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I don’t mean this as a criticism, but barring a few minor tweaks and adjustments, Batman: Year One is the most slavishly faithful adaptation of any of the DC direct-to-video films. It faithfully, in a sleeker and cleaner style, recreates the moody noirish look of the comic, complete with the muted colors and expressionist lighting. It also follows the novel’s penchant for character voiceover instead of length dialog passages and has a predominant amount of time devoted to Jim Gordon with Batman as a more ancillary character.
With numerous shots being practically a faithful recreation of panel by panel, if not pages by pages from the source material. Much of the ground will be immediately familiar to fans of Christopher Nolan’s astounding The Dark Knight Trilogy, but that should come as no surprise since Begins was based very heavily on Year One. And while this is an animated film, it doesn’t flinch away from the more adult aspects of the story. Scenes and sub-plots involve prostitution, drug trafficking, infidelity, child endangerment, police and government corruption and the fact that our hero bleeds so profusely remind us that comic books are often thought of in children’s entertainment terms but they are a valid art-form that frequently aim at a more adult audience.
The only real downslide is the voice acting, which is a mixed bag at best. Bryan Cranston is a gruff, tough Gordon and nails the character’s transition from more hopeful rookie to hardened beat-cop. The main female roles – Eliza Dushku as Catwoman, Katee Sackhoff as Sarah Essen and Grey Delisle as Sarah Gordon – perform their roles with grit and believability. Which leaves us with Ben McKenzie as Batman, and he doesn’t sell us on the part. I get that he was going for a younger, naïve and green Batman, but his boyish voice can’t convey the darkness and authority. McKenzie all too frequently sounds like a young kid play-acting as a grown-up.
The DVD includes a short film based upon Catwoman in which she breaks up a group of sex traffickers. It includes a scene in which she goes into a strip club to learn more about the location of the girls, which screams out as a future article for the Women in Refrigerators group. Not that they would have a hard time making the case that Catwoman performing a striptease was anything other than straight male service, but the short in general is strong with girl power. Catwoman takes down the gangster responsible in the name of friendship – her dear friend and cohort Holly is one of the girls who was kidnapped.
I’m not sure what it is about Batman that always allows for these creators to bring their A-Game to these films, but I appreciate it. Batman: Year One ranks pretty high in the list of these films. Now, if they could just turn this level of craft, care and attention to characters like Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, hell, even a full-length solo Catwoman movie would be aces.
