07/25/08
Text: Bryan Hood
If this past weekend's box office results are anything to go by, chances are you've got Batman on your mind. Because of this, Anthem thought it only appropriate to shine a light on the recent—albeit slightly less hyped—release of Batman Gotham Knight. While not a direct tie-in to The Dark Knight, the animated DVD will suffice for those looking for yet another Caped Crusader fix or something a little different.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 20 years—or you just do not like cartoons—the idea of an animated Batman adventures is nothing new. Bruce Timm and company pretty much perfected the concept with the critically acclaimed and award winning Batman: The Animated Series in the early-90s. But there's never been an animated Batman project quite like Batman Gotham Knight. Taking the stories of screen and comic writers more versed in writing grim and gritty tales rather than cartoons, Warner Brothers placed the scripts in the hands of six talented anime directors. The results are not all that surprising. The DVD holds a PG-13 (a first for a Batman cartoon) collection of six vignettes, different from any of the recent animated incarnations of Gotham City. Things are darker, the criminals seem a little meaner, and the actions is more violent. At a glance it's satisfying and exactly what you would want from an action cartoon, but this is Batman, a character capable of being more than just entertaining.
The thing is while enjoyable the stories aren't much more than that. They do not tread new ground or add anything to the Batman mythos. They look good and are snappily written, but they feel safe, a description that is rarely associated with Batman. Nothing really seems to be at stake. People talk about the dark knight in hushed tones, chaos breaks out and Batman appears to sort things out. A lot of this is due to the format of the stories more than anything else. The six vignettes only total 78 minutes, so the creators are not left with much time to work with. They must make due with that which is allotted them and the best way to do this is to tell a simple, clear cut Batman story, devoid of the moral ambiguity that makes the character so fascinating.
Two shorts rise above this, though. The first is the disc's opener, "Have I Got a Story for You." Written by Josh Olson and directed by Shojiro Nishimi, the bright and visually stunning story tells of a bunch of kids' encounter with Batman, each more fantastic than the last. The vignette takes advantage of the format by focusing on characters rather than plot. It also gives us a rare chance to see Batman through the eye's of Gotham's law abiding citizens. The second stand out is "Working Through Pain," written by Brian Azzarello and directed by Toshiyuki Kubooka. Rather than present yet another tale of Batman beating up crooks, the focus is on a young Bruce Wayne attempts to master yet another fighting technique, this time in India. There he meets an ostracized woman who teaches him the importance of endurance, both physical and emotional. Unlike any of the other story's it tells us something about the Wayne himself, something we have not heard elsewhere a hundred times before.
Batman Gotham Knight is entertaining but that is about it. The whole thing feels rather inconsequential, unlike its much more involving live action cousin. It is an obvious labor of love for all those involved, but none of the six shorts add anything to the character. It is a real shame too, because when word of this disc first started floating around it was easy to salivate at the possibility of a more mature animated take on the character. The DVD promised a new animated Batman, but what we ended up getting was a Batman like all the rest. A little more slick but not much else.
Batman Gotham Knight official website
