Batman: Gotham By Gaslight

In terms of style and execution, this direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray Batman isn't really different from the other direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray Batman movies Warner Brothers Animation has been cranking out, lately. The same murky color palette, the same pacing issues...the faux-anime look to the designs and animation. I don't think it's particularly ground-breaking, kinda slow along the middle, but I wouldn't mind re-watching it.

Why adapt Gotham By Gaslight? I remember fans would say that graphic novel is the greatest Batman story told, better than The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke and Batman: Year One! I'm not sure if there's much analysis on the internet devoted to explaining that opinion, but here's my guess: to a generation or two who read Batman comics, Batman is Sherlock Holmes. There are many Sherlock Holmes pastiches depicting his efforts to identify Jack the Ripper, so having Batman solve that mystery is a treat. Ignore the fact that Gotham By Gaslight in an alternate reality and you have an archetypal Batman story  in which he solves the biggest unsolved true crime mystery ever recorded and you could understand the magnitude of the tale. No mutants, no killer clowns, no sideshow dwarves, no gangsters. We're just following Batman/Bruce use his brain.

The team behind these movies have been getting a lot of flack over their adaptations being too faithful & leaden; conversely, when they've tried to tell an original story ( Batman and Harley Quinn, a film I liked, but try finding positive reviews ), it's declared a piece of excrement. To date, the most-popular of these films is Batman: Under The Red Hood, which explains why they brought back Bruce Greenwood to voice Batman in Gaslight, rather than, say, Jason O'Mara, who's become their go-to for voicing Batman in these movies, moreso than fan-favorite Kevin Conroy. My opinion of Greenwood's Batman is that he doesn't sound different from O'Mara, but comes off less bland; I'm surprised they don't try casting Diedrich Bader more often if they're not casting Conroy.

Another thing they did was loosen the plot and change the characters in order to include more of the Batman mythos. Selina Kyle, Hugo Strange, Harvey Dent, "Dick", "Tim" and "Jason". They incorporated elements of Master of The Future, the sequel set at The World's Fair exhibition  ( just imagine a gentrified Epcot Center if you're not familiar with that and you'll picture it better ) to include more action scenes. Plus, they clearly wanted steampunk stuff sprinkled in, so we get a bat-motorcycle and bat-grapple thrown in. Those were neat. I also liked how the fight scenes didn't use martial arts much, so that makes the fight choreography less...recycled/generic. Without listening to the commentary, I am aware of plot points recycled from past Batman films - the scene where Bruce evades the Gotham police and hitches a ride with Selina Kyle in her hansom cab is a recreation of a scene in Mask of The Phantasm..up until the part where they're pretending to be making out in the cab to hide his injuries when the cops inspect it, that is.

That's a good key to understanding what I what I'm watching..this was, essentially, an R-rated "Batman: The Animated Series" movie set in a different time period, with a final twist that I'd rather let Wikipedia reveal, but I will say was pretty cool..better than having a counterpart to the Joker show up..ironic, because there is a character in the original graphic novel set up as such, but as a red herring. I wouldn't mind a sequel..probably with a little more detective work and humor next time.