Director: Various
Cast: Kevin Conroy, Crystal Scales, Alanna Ubach, Core Padnos
Have I Seen it Before: In the lead up to The Dark Knight (2008), this was marketed as the bridge between that film and Batman Begins (2005), so there wasn’t much of a chance I was going to miss it immediately after release.
Did I Like It: I’ve had a generally dim view of the DC animated movies released over the years. The age of things like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) was eventually shuffled off in exchange for adaptations of some of the most epic stories featuring the DC stable of characters that functioned no more than a synopsis of those larger, better stories.
This one might have been the starting gun for the modern slate of those movies, but it fares far better than its descendants. It helps that it isn’t trying to take a year worth of comics and jam it into a 70 minute runtime. It’s style—brought to life by prominent anime studios and filmmakers—has style to spare. That aspect might have recommended the material for a series than a feature. Indeed, the first segment “Have I Got a Story for You” is a fairly inventive remake of the The New Batman Adventures episode “Legends of the Dark Knight,” which itself was based on a comics story from the 70s, “The Batman Nobody Knows!”
The cast is generally good. One can’t go wrong with putting Kevin Conroy as the voice behind the Caped Crusader, and none of the rest of the cast distracts from the proceedings, which can be a challenge for these films. It helps that—for pointedly understandable reasons—none of the presented shorts feature the Joker. That’s usually where some of these can fly apart if they aren’t inviting Mark Hamill along for the ride.