Batman: Contes de Gotham

This is a collection of 6 animated Batman stories (in Anime style) aimed to fill the gap between Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Each story is directed by different people but unlike Animatrix (WB's first animated filler compilation, done for the Matrix series), the look and feel of every episode is too similar to actually distinguish. The mood is more dark, violent and brooding than any other screen Batman interpretations. The first episode starts of relatively lightweight and is the most humorous. The stories then get edgier and darker. The whole compilation makes for an enjoyable viewing as Batman deals with the wild imagination of kids, spiritual healing, Hinduism!, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, and a hit-man called Deadshot. But for me, the real joy of watching Gotham Knights is listening to the definitive Batman/Bruce Wayne voice that is Kevin Conroy, who has been the voice of Batman in every animated form from 1990 to 2006 (I think). Here, he is the voice of several variations of Batman and is pure joy to listen to. I have to admit though that a couple of Bruce Wayne animated interpretations don't really fit with his voice but Conroy's voice acting more than makes up for it. The animation is great but not anywhere near as radical as Animatrix or recent Anime films. The action scenes are quite thrilling. Also, very worthy of mention is the exhilarating soundtrack, particularly in the Scarecrow episode. All in all, this is a great addition to the Batman animated collections.

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

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I've never been a fan of anime, and this film didn't really do anything to change my mind. This is a collection of short stories much in the same vein as the Animatrix meant to somewhat bridge the gap between Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.

Each story focuses on one particular aspect of Batman and his mythos. Through the eyes of some kids we so how his presence in Gotham is to many an urban legend. We also see how he learned to deal with pain, we see a sample of the development that goes behind some of his toys, we see the police's attitude towards him and of course we get to see some good old fashion Batman ass kickery. Collectively all these stories are pretty well written and I liked how they managed with the use of subtle details and references to link one story from the next to help bring it a little higher than your typical anthology.

But as I've said I'm not a fan of anime. I find anime directors to be exceptional at conveying mood and atmosphere through the use of brilliant backgrounds and well plotted storyboards, but outside of the science fiction realm of the Batsuit and the monsters I find there character designs lacking in originality. When Batman takes off his mask Bruce Wayne has a remarkable resemblance to almost every other anime character we've ever seen. This can't be said for all anime artists, we do get some variety here and regardless of the style it's always interesting to see different artists' takes on the same character. Another issue I found across the board which I think more than anything detracted from my enjoyment of this and most others of the style is the lack of emotion that goes into the character acting. We're treated to good voice actors here, specifically the return of Kevin Conroy as Batman but the solid performances of the voices are lost behind faces completely devoid of emotion. The heads remains dead during the lion's share of all dialog while the mouth moves up and down (sometimes not even that)until the voice is done delivering the lines. This is no exaggeration either, there is no movement of the eyes or brows or even enough variation on mouth shapes to imply any emotion at all, if they're not throwing a punch the characters are relentlessly static. As an animator myself I may be more critical to such things and I'm not trying to tell of anime creators, I know it has legions of fans, but I won't be joining the ranks personally until they evolve beyond some of these problems.

In the end this is still worth seeing if you're a Batman fan, and despite my ranting against the anime style I did really enjoy seeing the different interpretations of the Batsuit and batmobile along with a couple other elements that carried across the stories.

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.

This is a 6-story anthology movie directed and animated by different people.

1) "Have I Got A Story For You": I caught this part of the movie a while back on the TV and my first reaction was "wtf is up with the animation?". The lip- sync was atrocious, like terribly bad. And the story made no sense. Some random kids were telling stories about Batman and just as the last one finished talking, Batman appears out of nowhere fighting a bad guy for the sake of the plot. And then one of the kids saves Batman's life?????

2) "Crossfire": This one focuses on two policemen who end up getting in the middle of a crime battle. Sounds dumb? It is. Because it's very convenient, like the previous one. The animation looks like cheap anime, but looks WAY better than the first one. Kevin Conroy sounded way off as Batman in this one, almost as if he was replaced by someone else. The only good aspect of the story is that the story centers around officer Ramirez and we get to see Batman through her eyes. This character is later used in The Dark Knight in the same year.

3) "Field Test": We get to see Lucius Fox creating new technology for Batman. For some reason, Lucius looks really orange in some scenes. And this Batman sounds different too. And he looks really dumb... he has a huge bat-nose.

4) "In Darkness Dwells": This one features Killer Croc and Scarecrow kidnapping a priest. Now this is a good one, this is what the whole movie should've been like. Story centered around Batman and showing his detective abilities. Simple, awesome, effective.

5) "Working Through Pain": It's not clear if this is directly after the previous chapter, but it goes through flashbacks of Bruce's training. This one wasn't as good as the previous one, but it was very a interesting take on his lore.

6) "Deadshot": Finally, this last chapter focuses on the titular sniper assassin and adversary of Batman. The animation in this one is top notch and by far the best. It's very detailed and polished. The plot is solid and very entertaining.

In conclusion, this movie goes from horrible to great. Honestly they should've just cut the first half of the movie and release it as an episode on whatever Batman TV show was airing at the time... or something, I don't know.

6/10