Reviews - Two Disc Special Edition DVD
Packaging
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Menus
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Street Date: July 8th, 2008
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Japanese, German
Run Time: 76
Rating: PG-13
Media Quantity: 1 (BD 25)
Packaging Type: Blue BD Case
Aspect Ratio: 1080p High Definition 16x9 1.85:1, VC-1
Codec |
Sound Quality:
English: Dolby Surround 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Surround Stereo
Japanese: Dolby Surround 5.1*
German: Dolby Surround Stereo
* - Japanese 5.1 track is listed on disc packaging, but is
nowhere to be found on the disc itself.
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DVD Features:
• Commentary by DC Comic Senior Vice President/Creative Affairs Gregory
Noveck, Former Batman Editor Dennis O'Neil and Voice of Batman Kevin
Conroy
• Exclusive Sneak Peek at DC Universe's Wonder Woman
• Revealing Documentary - Batman and Me: The Bob Kane Story
• A Mirror for the Bat: Featurette Exploring Batman and the Evil
Denizens of Gotham City
• Bruce Timm Presents 4 Bonus Batman: The Animated Series episodes
(Heart of Ice, I Am the Night, Legends of the Dark Knight and Over the
Edge).
Synopsis:
DC Comics, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros.
Animation have collaborated to create a unique Batman experience
in Batman: Gotham Knight. The all-new, original movie
will arrive July 8, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Order due date
is June 3, 2008. The original movie will also be available
OnDemand and Pay-per-View as well as available for download on
the same day as release date, July 8, 2008.
Batman: Gotham Knight is a fresh and exciting new entry
into the Batman mythos, spinning out of a 40-year history in
animation including the Emmy®-winning Batman: The Animated
Series, widely considered a pivotal moment in American
animation. A cross section of distinguished creators, award
winning producers, and acclaimed writers weave six interlocking
stories that reveal Bruce Wayne’s journey to Dark Knight, each
with stylish art from some of the world’s most revered animation
visionaries.
Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of
directors who have brought their distinctly different anime
styles to the classic Batman character. The production was
divided among three renowned studios – Studio 4ºC, Production
I.G and Madhouse – and included the truly inimitable visions of
directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka,
Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka.
Read the full press release.
Review
When it comes to the DC Universe line of DTVs, Warner has done an
outstanding job. Not only have they already adapted one of the
best-selling comic stories ever (Superman Doomsday), they’ve also
turned one of the most critically acclaimed comics into a full length
animated film (The New Frontier). For the next DC animation
outing we get a bridge of sorts between the Christopher Nolan Batman
films. While the continuity between the movies (and even the stories at
time) is questionable at best, there’s no doubt that fans will find this
latest Batman animation venture anything short of a visual delight.
Combining the talent of over four different Japanese animation studios,
Batman: Gotham Knight tells six different stories of The Dark
Knight in various adventures. Ranging from kids claiming they saw Batman
in action to more serious angles such as gang war and a few of Gotham’s
seedier villains like Scarecrow and Deadshot, Gotham Knight is a
rich pallet of animation and storytelling from some of Japan’s premiere
animation studios, as well as some of the comic book communities top
writing talent. While it may have been conceived to be a cash-in to The
Dark Knight’s upcoming theatrical release, the final product is
nothing short of a well-crafted series of short stories that show off
the Bat like never before.
When typing that this film was a cash-in for The Dark Knight I
had a sudden flashback to the last cash-in DTV that we were given in the
DC animation world. I’m sure many will remember, with much disdain I’m
sure, the Brainiac Attacks DTV that got thrown out around Superman
Returns release. While Superman Returns may have been a box
office disappointment (as well as the recipient of some lukewarm fan
feedback), Brainiac Attacks was simply a rushed disappointment
that failed to entertain the vast majority who watched it (I’ve yet to
set eyes on a single frame of it since completing my review—and would
have to be paid to watch it again).
Those worried that Gotham Knight might have suffered from a
similar issue need not worry. The writing found in Gotham Knight
is some of the sharpest and darkest pieces to come out of the Batman
world. On top of the writing is some of the most visually stunning
animation that you’ll likely ever see the Batman character take part in.
While it’s obviously all of the anime variety, the pieces presented in
the six different stories are all wildly different (for the most part)
in terms of character designs, with the only consistency being Gotham
City in a few of the pieces (not surprising, considering Studio Bihou
did the backgrounds for all of the segments).
There’s plenty to talk about with each segment but I’ll leave that for
the more in-depth and spoiler filled review portion to follow. For now
I’m just going to go for more breadth and increase the depth once we get
to each individual story. One thing that sparked an odd amount of fan
feedback was the casting of Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman. While
many figured that the cast of The Dark Knight would be lending
their voices to the production, ala The Animatrix, we ended up
not receiving a single member of the films cast in this production. As I
surmised before viewing the film, the continuity between the Nolan
universe and the one presented here is negligible. You’ll definitely
benefit from having seen Batman Begins, as there are references
to Scarecrow (who appears as one of the villains in Gotham Knight)
as well as the Narrows, a place in Gotham that continues to be ravaged
by the havoc that Scarecrow created.
What surprised me about the small backlash to Conroy’s casting is that
with every production fans asked who would voice Batman and were always
disappointed to hear it wasn’t Conroy and would complain that a new
person under the cowl might make it too difficult to swallow (I recall a
few were disappointed to hear that Jeremy Sisto would voice Batman in The
New Frontier…who I personally think do a great job in the role). I
can kind of see where the disjoint would be if this was as connected to
Nolan’s world as Warner’s original press release would have led you to
believe, but honestly Gotham Knight could have been made before
Nolan came along and still make sense. The Narrows are a simple setting,
one that is audibly and visually explained, so there’s little room for
confusion, even if you haven’t seen Batman Begins.
I guess my point is, after two paragraphs, is that Kevin Conroy really
just kicks ass. While we hear him bring back some of the Batman elements
that we’ve grown to love from his days as the Bat in Justice League,
he throws his voice down even lower in some segments, creating a much
darker sounding Batman than we’ve seen previously. Some areas we have a
Bruce Wayne that’s lighthearted and in others one that is deep and
moody. Conroy is all over the map in terms of emotion and there’s
honestly not a doubt in my mind that bringing him on board for this
production wasn’t one of the best things for it. Bale would have no
doubt done a fine job in the role had the scheduling worked out for he
and the rest of The Dark Knight cast, but we were definitely not
given any kind of short of the stick with the vocal performances in this
film—they’re all top notch and utterly fantastic.
One of the things that surprised me most about the voice cast was how
little I recognized them. I picked up on Kevin Michael Richardson and
Will Friedle only because I’d heard them so much, but Corey Burton,
George Newbern, Jason Marsden and Hynden Walch all flew past me as
people I’d heard in previous roles. The actors did such a superb job of
changing up their roles for this film that when paired with Conroy’s
tweaked performances, it really feels like an all new voice cast and
nothing like an anime-overlay on the previous DC animated works. On top
of the returning DC alum we have some newcomers in Ana Ortiz, Gary
Dourdan, and David McCallum, all three of which bring in performances as
police detectives and Alfred Pennyworth that will never once have you
questioning the quality of the voice work.
So the voices are great, but what about the rest of it? While the first
story we get in the feature will no doubt bother some simply because the
style and atmosphere of it all is so incredibly different from not what
only we’re used to in DC animation but also because it’s not one of the
segments that we’ve seen a lot of in the previews. The animation style
looks like something out of the video game series Jet Grind Radio
and features a cast that sounds like they’re taken out of The
Boondocks episodes, but don’t let that throw you off. While I can
certainly appreciate the different art style, it will no doubt jar many
viewers to the point they’ll wonder what they’re getting into. Stick
with it, you won’t be disappointed. There are some absolutely stunning
visual moments in the later segments that will make your jaw drop.
For the score we have a mix of composers Kevin Manthei ( Justice
League: The New Frontier), Robert Kral (Superman Doomsday)
and Christopher Drake (the Hellboy DTVs). All bring their own
style to the segments, with Drake throwing in a bit more sounds from the
Batman Begins score than the others. I actually thought Manthei
scored the final segment of the film—a few cues sounded similar to his
work on The New Frontier, but I was surprised to see that Kral
had scored them instead. The music is wonderful, especially in the
“Working Through Pain” and “Deadshot” shorts, where we get some
emotional and action oriented pieces from Manthei and Kral. It seems
each time one of these DTVs comes out I get excited by the prospect of
the soundtrack release. Here’s hoping La-La Land Records is able to
bring this one out as quickly as they have for the previous DC Universe
films.
While the film may have started with a whimper, it ended with a bang. It
slowly ramped up the depth and intensity with each story and while it
isn’t the Nolan universe tie-in you may be expecting, it is some of the
finest animated Batman work I’ve seen. Visually the film was astounding,
aurally the film was fantastic with the superb voice work and scores and
from a writing standpoint it can’t be beat. While the first script
seemed too much like something we’ve seen before, the following stories
were all crafted and each one felt unique and not like anything we’ve
seen in DC animation before.
Even after watching the film, I’m not sure how to feel about it. The
fact that the stories remain intertwined yet separated makes it feel
like it should be one cohesive story and instead it’s just a chopped
presentation. It really seemed like from the start that the stories
would be completely disconnected from one another, as you go from a
bright and rather cheery intro straight into something out of the HBO Spawn
but soon everything else is connected either by characters or events
that happen in each of the segments. It can be a bit confusing to watch
as you can only treat a few of the stories as stand-a-lone, while others
rely on certain bits from the previous story or even two stories before
it.
Aside from the waffling between connected stories and stand-a-lone,
there isn’t too much to find fault with in Gotham Knight. It’s
something new and entirely fresh for The Dark Knight and that alone is
worth checking it out if you’re a DC Animation fan. If you aren’t
already a fan of Batman or the previous animated DC efforts, then I’m
afraid you won’t find much here to reel you in. Casual viewers will
likely not have much patience to sit through all of the segments, as
when treated like a “film” there’s no real flow between stories and
it’ll probably generate more confusion than it should. As stand-a-lone
units they’re almost too short to really get anyone too interested, as
all of the artistic styles are different, which I can see turning away a
few.
In any case, Gotham Knight will likely share the same success as
The Animatrix. It’s audience may not have been as wide as the
feature length Matrix films, but the die-hard viewers and casual
fans greatly enjoyed it and there’s no doubt in my mind that Gotham
Knight will please those who know what they’re in for.
Recommended.
For a full spoiler-filled version of this movie, check out the original review
as here back in February.
The Blu-Ray
After originally seeing the film via an online screener back in February
(which was when the above review was originally written), I eagerly
awaited the chance to see the film again (the digital copies license
expired, so I was unable to watch it after I wrote the review). I was
even more excited knowing that the next time I laid eyes on the
animation would be in 1080p as I was aiming to review the Blu-ray
release. Luckily for me (and not for you, as no PC capable Blu-ray
player means no fancy menu shots for you—sorry guys, not this time. At
least until I get the money to afford an upgrade) I was able to take in
the pristine quality of modern animation in full high-definition glory
without any nasty compression hindrances that the DVD format sometimes
has going for it. Of course the packaging for this release, a standard
Blu-ray case with an insert telling you that the disc is made with the
utmost quality, isn’t anything special, but the menu layout is quite
nice and simple to navigate (one, big popup menu allows you to view all
of the extras at once on one easy menu), so it certainly has that going
for it.
So how does the 1080p VC-1 encoded transfer look? In one word:
fantastic. I didn’t detect a hint of compression and the colors of the
film, especially of those of Gotham during some of the later sequences,
are deep and rich, providing a nice, haunting quality to it all. The
lighter sequences also look fantastic and there isn’t a piece of
animation that doesn’t shine due to this HD resolution. Unfortunately
there isn’t any Dolby TrueHD track for this release; we get stuck with
standard English 5.1 this time around, but unlike the previous DC
Universe releases, the 5.1 track actually utilizes the subwoofer
channel, absolutely thudding the room at times with sound. I actually
wondered if it was a little too active, but after my complaining
over the last two sound mixes (Note: that was for the DVD editions; I
hear the TrueHD track for New Frontier’s Blu-ray release is quite
the thunder dome) I guess I can’t be too picky this time around.
Alternate German and Spanish audio is included as well, but the Japanese
5.1 track promised on the back cover is nowhere to be found. Not sure if
that was left off of all editions of the film or just the Blu-ray
release, but nevertheless it’s completely absent. A real bummer, I
actually was genuinely curious what it sounded like.
For the extras here we get the same amount that we’ve become accustomed
to on the DC Universe releases. The first extra here is the biggest and
that’s the commentary with DC Comics Senior Vice President/Creative
Affairs Gregory Noveck, Former Batman Editor Dennis O’Neil and voice of
Batman Kevin Conroy. We’ve heard from Noveck and O’Neil plenty of times
on either commentaries or DVD extras, but Conroy’s a rarity and the real
highlight of the track. At first I was afraid he wasn’t going to talk
much, but soon he was rolling on about not only his experiences with
this film but also some of his history on the past DC animated series.
He even told this very cool story about his work as a cook…and, well,
I’ll save that story for the commentary. I will say the lack of Bruce
Timm, who doesn’t make an appearance anywhere on this disc (aside from
the Wonder Woman preview), despite being an executive producer,
was sorely felt, as the commentary slipped into a dry atmosphere at
times. Still, Noveck did his best to keep it lively, but I felt at times
he was a bit too focused on the feature at hand and whenever Conroy
would mention past animated episodes, the whole track seemed to get
quiet, as if that wasn’t something to be discussed in length. I could
just be imagining that though; I’ve spent so much time with the
cavalcade of DC Animated releases over the years I’m probably reading
waaay too much into these extras.
Two featurettes await us next. The first is "A Mirror for the Bat: The
Evil Denizens of Gotham City" (35:47), which gives an in-depth look into
Batman’s rogue gallery and just how brilliant they are. I’m not sure but
I recall seeing a featurette like this on some other DVD at some
point…but regardless, it’s a nice extra. Filled with comic book
clippings as well as pieces of animation from B:TAS and even a
brief instance of Return of the Joker. It’s a very interesting
piece that will no doubt keep fans rapt with attention. Plenty of DC
heavy hitters make appearances here, ranging from Noveck, Didio, Paul
Dini and plenty of current comic book artists/writers.
The next extra is "Batman and Me, A Devotion of Destiny: The Bob Kane
Story" (38:25), which is almost a depressing extra to watch. I hadn’t
read much about Bob Kane, although I remember being oddly broken up by
his death when I read about it in the local newspaper as a kid. I guess
I’d always had the dream of meeting Batman’s creator someday and this
extra shows me a bit of just how much Bob Kane likely would’ve enjoyed
meeting me as well (that sounds weird, but keep with me here). The extra
goes onto paint a picture of Kane that revealed that Kane himself very
much thought himself to be like Bruce Wayne…or really wished to be. It’s
a very nice extra that tells of his life and rise to fame and includes
interviews with his late wife, Mark Hamill, Stan Lee and those that knew
him from his personal life. Also accompanying it is a slew of archival
video footage of interviews and also some audio-only pieces, subtitled
as it’s sometimes hard to hear due to its age.
Next is the “Wonder Woman Sneak Peak” (10:29) which gives us a bit of a
look at the film coming in Spring 2009. Yes, it’s really that far off,
which explains why there’s no finished animation shown; lots and lots of
storyboards, but no finished animation. We do hear quite a bit of lines
of recorded dialogue by Keri Russell, Nathan Fill ion, Rosario Dawson,
Virginia Madsen and Alfred Molina, however, so there’s that
compensation. Paul Levitz goes on to say how he thinks this will be the
best Wonder Woman origin story of any medium, while others just talk
about the Wonder Woman mythos as a whole. Nothing like a little
anticipation to get you excited for this film…that’s nearly a year away.
Finally we have four episodes of Batman: The Animated Series as
“presented” by Bruce Timm. I have “presented” in quotes because there
really is no intro to these episodes; like the ones included on the
New Frontier DVD, we’re to take them at face value with no real
reason given for why they’re included. Albeit two of my favorites are
included here, so there’s nothing to scoff at. Oddly enough, while not
presented in high-definition (none of the extras are), the episodes have
been re-encoded with the VC-1 codec which I find…highly odd. Why not
just use the MPEG-2 transfers off of the original DVDs? Always doing
things the hard way, aren’t you WHV?
That wraps it up for this Blu-ray release. While, again and as always
with these DC Universe discs, I would have appreciated a making-of of
this actual feature, but I guess that’s asking for too much. Still, the
beautiful animation really sings with the 1080p transfer, although
that’s really all this Blu-ray release has going for it; no lossless
Dolby Digital audio of any kind and all of the extras are in standard
definition, so it’s really only the visuals of the film itself that are
going to stand out over the standard DVD (which, I imagine, probably
looks pretty damn fine all by itself…especially when upscaled by a
player to an HD resolution). Still, Blu-ray is the way to go with this
film if you have the tech for it. The Bob Kane extra in of itself is
worth checking this release (or the two-disc DVD edition) out for, so this release comes
Recommended for the casual fans and Highly Recommended for
the die-hards.
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