Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

Hit or miss, mostly miss. Because they decided to do a movie that's basically just a bunch of 11 minute episodes, there's no connection. Sure they all might tie together at the end, but the animation and quality differs from short to short. One might be really good, like "Deadshot", and another might be mediocre, like "Field Test". In order for movies like this to work, there has to be balance. Remember when Warner Brothers would release those Looney Tunes movies that were just a bunch of episodes crammed into one? That's what this movie is. The animation varies from bad rotoscoping, to hyper-realistic, and neither particularly look good. The stories vary from very good, to mediocre versions of episodes from the animated series. Quality over quantity, that's the lesson that can be learned from this.

Batman Gotham Knight is the second film in the DC animated direct-to-DVD line-up. Superman Doomsday was the first in that line-up. While, I did not find it great, I was entertained by the film. I overall thought it was okay. Gotham Knight, however, I was very disappointed with. Since I liked Superman Doomsday, I had high hopes that the creators would learn from their mistakes with that film, and this movie would be better. However, what I got was a very disjointed mess.Gotham Knight is six separate stories in one film. Honestly, that is probably the biggest problem with the film. There is no wrap around where all the stories tie in. The stories are very self-contained. This does not feel like a complete film.To make it worse half of the stories are uninteresting and also poorly animated. A different animator worked on each story. In some stories the animation was great, but in other, it is mediocre or just bad.I'm not a fan of "I've got a story to tell you," "Field Test," or "Working Through Pain." I'm not a fan of the animation and I do not find the stories engaging. When those stories were playing I was wanting to fall asleep. I do like "Crossfire," "In Darkness Dwells," and "Deadshot." I liked the animation and the action scenes. So all-in-all the stories are a very mixed bag.The voice acting was good. Kevin Conroy comes back to voice Batman, which is a plus. He is easily one of the best aspects about the film. The animation is a mixed-bag, like I mentioned earlier. The action is also a mixed bag. In some stories the action is good, but in others it is boring.Overall, I'm going to have to say that you should skip this one. There are many better animated Batman movies to check out like Mask of the Phantasm, Return of the Joker, Under the Red Hood, etc.

I don't really care for animated movies...I like superheroes even less, but Batman is the exception, and when I read that this film bridges the gap between Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, while being written and directed by some of the same people, I got excited. Gotham Knight is a collection of six stories that supposedly tell us what Batman was up too, prior to battling the Joker in the Dark Knight. What I really love about Nolan's Batman movies is how realistic they are, and while Gotham Knight uses the same names and story line, it is anything but realistic. These stories are downright childish and boring. It's like reading Batman's diary and seeing his conversations and what he did at work today, some stories were better than others, but I was pretty much reading Batman's Twitter and it was as dull and simplistic as could be.

I thought the style, the drawing and ESPECIALLY the atmosphere were really, really good. The stories were nothing amazing but I don't count that as a negative, because they were still very engaging. Also, 6 smaller stories instead of one epic adventure means more diversity, which is nice as well. I would've liked a little more continuity between them though. Doesn't have to be anything major, like an overarching story but little links between the stories would have made it feel like a more 'alive' universe. The voice-acting was fine for the most part. Batman as Bruce Wayne was good, some of the supporting cast were good but most of them weren't that great. They didn't have that many lines so I understand the decision in not wanting to spend resources on that but it's still something that bothers me in a lot of 'serious' animated shows: a decent voice-cast for the main characters but immersion-breaking side- characters because their voice-acting isn't on the same level. And as for Batman as Batman himself .. In some scenes I liked him, in others not so much: he sounds too serene and not threatening enough during combat or when facing opponents. But I guess that's just a personal opinion so take that as you like. (That said, he's still so much better than Christian Bale's Batman as Batman grunting)As far as the animation goes, the non-human animation (cars, flight through the city, flying objects, the sniper-bullet..) were really great. The human animations on the other hand were not that good. Not bad, but not good either. Limb and mouth movements were really 'choppy', like they left out a couple of frames every second. The human animation during actions scenes and combat however was actually really fluid and just a great pleasure to watch. The style of drawing and the style of animation during the action complement each other quite well too. It has kind of an anime-feel to it (what did you expect, Japanese director) but don't expect anything like Dragonball Z though, it's a much better quality along the lines of a show like Death Note. Actually now that I think about, the atmosphere in Batman: Gotham Knight for me is somewhere along the line of 'Batman meets Death Note'.So yeah if I had to make a final conclusion I'd say that while this is nothing spectacular or 'must-see', it's definitely worth checking out.