[image-4]Published July 17, 2008.
Batman: Gotham Knight
Directed by: Yasuhiro Aoki et al
(Warner Home Video)
Apparently, the Christopher Nolan-era Bruce Wayne has done more thatn just rebuild his decimated mansion in the years since we first saw him suit up in Batman Begins: He’s attempted to stop mob territory wars, battled with baddie Killer Croc, learned his own boundaries and impressed annoying skater kids. Batman accomplishes all these feats in direct-to-DVD offering Batman: Gotham Knight, a movie nebulously set between Begins and the forthcoming The Dark Knight (opening this week!) B:GK’s made up of six semi-connected chapters, many of them written by famous comic scribes and each animated by an ace anime director. It’s a neat concept. All the segments are certainly visuallyinteresting—yes, even the one with freaky red-eyed Batsy—and chapters like”Deadshot” and “Working Through Pain” bring the goods story-wise, too, offering interesting backstory and neat takes on the Batman mythos. The rest of the collection’s lackluster, and the skater-kids segment lifts heavily from a much better Batman: The Animated Series episode. But damn, it’s nice to hear velvety-voiced Kevin Conroy (owner of the pipes that helped make the Batman of B:TAS iconic) working his magic once again as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
—Lindsay McCarney
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.