Batman Year One The Animated Movie

[Cobblepot]

It was a dead tree....

 

[DACrowe]

Finally saw this...it was pretty decent. It was straight forward adaptation of a classic graphic novel, but it felt very sterile in its cautious recreation of the book. I feel it would have been better if they expanded it and took advantage of the animated medium more. Otherwise, Bryan Cranston was superb as Jim Gordon.

....But I have to say that I really hated the guy who voiced Batman in this. He maybe delivered a handful of lines with dramatic steely coldness that was effective. But for almost the entire film he was just wooden and sounded like was reading off a script. That made Batman boring to watch and listen to compared to Gordon, I didn't even care for the way he manipulated his voice. And before any accuse me of bias for Conroy, I also liked Bruce Greenwood's voice, Keaton's and even Bale's more.

My thoughts.

 

[KalMart]

Just Netflixed this and watched it. It pretty much ended up how I feared it would...something more concerned with being as literal a translation of the comic as possible, rather than being as good of an animated feature as it could be. Like it was a celebration of the comic first, a film/feature second, which is pretty much a bad thing for any film/feature, regardless of what it's based on.

To begin with...I think there's two ways to look at this piece, and neither are really that good. I actually feel that Superman Returns, in its own way, suffers from the same symptoms. As mentioned, for someone who is familiar with the source, there's a feeling of redundancy...we've seen this part note-for-note, and it was better in the original anyway...better suited to the comic page and a certain vibe that comes across that way. It's actually the parts that weren't literally from the page that stood out as good and refreshing.

From the other side of things, if you're not familiar with the comic...what you get is something that's rather dry and feels like it's just skipping over some things at points. It's there, but it doesn't really move you or carry you along very well. You're watching it, but not really experiencing it, if you will. So basing it so closely to the comic pretty-much worsens it for both sides.

Also....although there was some nice design and artwork elements in addition to maintaining the character style of the comic...it still didn't help it as a feature, and with every DC (or even Western) 2D-animated release, it's more and more evident how much more developed and sophisticated Japanese anime is than our stuff, even in the smaller-scale regular shows. Obviously, their industry puts more into it than ours, but hell...we should be taking it that serously over here if we want it to be as good as it can be.

It's not as if the more complex and sophisticated the animation, the more it's evident that they couldn't do live-action. Not at all...it actually highlights 2D animation as an art form more and accents things that basically can't be done live-action, or at least not have the same creative feel. Western animation actually does remind you that they're on a budget, and just not as good as other parts of the world. People high on the totem pole just don't care enough, and only really see it like lollipops....make it cheap and fast so the kids will want it.

Okay, that's not what Year One completely is, but that's a big part of what it's limited by animation-wise. But even aside from that, I think they should have treated it more as an adaptation for an animated motion picture...instead of the video equivalent of books-on-tape. Heck, some people may actually like that as an approach, but it really could have been so much more.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

Finally rented this and watched it twice in the past two days. It was a great enjoyable faithful adaption but to be honest ill leave it at that. Cranston was great as Gordon and my first choice for the character, he satisfied me but it seems at times he got bored with his part after a while.

Overall great animated film but didnt wow me the way that I had hoped.

 

[CGHulk]

I liked this, but it was a Gordon film, Batman/Bruce Wayne was barely in it.

 

[DaveMoral]

I have yet to watch it, but I just got a free digital copy of the film on Best Buy Cinema Now as a gift for activating my account on their Xbox Live app. Pretty cool. Now all I have in my Cinema Now library is this and Under The Hood, which I got free when I bought Arkham City.

 

[NoBozos]

I watched it when it first came out on DVD and really enjoyed Gordon's part in it. Then I became a fan of "Breaking Bad" and realized that Mr. White played Gordon in it and went back last week to watch it again.

Whoever played Bruce/Batman should give up acting. Just change the name of that film to "Gordon Year One"

I love the look of the whole thing but that guy playing Bats was really bothering me.

 

[Havok83]

I got an HD download with AC GOTY. My favorite part was the special feature that came along with it.

 

[Valaquen]

Gave it a watch and it was ... fine. No more or less. The animation wasn't impressive to me at all. I loved the graphic novel and felt odd that I wasn't endeared towards the adaptation.

 

[Mr.?]

I like it but don't like whoever voiced Batman...he has a weak voice imo.

 

[TheFuture]

I like it but don't like whoever voiced Batman...he has a weak voice imo.

Ben McKenzie I think his name is, he was in the OC. My problem wasn't so much his voice, it was his delivery that was horrendous. Under The Red Hood was on the money whoever did the voice for Bruce.

 

[Two-Face]

Ben McKenzie I think his name is, he was in the OC. My problem wasn't so much his voice, it was his delivery that was horrendous. Under The Red Hood was on the money whoever did the voice for Bruce.

Bruce Greenwood did the voice. I like him as Bruce/Batman.

 

[Anno_Domini]

Not the worst DC animated movie that's been released, but Year One isn't a film I would own. Under the Red Hood was twenty times better, imo. Batman's voice actor was awful and it didn't feel like it should've even been called BATMAN: Year One.

 

[craigdbfan]

Conroy and Greenwood are by far my favorite Batman voice actors.

 

[Caped Crusader]

Bruce Greenwood did the voice. I like him as Bruce/Batman.

Conroy and Greenwood are by far my favorite Batman voice actors.

Couldn't agree more

 

[Nave 'Torment']

i didn't mind that it was a direct translation beat-for-beat, it's what i've come to expect from these animated ventures. But yes, it was too wooden and could've been a lot better. You can translate it a graphic novel into animation but if you don't make the world move then you've pretty much crapped all over it. I think that's what happened here.

It managed to keep the Gotham City from the book, that noir cesspool of graft and corruption and adultery, that was just perfect to watch. But both the animation and the voice-acting could've been better. Gordon was great but some of the lines weren't as desperate as I'd originally imagined him to be.

There just wasn't any tension in the scenes. But was it a good DTV? Yes. Much better than Under the Red Hood, but animation-wise, not as dramatic as Gotham Knight.

 

[CConn]

I've always been thoroughly unimpressed by Gotham Knights, myself.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

I've always been thoroughly unimpressed by Gotham Knights, myself.

Thing with Gotham Knight was that, despite being a really good effort on everyone's part, it was trying to do too many things at once: bridge BB/TDK; showcase animation; reflect story with art; make shorts independent; make shorts related for united whole; show Bruce struggling through his missions; show Batman being awesome and effortless in his missions...

So yes, too many things. In the end what suffered most was, unfortunately, good stories that made you care about Batman himself. None of them did, at least for me. What were your problems with it?

 

[Travesty]

Not enough subtext....

 

[CConn]

No, I'm never into those anthology collection. Especially when the various stories don't really have any artistic or narative similarity between each other.

 

[kewlmatto]

I think this movie is better than most give it credit for, but it just feels so short.

I too wish they expanded it rather than slavishly following the comic.

Planning to rewatch it soon. I loved the animation in particular. The Catwoman short, while a little cheesecake-heavy, was also good.

I hope The Long Halloween comes soon. And I hope they aren't quite as faithful as this project was. Comic book dialogue is often hard to translate directly to the screen.

 

[spidermanJLA!~]

I didn't like this one at all. I hope Returns is better. BTW, did he say f***ing amateur or lucky amateur? I say lucky!

 

[Nave 'Torment']

I hope they adapt Hush one of these days.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

Not that this is new or anything, but Year One has got to be one of my favourite graphic novels / batman stories to date right up there with Long Halloween. I'm glad we already have our live-action version of it.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

okay so maybe Gambol isn't Skeevers and Carrie Anne-Moss wasn't Essen, but she'd have been great in the role!