every short movie that ever gets made. It's mostly the reason why this is not a classic or a Batman must-see. But nevertheless the fans should be happy with the end result, since it features the Batman character from a lot of different angles and uses different interpretations of the character, which ensures that the character still remains an interesting one, even when basically everybody all over the world already know who Batman is.

Definitely good to watch!

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

i knew this wouldn't be anything like the Batman Animated Series BUT all the short stories were well done by some different anime looks and each story was well written and executed. My favorite 2 would have to be the Killer Croc and Scarecrow episode and the last one with the sniper. the music was awesome and I hope the Dark Knight took notice because that score was really catchy and strong. and the animation and storytelling were spot on and the pacing of each one was great. Not too long or too short on any episode. They got Kevin Conroy to voice the batman here and I was really happy with that because I think Conroy is the Voice of Batman in the animated world, no one does it like he does. If you are a batman fan i don't think you will be disappointed if you check it out and see it for yourself. I am and I'm happy I own it now!

Before I get on expressing myself I want to say that seeing Batman: Gotham Knight is simply an imperative. A simple fact that it bridges the gap that occurs between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight alone is why this needs to be viewed as a prelude to The Dark Knight, but it isn't wholly the reason why this must be viewed. Yes, the concept itself is taken from Animatrix which served the same purpose, but that also isn't the sole reason. It's because this is easily a fine piece of work on all grounds. I have never been a fan of anime, but that's merely due to me not being genuinely interested in the medium. What a fine example of execution this truly is. Consisting of six vignettes written by six different writers, such as David S. Goyer and Josh Olson (A History of Violence) and directed by different talents in different styles this has exactly the balance that is required to be fully entertained, mentally stimulated, and visually inspired. I cannot add anything more to it that could not be summarized in those exact three adjectives. This one's a keeper, and should not go amiss.