Batman Year One [Blu-ray] [US Import]

Frank Miller's original book is probably the best starting point for someone wanting to get into the Batman comics, I personally prefer it over his Dark Knight Returns, but that's whole other review. This film is incredibly faithful to the book and looks to be a panel by panel recreation. That's no bad thing, the book flows well and almost plays like a film in your head as you read it, the artwork is different but still in keeping with the graphic novel. Movement is very naturalistic and human looking, I was afraid that some movement might look a little jerky but it there's no lazy animation here.

This isn't an all-out action story where we see Bruce Wayne kicking-ass as Batman for the first time, instead we get the story of Jim Gordon who reluctantly arrives in Gotham City to start is new job. It's a city he'd rather not be in, it doesn't seem like the sort of place to raise a baby and his wife Barbara is expecting. As with the book, we hear the inner monologue of both Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne, their thought narrative provides us with insights into their state of mind and their views which otherwise go unexpressed. You immediately feel for Gordon, he is a good man trapped in a corrupt system and receiving thinly veiled threats from his colleagues who "have their own way of doing things in Gotham". Jim is suspicious of the Batman ...but also pleased to see that someone is tackling the injustices on the street. It's interesting to see the start of Bruce Wayne's crime fighting activities, we see him training and making his first clumsy attempts to police streets alone. We understand his motives and his frame of mind as he struggles with the demons of witnessing the death of his parents as a boy. During a moment of reflection, inspiration comes from the unlikeliest of places when his is startled by a bat crashing through the window - finally he now knows what he must do to inspire fear in those he faces.

This is a great film which covers Batman's origins and the complexity of Gordon's relationship with work and his wife - with colleagues who stand for everything he fights against and a marriage in crisis, his personal story grabs your interest. This is a good film which is let down by a bad voice-casting decision. The first we hear when the film opens is Bruce Wayne - which is a shame, because the voice doesn't quite work and it sounds a little wooden. In contrast Bryan Cranston as James Gordon sounds great and reflects his mood well. This Blu-Ray looks good but does suffer from a bit of banding which is expected on DVD but I hoped would be banished on Blu-Ray, it's no too bad though and occurs infrequently enough to not distract your attention (and I am proactively looking for it!). The disk contains an impressive least of bonus features, my favourite being a documentary about rescuing Batman from the camp image he gained in the sixties and seventies. It looks at the grittier works which emerged and re-established him as a dark hero with depth. There are a couple of episodes from the animated series chucked in, but more importantly there's an animated short about Catwoman which reminds you that this is intended for more mature audiences, not that I have minded watching so much pole dancing when I was a lad!

In a nutshell: A multi-layered story is well animated and almost nothing is lost in translation from comic to film, my only gripe is the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman - if the voice was better matched then I'd probably stretch to 5 stars for this. It's an entertaining film which is absorbing, and as always - Alfred gets the best line.

Animation was good. It was true enough to the comic, but ALL the voices were wrong. Bring back the Kevin Conroy !
If they re-record this with Kevin Conroy I would buy it again.

Does anyone remember Terminator 4 when the supposed lead John Conner became a sidekick to Marcus well this film is all about Jim Gordon which is good because we all know Bruce Waynes origin story by now. That said this film only gets 3 stars because like a classic novel that has been made into a film 50 times it lacks excitment and drama, we know the story and there is precious few suprises; but the ones that are rock(Gordon a bad ass mofo). Anyway this film also suffers from a terrible voice guy for Bruce/Batman; Ryan from the OC. Ryan talks slowly and carefully but is terrible; suprisingly a worse voice artist than an actor. Bryan Cranston is alot better as Jim Gordon/Dirty Harry who dispatches with the bad guys first and fills the paper work out later. Warning: might be a little too violent for kids under 12; another glaring problem with this film is the lack of any ethnic characters; I guess somebody hadn't told the writers about the advent of the 20th Century. Comic books and comic films seriously need to get with the times. I didn't judge the film on this but this is a problem.