One of the first things that comes to mind when watching
Gotham Knight is that it obviously had
a lot of money put into it. This is not some direct-to-DVD effort you'd expect from anyone else. DC managed to make something of quality, much in the way they managed for
The New Frontier. (And according to the special features section, the next franchise to get this treatment is
Wonder Woman.)
The art style is very clean and contemporary. The backgrounds themselves are gorgeous, but I don't care for the anime character stylings. I mean, it's just odd seeing Bruce Wayne as some anime pretty boy with a puny chin. Still, I don't really fault the film for that. It's the style they chose to use and at least it's not cheaply done. For further excursions into the DC Universe, however, I would greatly appreciate something inspired by the comics themselves. For example, I'd love to see
The Long Halloween and
Dark Victory come to DVD in the same fashion. Or an original full-length movie drawing from Matt Wagner's style as seen in
Batman and the Mad Monk and
Batman and the Monster Men.
So it looks nice, but the six story segments aren't very good. They're supposed to be interconnected, and really, that's a misnomer. Just because a villain shows up here and there and you can see a
very broad arc doesn't really make it part of the same story. And besides, each iteration portrays Batman in entirely different forms. (Heck, in the very first segment, we get to see Batman style similar to
Kelley Jones' style as seen in
Red Rain.)
But back to the story...
I remember reading some hype for Gotham Knight in which one of the directors stated that his segment was inspired by Christopher Nolan's Memento. This excited me greatly because A)
Memento is a brilliant movie and B) it meant that
Gotham Knight was getting a mature and intricate storyline. Sadly, this is false. The first segment bears no resemblance to
Memento in any way, other than the story progressing backwards. The other segments aren't really impressive either, although they get better as the movie progresses. Really, the stories only capture a small part of Batman's essence.
I am thankful that none of the stories feature any of the clutter that turns me off in a lot of Batman comics, which is the inclusion of Azrael, the Huntress, the Oracle, etc. To me, Batman works best as a singular (I have seen Robin utilized well from time-to-time) and as a detective story. In
Gotham Knight, Batman is really only used as a mysterious shadow-figure of urban legend and a martial artist. It's dissapointing, but not a fatal flaw.
One spot of gleaming good news for Batman fans, however, is the inclusion of Kevin Conroy (who played Batman in the early '90s animated series). To me, he is how Batman/Bruce Wayne should sound. In
Gotham Knight, he doesn't really do that voice. I think that instead of doing that, he tried to do variations that matched the various forms that Batman is portrayed as in the film. So, while it's not the exact voice you remember, it is still him.
While
Gotham Knight isn't the best portrayal of Batman in the world (and it certainly fails to live up to the best from the '90s animated series), I think that if you're a Batman fan, it's definitely worth renting. It didn't affect my excitement for
The Dark Knight at all, but I don't think
anything could get me more (or less) excited for that movie.
Overall Grade:
B-
I hope they offer a maple fretboard version, but then I'm picky. I think Fender guitars only look right when they have maple fretboards. And if it's bird's eye maple, well, then I'll just be tickled.
Even if I have no interest in playing the new Prince of Persia, I quite like the art style of the game. I think if the cartoonish-ness was played up more, it would really work for a new Zelda as well. And let's be realistic, the Wii is not a graphical powerhouse, so doing cel shading again would hide it's shortcomings in this regard. Then again, it's possible that we might not even see a new Zelda for the Wii. Maybe Nintendo will produce a proper HD console by then.
