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The Main Characters
---Bruce Wayne/Batman (voiced by Bruce Greenwood) saw his parents murdered as a child and from that moment on dedicated his life to stopping crime. He used the symbol of what scared him (a bat) to strike fear into the criminals and goons that plagued Gotham City.
---Ra’s Al Ghul (voiced by Jason Isaacs) is the undying leader (thanks to the rejuvenating Lazarus Pit) of The League of Assassins.
---Joker (voiced by John DiMaggio – Bender!) is just a crazy whacko. He is bent only on anarchy and mindless violence.
---Red Hood (voiced by Jenson Ackles) is Black Mask’s main rival in leading the crime scene. He’s just as ruthless as his competition.
---Black Mask (voiced by Wade Williams) is set on becoming the crime leader of Gotham city and he’s set on murdering his way to the top.
---Dick Grayson/Nightwing (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) was the original Robin before striking out on his own as Nightwing.
The Setting
Batman’s home base is Gotham City – a gritty big city full of crime and murder and as we start two rivals are trying to run the entire Gotham crime scene.
The Main Feature (1:15:44)
We start with Robin (the second Robin – Jason Todd) being viciously attacked by Joker and Batman’s not in time to save him. He carried Robin’s lifeless body away from the ensuing explosion. Fast-forward a few years and two crime bosses (Black Mask and Red Hood) are trying to control Gotham’s extensive crime rings and both are equally ruthless in trying to become number one. Batman has his hands full trying to keep Gotham safe, including teaming up with Nightwing to stop Amazo – a power absorbing robotic villain. Batman questions those who brought Amazo to Gotham but they are shot dead by the Red Hood. Batman chases him to the place where he fought the original Red Hood. That Red Hood would end up as The Joker. Batman questions the Joker but he’s as crazy as ever and he can’t get any answers from him. He has a run-in with the Red Hood and he’s able to evade capture with impressive skill.
Soon Batman makes a shocking discovery as to who the Red Hood really is. Batman finds Red Hood battling a bunch of hi-tech ninjas sent by Black Mask and he helps defeat them. Batman learns more about the origin of Red Hood and how Ra’s Al Ghul tied into it all. The Joker is freed by Black Mask but Joker is insane and turns on them and makes them his captives. This leads to a confrontation between the Joker, Red Hood and Batman. Red Hood takes care of Joker leaving Batman and Red Hood alone to face off, with the fate of Joker in their hands.
Feature Review
We start with a rather violent scene of the Joker beating the piss out of Robin. This shows you right away that this isn’t a cartoon for kids. I loved how the opening scenes mimicked the Batman: Funeral for A Friend’s memorable cover so well. This was the perfect stage setting for the rest of the feature as the story of Robin’s death was told before the credits even rolled. That makes a perfect bridge between the back-story we need and the main story. The pacing of this was incredible. We had so much information given – especially in referencing the original Red Hood and his connection to the Joker. Everything is just tied together so well. I loved how the flashbacks were brought in so fluidly, too. This didn’t reference the specific Red Hood story (to my recollection of course) but rather brought together many storyline points to meld it into a cohesive story that is able to be told in a 75-minute film. The great thing about these animated films is the amount of characters you get in here, too. Amazo made an appearance; Riddler was got in here during a flashback scene, and of course you have the main enemies (of which there are many).
I want to talk about the voice actors, too. Greenwood did a great job as Batman. He was able to use the tough-guy voice but not sounding as over the top as Bale did in Dark Knight Returns. Neil Patrick Harris is just amazing and really anything he does is great. The man can do anything. He can play a smarmy jack-ass in the Harold in Kumar series, a struggling filmmaker in the Broadway show Rent or a super-hero like Nightwing. He’s awesome. I also have to talk about Bender. I mean, you have Bender playing Joker. That’s just too cool for words. He’s a great voice-actor so when you’re listening you don’t immediately think Bender, although if you listen closely you can hear some of it in the laugh. Wade does a fantastic job as Black Mask – although the actual character design rivals the work that Wade does.
The hand-drawn animation is top notch, but this is a DC film so did you expect anything less? I do have to say that this combined a lot of CG, something I don’t really remember in the previous films. It is obvious when they switch from straight-on animation to the computer graphics and that does take you out of the scene for a second but it’s not to the extreme of the early Spider-Man cartoon from the 90’s. I just love how they are able to make Gotham dark and gritty while still keeping some of the mood from the Tim Burton movies. The subtle points (flashbacks, lightning flashes that reveal two sides to a character) really added to the feature. Overall this is just a great showing from DC. It encapsulated the entire story so well and everything, from the voice acting to the story to the animation, was fantastic. This may be the best of the DC animated films to date.
DVD Features
A) Extras
---Disc One---
1) DC Showcase – Jonah Hex (11:53)
Let me just repeat that I love these little Showcase stories – especially the opening they use of traveling through the comic shop to get to the featured character. So we’re in an old saloon and some Madame Loraine lures a cowboy into her room so she can kill him and steal his money. In rides Jonah Hex (to amazing Western music no less) and he’s looking for a man that Madame Loraine just “entertained.” Loraine tries killing Hex but he’s too good to be taken like that so he fights her off as well as her goons. Jonah goes with the Madame to find the body of the man he’s looking for. He gets it, leaves Loraine in the hole where she left her dead and rides off into the sunset. This was really cool – we got what Hex was about in a nutshell and it told a story in its 11-minute time frame.
2) First Look At Superman/Batman Apocalypse (12:12)
This would be the second story-arc from Jeph Loeb’s run on Superman/Batman that would appear in animated form. This story reintroduced Supergirl into the comic universe and included Darkseid as the main villain. Supergirl was around for awhile until Crisis on Infinite Earths decided to retcon everything and make Superman the ONLY Kryptonian. So Supergirl was killed off in the 80’s not to return in the comics until the early 2000’s. Jeph Loeb lays out the story for us as the people behind the film talk about the feature’s creation. This looks like a fun DVD and definitely one that I will be reviewing when it comes out. I may have apprehensions with some of the voice-over work (I wasn’t too into Darkseid at the moment) but we’ll see.
3) Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Trailer (11:11)
DC has a great idea with its animated films, delving into its old classic stories to make into cartoons. That’s where Marvel has got it wrong. They’ve been trying for original stuff and not really making an impact creatively while DC is knocking it out of the park with their DVDs. This was born from a Dwayne McDuffie script for JLU that was never used because the show was canceled. Billy Baldwin is Batman. That’s funny since the whole dinner in the feature before was praising Kevin as THE voice of Batman. Owl-Man is played by James Woods of Family Guy fame.
4) Batman: Gotham Knight – An Anime Evolution (10:09)
This is from the Justice League: New Frontier DVD (as well as many others after that). Again, my original thoughts are copied and pasted here. Denny O’Neill and Dan DiDio begin by talking about Batman and his origin and what drives him as a character. This DVD is 6 interlocking stories each done by different anime directors and studios. They talk about the villains of the film (Deadshot, Scarecrow and Killer Croc) I am interested in picking this up to see how it is executed. I am not a big anime fan so it should be a new experience watching different adaptations of Batman.
5) Superman: Doomsday Trailer (2:19)
I can’t recall if this has been on any previous DVD’s (like the two extended trailers above this) but it was only 2-minutes so I could sit through it again. It’s just a look at the Death of Superman story and its transition into the animated feature. I don’t know why they didn’t just make a regular trailer considering this has been out for 2 years now.
6) The Lord of the Rings, Animated Trailer (1:20)
This looks to be the original animated feature from years back (the 70’s?). This is being re-released on Blu-Ray and DVD. I am interested in it and the remastered version looks pretty good – a lot cleaner than when I’ve seen it on TV.
7) Jonah Hex Motion Comic Trailer (1:12)
These motion comics are all the rage now, aren’t they? I think this is DC’s first foray into the motion comic thing and you know what – it looks really good. As usual the DC Animation Dept has one-upped anything Marvel has done with the Motion Comics.
8) Legend of the Guardians Trailer (2:19)
This seems to be a CGI story dealing with Owls and finding the hero inside of you. This really feels like the same story as Mice Templar but with owls. There is an old band of Guardians that are only told by the elders until they are needed again. It’s more of a PG-version of Mice Templar, though.
---Disc Two---
1) Robin: The Story of Dick Grayson (24:12)
Bill Finger and Bob Kane, who wrote Batman, felt they needed another character to talk to. There weren’t many word balloons back then and how could a detective explain things in solving a case. How else could he get exposition out? So Bob Kane, who would picture himself in movies as the sidekick, brought a sidekick to the Batman fold named Robin. The origin of Robin is fully told in the 60’s, with his parents getting murdered during their acrobatic show at the traveling circus. A lot of the extra talks about the relationship between Batman and Robin as well as Bruce and Dick. The colors are meant to represent the bird in flight and it invokes Robin Hood in some respects. There’s a good discussion about the two hiding, too, under their masks. Robin does something that isn’t often seen in comics – he grows up. With his growth he stops being Batman’s sidekick and moves off on his own. He literally went off on his own as Nightwing. I loved Costineau on here talking about the Heroes Journey. He was just in the Peanuts DVD I reviewed, too. This is an awesome history of Dick Grayson and something sorely needed in all animated DVD’s to add depth to the characters.
2) Bruce Timm’s Picks:
---A) Robin’s Reckoning Part 1 (22:13)
Original Airdate: February 7th, 1993
This is a Batman: TAS two-parter and every time I see these I am immediately brought back to those Fleischer Superman cartoons. I don’t know if there was ever a better animated series than Batman in terms of stories and animation. I really need to get the complete set to do a proper review of it. Anyway, Batman leaves Robin on a mission to investigate a man named Billy Marrin. Robin doesn’t know why Batman goes off without explanation until he searches the computer database and learns this man is better known as Tony Zucco – or the man who murdered Robin’s parents. There’s an extended flashback detailing how Robin’s parents: The Flying Grayson’s were murdered and how Dick Grayson came to be Batman’s ward. Robin soon finds himself going after his parents’ murderer himself, despite what Batman says.
---B) Robin’s Reckoning Part 2 (22:08)
Original Airdate: February 14th, 1993
The second part begins with Robin tracking Batman and Zucco. This plays up Grayson’s early days with Bruce more than anything else. When Dick finds out who killed his parents he sets out on his own to find him. Dick finds Zucco as Batman arrives on the scene. Batman had Zucco captured but he had to let him go to save a falling Grayson. Batman reveals his identity to Dick and we head back to the present. Dick finds Zucco (although Batman got to him first) and wants to kill him until Batman tells him that isn’t what he wants to do. Robin tells Batman he couldn’t understand but he realizes that Batman went through that, too. This was a very good two-part origin story of Dick Grayson – the original Robin.
B) Audio/Video
This is a Dolby Digital/Widescreen presentation. I have to say it sounds great, especially the surrounds and the colors just leap off the screen. A great job by the DC guys.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
This is another DC Animated release with the cool shiny slip-case. All the information you need is on the back of the clam-shell case and no liner notes are provided inside the case. The cover is really awesome with Batman standing there looking stoic while the Red Hood stands ominously over him.
Overall Review
We have some trailers (1:35) to start this off. There’s a Batman: The Brave and the Bold video game which looks really cool, a Matty Collector ad for the DC toys, and finally a Smallville ad. I can’t believe how DC is just outpacing Marvel so badly with these DVD’s. I can’t even remember the last Marvel Animated DVD I reviewed. Do they even still make them? If they do they need to wise up. Make stories of popular, current, comic arcs that are actually good – load it up with content (including a 10-minute episode with a character who otherwise wouldn’t get a feature) and then give us more extras on the side looking at what’s coming up, what’s already come and a history who we’re watching on the screen. Seriously, DC has been just killing these DVD’s. The Red Hood was a great animated feature, the Jonah Hex Showcase was probably better than the movie (which BOMBED) and then after that we have another disc loaded with content. I know DC has a much longer history with animation (Super-friends, the various Justice League series, Batman, Superman, and even Teen Titans) but it’s getting ridiculous now. This is an AWESOME release and once again DC has one-upped their previous offering and this is a must-own for those who love DC Animation.
Overall Rating
10.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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