A True Dark Knight
Bringing the Dark Knight Returns to animation form was not a totally unexpected move on DC’s part. I think that Frank Miller’s definitive final chapter of an aging Batman was one of the greatest stories out there and DC seems to be on this kick to try and animate most of their more popular comic book stories, it was a logical choice. Unfortunately, a lot of these adaptations are well—not quite as good as they could be. DC appeared to recognize this by addressing one of my most foremost complains about these adaptations that they compact the storyline too much.
At least this adaptation they realized that they couldn’t do that without destroying the entire story so instead they chopped it up into two halves. That being said, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 is a superb adaptation although I do think it still was missing some aspects that made Frank Miller’s version so damn compelling. The storyline is a pretty close copy of the original, although they moved things around here and there for better pacing and stuff. The last scene with the Joker’s ‘reawakening’ for instance, was a fabulous finale in my opinion and a brilliant choice for the conclusion, a nice teasing bit to draw us into watching the sequel. It managed to accomplish it’s task in drawing the audience in and saying, “Hell, yes we NEED to see the sequel”.
I think my primary complaint for the storytelling was that they skimped on Batman’s narration, leaving a lot of scenes just empty and dry. I also believe that they overdid it a bit with the intercuts with the newscasters and interviews of all of the people’s viewpoints of Batman’s return from retirement. They were excellent in breaking scenes and giving up a lot of information in one go, but it was too much in some instances.
The animation is great, truly capturing a great many of the panels from the comic itself and animating them bringing them to a whole new level. What I think is missing however is the darkness, the utter bleakness and grittiness that Miller’s comic version possessed. Gotham appeared to be practically a decaying and decrepit slum while the Gotham as depicted in Dark Knight Returns is bad, it’s not quite as bad as I felt it should be. The battle with Bats versus the Mutant Leader in the mud hole was another … odd one with the mud being a lot … cleaner than I was expecting. They made it so that the mud didn’t stick too well at times was strange, as well as when it didn’t, the area was a lot cleaner than it had any right to be. Basically we had the dirt and blood, we needed the sweat for the final touch for true authenticity. Overall, it was relatively minor league stuff.
The backgrounds were a nice broad mix of a city with gothic architecture of old buildings combined with more modernistic steel. The action sequences were dazzling and the movement of the characters were just impressively fluid and dynamic. I particularly liked how they showed that Bats is definitely no longer in his prime like when he pauses and is catching his breath before moving on or how he cannot climb a rope at first with just his arms but needs to use his legs too was a great bit. It’s little things like that that really sell this story.
The voice actors are a broad mix however. For example, I wasn’t completely sold on David Selby’s portrayal of Commissioner Gordon, his voice is a bit too quavering. I suppose that fits in that Gordon is on the verge of retirement, but I felt that he needed some authority in his voice that was lacking. Wade Williams as Two-Face seemed a little too wooden as a broken man but Gary Anthony Williams (Mutant Leader) and Ariel Winter (Carrie/Robin) were excellent. And of course, Peter Weller definitely did justice to his portrayal as older and wearier Batman. As I mentioned before, if there was one thing that they did do wrong, with Peter Weller was skimp on his lines—he should have been doing more inner monologuing or something. Or maybe brought in a second actor, just to handle the “Batman” voice that spoke to Bruce Wayne at times; one that was even deeper or more animalistic than Weller's.
Usually, the music or background soundtrack is decent for these shows but rarely do I really notice or care overmuch. But I have to admit that this time, they really blew me away. Perhaps it was because the lack of the monologuing that I was able to pay attention to the background music is so hauntingly dark and dramatically rousing that it became as much a part of the movie experience as watching Batman beat the crap out of criminals and break their bones doing it and behaving not as a geriatric man but an elemental and monstrous force of the night. A True Dark Knight.
Overall, this was an exceptional entertaining adaptation of Frank Miller’s original work. Is it a perfectly faithful one? No. But I doubt it would have been possible to adapt Miller’s pages to an animated medium quite as nicely as they did here. The Dark Knight has Most Definitely Returned, and I am overwhelmed that he is back.
RATING: 4 STARS!!!!
