gotham knight Review (spoilers)

[bestever23]

Have I Got A Story For You

ok, I got a early copy of Batman : Gotham Knight ( I work at blockbuster)

I have a story for you Is a segment that we've seen in Batman #423 and Batman : TAS "Legends of the Dark Knight"

Four kids tell a story about their encounter withbatman taking on a high tech rocketpack criminal

soon they argue about what batman looks like "one thinks he is a real bat!"
then batman and the villian smash through their skatepark and watch as batman captures the bad guy

3/5 (nothing new but the anime is really good including the opening sequence )

Crossfire

Now remember these 6 stories are all in the batman begins universe
we see Crisper Allen (dunno if he's going to be in the Dark Knight) and Anna Ramirez (Montoya wannabe) as Batman delivers the high tech villain from the last segment (yes they are all intertwine)
so Allen (who doesn't trust batman) and Anna (who does trust batman) go to the narrows to return the villain to arkam. but the narrows are all arkam now, the whole island is blocked off.
as they take him back they see a new thug named the Russian and just as they are going to get him Maroni and his crew show up and now we have a gang war with Allen and Anna in the middle
guess who comes to save the day?

3.5/5 (the anime was better and there's a shot of batman in fire that looked so cool...here look

need I say more

Field Test

batman with a bulletproof suit
as in a force field that stops the bullets from hitting him
cool huh? that's what he thought
Fox shows him what he's been working on
and the look on bruce's face is priceless

but it turns ugly when he get into a fight between Maroni and The Russian
and the bullets they shoot at him bounce off but it accidentally hits someone and batman feels guilty he wore the suit
turns out he'd rather put his life on the line then other

4/5 I liked the gagets alot and the anime is cool as I showed from the shot

In Darkness Dwells

now this feels like Batman Begins World more then any other segment
probley because the writer is David Goyer
It's batman in the sewers looking for Scarecrow
turns out in Arkam, Crane had a patient that was from a circus and johnathan crane put fear gas in him and he went crazy and saw'd his Teeth into Razors.
yep Killer Croc.It's a non stop Action that was seen from the best buy exclusive scene

5/5 because I like killer Croc and reminds me off Batman Begins so much

Working Through PaiN

my favorite

5/5 It shows his past and how he deals with pain

Deadshot

a guy who uses guns againest a guy who hates them

4/5 too short but a great way to end the movie

sorry if I didn't explain much at the end (I'm going too long)
but It's a great Batman DVD and I can't wait to buy it
I want the blu ray version but we just got the dvd standard
so I'll have to wait till the 8th for the blu ray

 

[Webzpinner]

These were the WORSE stories EVER. The animation was choppy and/or ugly, Bruce Wayne looked feminine, and the stories here were bland. Nothing remotely satisfying about this. Not worth a rental, let alone $22.00 at best buy.

Voice acting was decent, they got the voice actor from the 90's cartoon (Kevin Conroy) for Bruce/Batman, however they kept drawing him like a woman. VERY annoying. Bruce Wayne does NOT look like Ellen Degeneres, but for some reason, the Japanese animators thought that would be a good idea. Overall, just a horrible sight. Also, if this bridges Batman Begins with The Dark Knight, how come they didn't bother to do an anime-style Joker story for this? Not a very good bridge.

Do yourselves a favor... save your $ and skip this. Use the money instead for gas to get you to a showing of The Dark Knight, KungFu Panda, or Wall-E.

 

[Venom 1988]

These were the WORSE stories EVER.

No

The animation was choppy and/or ugly,

I found the animation great and very fluid.

Bruce Wayne looked feminine,

Yea in one story....

and the stories here were bland.

You said that already...oh and No again

Nothing remotely satisfying about this. Not worth a rental, let alone $22.00 at best buy.

I disagree, I watched this on youtube and cant wait to buy it. Stories were top notch and conseculativly got better.

Voice acting was decent, they got the voice actor from the 90's cartoon (Kevin Conroy) for Bruce/Batman,however they kept drawing him like a woman.VERY annoying. Bruce Wayne does NOT look like Ellen Degeneres, but for some reason, the Japanese animators thought that would be a good idea.

Again that is only ONE story. Hell did you even watch this movie???

Overall, just a horrible sight. Also, if this bridges Batman Begins with The Dark Knight, how come they didn't bother to do an anime-style Joker story for this? Not a very good bridge.

Because Joker makes his first appearence in The Dark Knight, therefore they wanted to show what happens before we see him.

Do yourselves a favor... save your $ and skip this. Use the money instead for gas to get you to a showing of The Dark Knight, KungFu Panda, or Wall-E.

No thanks.

Anyways I agree with the TC. While I didn't prefer the designs in "In Darkness Dwells', it felt the most Nolanverse like.

 

[Webzpinner]

How can you reply to my post saying "No" repeatedly? I'm entitled to my opinion. My wife and I are both big Batman fans and were VERY let down by this.

I watched it on a 42 in Sony LCD on DVD, and found it to be one of the worse things I ever subjected myself to. I'm sure many people here will probably love it. Heck, most of you are of the "Grand Theft Auto games are cool" generation, so I'm sure standards are very lax, and you'll find Gotham Knight to be Oscar worthy.

My wife and I happen to find it to be utter shlock.

 

[DorkyFresh]

seems like you just couldn't over the fact that it's anime. you keep mentioning how Bruce looks like a woman, even though that's only in one of the stories.

 

[Nivek]

Where are the majority of reviews? I thought there would be more?

 

[Nivek]

How can you reply to my post saying "No" repeatedly? I'm entitled to my opinion. My wife and I are both big Batman fans and were VERY let down by this.

I watched it on a 42 in Sony LCD on DVD, and found it to be one of the worse things I ever subjected myself to. I'm sure many people here will probably love it. Heck, most of you are of the "Grand Theft Auto games are cool" generation, so I'm sure standards are very lax, and you'll find Gotham Knight to be Oscar worthy.

My wife and I happen to find it to be utter shlock.

Did you like the 90's Animated series?

I'm all for different opinions, but without a doubt your going to be in the minority when this thing goes into general release. I thought these were great, and any real Batman fan will eat them up. In Darkness Dwells, Deadshot, Work Through Pain, Crossfire, Field Test, and Have I got a story for you all in order from best to worst.

I will be picking up a copy to own as soon as its released.

 

[The Guard]

The anime is animated fairly well. The stories and dialogue are pretty average, and about what you'd expect from any animated episode (which isn't a compliment), as is the voice acting. I wasn't impressed, even with Greg Rucka's "chapter". I'm fairly disappointed with this project. I guess I thought it would be a lot less "scattered" in terms of storytelling and relevance to the franchise.

 

[Venom 1988]

How can you reply to my post saying "No" repeatedly? I'm entitled to my opinion. My wife and I are both big Batman fans and were VERY let down by this.

I watched it on a 42 in Sony LCD on DVD, and found it to be one of the worse things I ever subjected myself to. I'm sure many people here will probably love it. Heck, most of you are of the "Grand Theft Auto games are cool" generation, so I'm sure standards are very lax, and you'll find Gotham Knight to be Oscar worthy.

My wife and I happen to find it to be utter shlock.

Because you sound like a child thats why. It seemed like your biggest complaint was how he looked like a woman in the movie, when yet that was only in ONE segment. And GTA generation? LMAO yea you would be surprised, most of the people on here range from 20-40

 

[Cobblepot]

I liked it a lot, but The Animatrix was way better.

 

[Hole Shot]

In terms of visuals, the Deadshot segment might be my favorite version of any animated Batman. And I'm not a big anime fan.

The anime is animated fairly well. The stories and dialogue are pretty average, and about what you'd expect from any animated episode (which isn't a compliment), as is the voice acting. I wasn't impressed, even with Greg Rucka's "chapter". I'm fairly disappointed with this project. I guess I thought it would be a lot less "scattered" in terms of storytelling and relevance to the franchise.

I thought it started out cool, I liked the kids gathered around expanding on the myth that is Batman, I'm unfamiliar with the earlier versions of the same story in Legends and TAS so personally it was cool concept to start the whole thing off then it just kinda ran flat. It was good, not great. But like I said I loved some of the art.

Was the first segment the same people who did Spirited Away? I don't know a whole lot about anime, but the art in the first segment did remind of that movie.

 

[Zig-Zag Man]

The anime is animated fairly well. The stories and dialogue are pretty average, and about what you'd expect from any animated episode (which isn't a compliment), as is the voice acting. I wasn't impressed, even with Greg Rucka's "chapter". I'm fairly disappointed with this project. I guess I thought it would be a lot less "scattered" in terms of storytelling and relevance to the franchise.

Agreed on all accounts. But once again the fanboy cream pie that is the BTAS voice actors continues to snowball into something greater than it ever was ... Kevin Conroy ... oh yeah, great stuff.

 

[The Guard]

I hated those kids. I half expected one to shout "OH NO HE DI'INT!"

And I actually wasn't impressed with Conroy either. I'm not sure he was the right choice for this version of Batman.

The stories weren't bad, per se, just very simple and obvious. The only ones I really thought had anything "fresh" to them were "Working Through Pain" and the very end of "Field Test".

 

[Hole Shot]

I hated those kids. I half expected one to shout "OH NO HE DI'INT!"

And I actually wasn't impressed with Conroy either. I'm not sure he was the right choice for this version of Batman.

The stories weren't bad, per se, just very simple and obvious. The only ones I really thought had anything "fresh" to them were "Working Through Pain" and the very end of "Field Test".

They didn't bother me so much, which is rare because I'm pretty easily annoyed by children. I guess I was accepting some dorkiness like that because I don't watch that much animation so I accepted it as the norm.

Maybe it was just my ears adjusting but I thought Conroy improved as the story moved along.

 

[Bat Attack]

I'll give it a rent and check it out for myself, nothing I want to own though. I'm saving my money for alot of good Blu-ray releases coming this fall (Nightmare Before Chirstmas, How the West Was Won, Godfather films, Batman Anthology, etc).

 

[Wushuboy]

The only thing that disappointed me was the length of the feature. Clocking in at little over an hour, it's definately not worth the price they are selling it for especially for the blue ray. I would expect at least 1 hr 45 min worth of stuff for the price they're charging. Personally i think the best feature was working through pain and deadshot.

 

[Firm18]

Ok, so here...we...go!

Overall Batman is something which I started to grow up with and goes on till this very day. First it kicked of with the "The Animated Series", than the comics and finally the movies. Of course threw time and space we got so many gadgets, soundtracks, special editions dvd of Batsy that no one should be unhappy. With a new Batman series on the way (which again is settled at the youth) and The Dark Knight we got a bonus such as a short (75 min.) Anime in The Batman universe. So is it worth your money? After The Batman, which only few people liked is this the TAS replacement?

First of all this project was a very risky thing to do, why? After the news that there is going to be a new "cartoony" Batman but shown as it never been before (thats Anime) people would basically slug off the creators, because it wouldn't work...well did it?

This movie just like Animatrix has six, about ten minutes long episodes done by different people (writers, artists). We start off with "I Have A Story To Tell" which for me personally is the worst of them all...we already seen that, the animation is scruffy, the drawings are not that good and as I said we already seen kids talking about what Batman is like, how does he look, and what does he do.

After that we go into "Crossfire" and thats one of the best points in the whole movie. Darkness, designs, city, idea. This story I find perfect not like the first one this has perfectly ideal animation which makes it even more enjoyable. Crisper Allen is taken to Arkham, which now as me know from Batman: Begins is the whole narrows, so the whole island is shut off. And boy, you wouldn't like to be there...this place is actually scary! And believe me I don't get scared that easy I must say that while watching this episode I did look behind me. Hell, we even got Zsash! One of my favorite!

Field Test is another really good story, alldough the designs can be annoying for some I must say I've liked them! Lucius looked really good, and the Ba didn't bugger me after all. We even get to see the Thumbler, which is redesigned a bit. The whole story is quite fresh and you really feel to see Bruce's new gadget which allows him to dodge bullets! But as we know, nothing is that perfect and some may pay the price.

"Darkness Dwells" has to be my second favorite after "Crossfire", this really is Batman Begins! The feeling, the city, Gordon, even the suit looks really "friendly". This also has to have the best animation in the whole movie. What we get is a fight in the old underground with one of the biggest Batman Begins villain such as Scarecrow! And apart from that we also get...no, that has to be a surprise!

"Work Through Pain" this is a bit weird...we get a really good story which really begins cool but we kind of seen this in Batman Begins. Bruce's training is just not my type, I mean I loved the way we see Batman not always doing everything perfectly but we actually see him fail, twice! In one story! The start is great, the middle part is a bit boring and the ending is great to! And we get to see Burton-mobile and Alfred.

The last story, "Deadshot" would been perfect if I'd been a little bit longer. e get some really cool scenes and perfect and absolutely stunning drawings but at the end you think...what? Is that it? I know Deadshot isn't to strong to fight with but I'd could be a longer fight...but I must say, the opening scene is really something. After all I think it's a good story to end to movie...so what now?

Well the story is a bit to short, but it's cool that the plot keeps moving on and everything is connected, and each story takes us deeper and deeper in to Wayne's head
but in some places I as actually turned down. It can't compare with TAS, but it's certainly better than The Batman and it's a faboulous "intro" for "The Dark Knight" but the Anime fans can think it's just not that good...I love the idea of making this the further Batman Begins but I believe it could be better. Thank God for "Crossfire" and "In Darkness Dwails" cause they are the best part of the movie. I'll give it a 8-, 7+ out of 10.

 

[Hole Shot]

No one has pointed out the beginning of Darkness Dwells where we're flying over Gotham and the signals appears in the the upper left, we come to a stop and Batman stands up. I thought that was a really nice bit of artwork.

 

[The Guard]

They didn't bother me so much, which is rare because I'm pretty easily annoyed by children. I guess I was accepting some dorkiness like that because I don't watch that much animation so I accepted it as the norm.

It's not the fact that they were kids. It's the fact that they were complete and utter stereotypes. While I know that there are complete and utter stereotypes in the world, it was insulting to have to listen to four of them, who should have been as varied as character and in their experiences.

 

[Mr.LethalWeapon]

These were the WORSE stories EVER.

LOL! Absolute Nonsense!

There's a big handful of Batman:TAS episodes that more appropriately fit that description.

I liked it, though it left me feeling like there should have been more. Perhaps one long movie would have been more satisfying than 6 short ones.

Deadshot definitely had the best artwork of the 6 films. Madhouse does it again.

Check out Ninja Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D for more of their work.

 

[Mr. Credible]

i just caught 'have i got a story for you' and 'crossfire'. i liked them both well enough, but the style of animation used for the first was just... weird. i just didn't like the style. the story was great, though, same for the second.

i'm interested to see the others now, too. probably just be a rental for me, though, based on the two i watched... doesn't seem like something i'd watch more than once or twice.

still, pretty cool, though, even though i'm not the biggest anime fan.

 

[Webzpinner]

seems like you just couldn't over the fact that it's anime. you keep mentioning how Bruce looks like a woman, even though that's only in one of the stories.

I have no problem with anime. I actually have been into anime long before it was the "in" thing it is now. But the style here was sloppy looking overall, with few exceptions (The russian/italian gunfight was nicely animated, that was it)

Did you like the 90's Animated series?

I'm all for different opinions, but without a doubt your going to be in the minority when this thing goes into general release. I thought these were great, and any real Batman fan will eat them up. In Darkness Dwells, Deadshot, Work Through Pain, Crossfire, Field Test, and Have I got a story for you all in order from best to worst.

I will be picking up a copy to own as soon as its released.

I loved most of the original 90's animated series, I read most of the 70's, 80's and early 90's comics, and enjoyed seasons 3 and 4 of The Batman cartoon too. My wife is even more hardcore of a Batfan than I am (I confess, my preference is Spider-Man) and she hated Gotham Knight, and she could school anyone on this forum on Batman.

LOL! Absolute Nonsense!

There's a big handful of Batman:TAS episodes that more appropriately fit that description.
......
Check out Ninja Scroll, and Vampire Hunter D for more of their work.

Not nonsense, just an educated opinion from a film major, who appreciates animation and grew up on comics. Sure, some B:TAS episodes were crap, but that had a multi year run at a per-episode budget of pennies compared to this.
Ninja Scroll was horrid, VHD was pretty good.

 

[Hole Shot]

It's not the fact that they were kids. It's the fact that they were complete and utter stereotypes. While I know that there are complete and utter stereotypes in the world, it was insulting to have to listen to four of them, who should have been as varied as character and in their experiences.

I hear ya, I'm just saying that I really didn't mind personally because I really didn't have any expectations going into it and mainstream entertainment seems to always portray kids with stereotypes. You know?

And I enjoyed the story itself because I'm not familiar with the earlier versions mentioned in this thread.

I'm not defending the segment, I'm saying I saw past the flaw because of my ignorance to the genre and numbness to crap that hollywood has been serving. If that makes any sense.

 

[Lazlo Panaflex]

If Bruce Wayne looking like a prissy metrosexual is the only downside I'm okay with it, I'm still expecting some sweet animation on this.

 

[Mandalore464]

Saw it, here's my thoughts.

I'd say the animation looks really good on the whole, and the city really is beautiful in all the episodes, I really was in awe of Gotham's buildings at night.

The characters on the contrary are quite ugly in the first episodes. Just not my style at all. It does get better in the last episodes though. The different Batsuits, or Batmen should I say, serve the story well (I like how the kid's different imaginations make them see Batman differently) but damn it, some of them are real ugly too. I mean it's okay for a kid to imagine that Batman is a living shadow, but does he really need to be a living shadow with a fat belly and arms the size of toothpicks? Seriously, he looks like one of those goofy monsters from Chihiro's world.

Concerning the stories... Well they're ok on the whole again, but lots of repetitions, Batman gets seriously hurt way too much, way too easily. Maroni doesn't look like Eric Roberts at all, why is that? Dunno.

On the whole I'd say Gotham Knight has a lot of wasted opportunities. With that level of quality going into the animation, it really is a shame that the design of the characters, especially Batman himself, had to be so lame. Instead of making him a chubby monster in the first segment for example, they could have made him a real living shadow, and they could have brought a LOT of pure badass Batman iconography in that, so really, it's a shame.

I liked the segment with Batman wearing that bullet-deflector device. I thought Bruce Wayne looked good in that segment. Lucius did not, but whatever. And the Batsuit pretty much sucked, well, the cowl especially. I also liked the segment Working through pain, and the last one.

To sum up:

Animation: 5/5
Character design: 3/5
Landscape design: 5/5
Stories: 3/5
Coolness: 3/5
Freshness: 1/5

I'd say the good stuff is enough to counterbalance the bad stuff, but in the end it's just a very average cartoon. I was really looking forward to this coming out, but I was afraid of it as well, considering the few captures of Batman from the first segment we'd got . Well, I now know I won't buy it.