Heath Ledger’s perfromance as a certain clown-faced bank robber will help sell tickets for Warner Bros.’ upcoming live-action release, The Dark Knight, but there’s much more to the Batman mythos than his adversarial relationship with the Joker, as is beautifully illustrated by the new animated home video release Batman Gotham Knight. For the first time ever, the caped crusader gets the anime treatment as six different Japanese directors each offer their own distinctive take on the superhero and the man behind the cape and cowel. The six interlocking stories that make up this feature-length adventure offer a fresh, PG-13 look at Bob Kane’s comic-book creation and the difficult choices that go along with being Gotham City’s self-appointed savior.
The movie cleverly begins with a segment that has a group of young skateboarders each relating their own run-ins with the Dark Knight. One kid describes him as a living shadow that materializes out of thin air and rises from the concrete to thwart evildoers. In other fanciful imaginings, he is a winged beast with a bat’s head and an armor-plated machine. By Bruce Wayne’s own design, the people of Gotham don’t know exactly who or what Batman is, so he is different things to different people. Starting from this outside persspective, the subsequent stories gradually delve deeper into the myth to expose the flawed human being at its core.
In a story titled Crossfire, Batman is still a mysterious figure that emerges from the shadows to help a pair of cops caught in the middle of a deadly battle between two warring mob factions. Field Test then takes viewers into the Batcave as Wayne gets a new gadget that makes him virtually indestructible, but at a cost he may not be willing to pay, and In Darkness Dwells makes a detour into X-Files territory as it introduces the villain Killer Croc. One of the better stories, titled Working Through Pain consists mainly of a flashback in which a young Bruce Wayne travels to india to learn the secrets of pain management from a female mystic, but is ultimately confronted by his own violent nature and the inner pain that drives it. The anthology concludes with Dead Shot, which has the gun-opposed Batman up against one of the greatest marksmen in the world.
The stories are compelling and the animation is top-notch. The 2D and 3D elements blend seamlessly and the variations in design from one story to the next keep the production visually interesting. With Batman Gotham Knight following on the heels of the finely executed Justice League: The New Frontier, DC and Warner Bros. Animation keep improving their game and raising the ante for other animated superhero releases. The Gotham Knight DVD includes a great sneak peek at the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, which features Keri Russell (Felicity) leading a stellar voice cast that includes Nathan Fillion (Serenity), Virginia Madsen (Sideways) and Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2).
The standard release of Gotham Knight carries a suggested retail price of $24.98, and the two-disc special edition is available for $29.98 on DVD and $34.99 on Blu-ray Disc. Bonus features on the special edition release include the insightful documentary A Mirror for the Bat: The Evil Denizens of Gotham City, which looks at Gotham City’s most nefarious characters and the symbiotic relationship Batman shares with his enemies. Another great doc, Batman and Me, a Devotion of Destiny: The Bob Kane Story, offers a comprehensive chronology of the remarkable life of the Batman creator. The two-disc version also offers audio commentary by the filmmakers and bonus episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, as handpicked by producer Bruce Timm.
Batman fans can also pick up the complete fifth season of Warner Bros. Animation’s The Batman. The disc The contains 13 episodes and the featurette Joining Forces: The Batman’s Legendary Team-Ups and The Batman: Justice League Profiles. Also available on home video today is the Batman Begins Limited Edition Gift Set. Packaged with the live-action film in the Blu-ray edition are the first six minutes of the sequel The Dark Knight, a 32-page booklet including an all-new DC Comic comic book adaptation of The Dark Knight prologue, photos, script pages, story boards and five Batman Begins collectible postcards. A single-disc Blu-ray edition (without all the goodies) is also available. The standard DVD release is a two-disc set in a gift box featuring a Batman-branded 128 MB flash drive with 18 images from the The Dark Knight and five collectible Batman postcards. In addition, Warner Bros. is releasing the complete fifth season of Teen Titans today. the two-disc set offers 13 episodes of the popular Cartoon Network series and lists for $19.98.
