Batman: Gotham Knight Review

Beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest

imagination. I'm willing to put my life on the

line to do what I have to. But it has to be mine,

no one else's. Welcome again to Animation Aficionados

crossover with Tooncast Beyond. We are still

going through the DC animated movie originals.

You of course know my co -host TV's Mr. Neil.

Watch me trick Fred. And we also have with us

from Tooncast Beyond TFG1 Mike. Hello everybody,

yes I'm here. And tonight we are talking about

The bad animatrix Movie so bad that it's it's

it's actually worse than that joke you just did

Well, that's the best way to describe Batman

Gotham night, which has been advertised falsely

advertised as a piece of bridge media between

The excellent Christopher Nolan movies Batman

Begins and the Dark Knight It doesn't bridge

shit It no I mean there's nothing in here like

At the end of Batman begins the mansion is in

rubble They have to rebuild they have to do something

and the Dark Knight starts out in Chicago with

the Joker Nothing in Gotham Knight bridges those

two nothing you have a story about what kids

think Batman is you have a story about Deadshot,

which is the only good And by the way the kids

Talking about Batman is a rip -off of a Batman

the Animated Series episode. Yeah. No, it really

is. No, I know. I'm agreeing with you. Yes, it

is. I know it is. And this whole thing was basically,

it's the exact same spiel as The Animatrix. We're

like, we got five Russian Revolutionary Japanese

directors doing five super takes on blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah. And for

the most part, it's like, where were you guys?

Who did this in your stead? It's not the best

work of any of these studios. No, not really.

There's only one segment I like out of all these.

Which would be the Deadshot segment, right? No,

it's actually the one where Bruce Wayne is training

with a woman named Cassandra in India to learn

how to deal with pain. Ah, yes. That's my favorite

segment because Batman is flashing back to thinking

about this training he went through to deal with

physical pain and there's a scene where he is

actually in the sewers and he finds all these

guns in the sewers and he's picking them up and

Alfred says, sir if you put the guns down I can

help you up and Batman says I can't. Yeah. And

that's the only segment I like. The rest could

die in a ditch. I mean, yes, it's cool to have

Kevin Connery voice Batman again, but not for

this. The problem with this movie, my problem

with this movie, is that it is, you know, six

short films. It's not beginning, middle, end.

It is six short... independent films of each

other. As we've already stated, it does not tie

Begins and Dark Knight together. I love Kevin

Conroy. Kevin Conroy will always be the best

animated voice of Batman, except when you put

his voice to Batman animation that does not fit

his voice. The Shonen Batman. You know, just

to be clear, it's not even as cohesive as something

like Heavy Metal where there was a definite beginning

and end and the individual stories were just

an experiment to tell a sort of anthology style

story. This is just like, okay, these six stories

happen in a certain chronological order and that's

the only thing that connects them together. And

not to mention you also have six very different

Japanese animators doing their own thing. I think

that's part of what really hurts it because There's

only one Japanese animator I would ever trust

with Batman and his name escapes me at the moment,

but he didn't work on this I know that for sure

Yeah, it was actually one of the it's actually

one of the animators that worked on the disco

if you if you must know it but yeah, he that

guy's a huge Batman fanboy, but no none of those

guys were the right guy to handle Batman and

I'm still gonna say it again. The goddamn Bishonen

Batman was wrong. You know, talking about the

cast, just going down this cast list, they have

some really strange people voicing these roles.

I love Jason Marsden. I talked to Jason Marsden

in an interview for over an hour. He's a great

guy. However, Jason Marsden has one of those

always young sounding voices and he just wasn't.

a good voice for Thomas Wayne. I mean, Jason

Marsden is one of those voice actors that just,

all he uses is his own voice. The same thing

with Kevin Michael Richardson. Kevin Michael

Richardson is Lucius Fox. Kevin Michael Richardson

has too much of a booming voice for me to be

Lucius Fox. Rob Paulson is Sal Marconi. Yeah,

Marconi. That was pretty good. The casting the

voice and casting director Andrea Romano is Martha

Wayne. I like that but The rest of it is just

so many weird people as much as I like David

McCollum He is Should not be voicing Alfred Yeah,

that was not the right choice and You know, like

I said, I I watched this and Number one, I couldn't

find a cohesive story. Number two a lot of these

stories were Honestly done before like the story

about the story about kids telling a different

point of views of Batman that was straight -up

legends of the Dark Knight we already saw that

before the The the Scarecrow story, I mean I

can easily think of a comic I read with a story

almost exactly the same as that and That's part

of the thing of each of these stories. I've seen

done before and I've seen them done better and

And really part of the thing is the Nolan verse

what people call the Christopher Nolan movies

for Batman is about super hyper realistic I mean

if there's people that were before the movie

was greenlit Christopher Nolan went to his garage

and mocked together the freaking tumbler first

to show to the studios and say this is my idea

of what Batman is this by the way this is the

Batmobile and that's what greenlit the movie

because he's like because his whole thing was

the approach of realism and then you have you

know the story with the three kids story is about

this thief that has like rocket packs and all

these other toys that don't exist and then you

have the Bishonen Batman story where Batman has

a magnetic shield that doesn't exist And then

you have the the scarecrow story where Batman

has his breathing ass that pops up where they're

you know using cartoon physics I mean honestly,

this is all stuff that Nolan if he was in charge

would say no Yeah Yeah, I mean the animation

styles and and that's what's so jarring with

the film Because it is six independent stories

six independent directors six independent different

animation styles it takes you out of the movie

now if they had released this as Not as Batman

Gotham Knight, but as like hey, here's a series

of Batman shorts or here's a series of you know

Batman mini movies I Could see that but advertising.

This is one whole cohesive movie Just didn't

work for me. What about you Neil? Well going

into this I wasn't even aware that it was an

anthology movie So when that first segment started,

I was like, oh no, don't tell me that this is

the animation for the entire movie The first

time we're say that was yeah the kids the animation

that was Kind of bad. I mean, you know, I think

that's the same animation director that did kids

story for animatrix. You know the one It is the

same director, I swear it is. Some of the background

paintings in that segment were kind of interesting,

but the animation itself, I didn't care for it.

I don't really like that art style that's emerged

in Japan where you got the kind of big upper

body and tiny skinny legs. Yeah, that Batman

looked wrong. Yeah, that needs to stop. Yeah,

that Batman was wrongity wrong. Wrongity, wrong,

wrong, wrong. Here's a trivia bit for you guys,

something I never knew. The cover advertises

this film as the first Batman animated movie

to be rated PG -13. In fact, this is not true.

Batman Beyond Return of the Joker was the first

animated Batman film to carry the rating. Originally

edited into a PG rated film, it was later released

as a director's cut with the PG -13 rating. So...

Yeah, Return of the Joker beat this out with

the PG -13 rating. I just... Honestly, normally

I go back and I watch all the stuff before I

record an episode on it. Honestly, I have not

seen this movie since 2008, since I first saw

it when I had an iPhone, because I rented it

through iTunes, just to see and just see what

it was all about. I mentioned off air about my

five minute memory. I may have a really short

term five minute memory where someone will tell

me something and I won't remember it five minutes

from now. My long term memory is very long and

I can remember stuff from five years ago to 10

years ago to when I was a little kid. I still

remember sitting in my chair watching this movie

on my iPhone and being like, why did I waste

$3 .17 rental on this movie? Well, oh by the

way, I do have I do have confirmation it was

studio four degrees see that animated Kid story

in animatrix and that's exact same studio the

animated have I got a story for you Didn't they

also do Transformers animated No, I think it's

the one worse. Oh, well anyway Should we move

on to the the dead shots story? Yeah, honestly

that was the only one that I really liked you

know what I I think what this was is that someone

had a fanfiction of of Batman versus Galgo 13

and Because because the first time you see dead

shot he he literally does a Galgo 13 style hit

where he he shoots someone like through a building

window from like a mile away, and that's directly

out of the professional, the one with the CG

helicopter. Oh, by the way, Neil, by the way,

Neil, Crossfire was actually written by comic

book writer Greg Rucka, who was famous for writing

The New 52. I see. So he basically went, OK.

Okay, I have this idea. It's going to be Batman

versus Duke Togo. Who do we got in the DC roster?

Deadshot. Let's go. Yeah, Crossfire was the name

of that one. No, the Crossfire is a different

one. I'm thinking of the one that was actually

Deadshot, animated by Madhouse and actually written

by Alan Burnett. Needlessly, we already know

who Alan Burnett is. You say it like it's a bad

thing. No, I'm saying that Alan Burnett needs

no introduction. Oh, okay. There we go. Okay.

One of the other things about this movie is that

one of the things that Gregory Novak had mentioned

that the reason they chose Deadshot as one of

the villains was to show the direct contrast

with Batman and Deadshot. While Batman took a

vow never to use guns, Deadshot enjoys using

guns, obviously. Think about it, they always

enjoy using guns. Yes. Yes. I swear on my parents'

lives that I will love this gun. From my cold,

dead hands. We here animation permission to fully

support the Second Amendment. And for the for

the box office stuff It made Gotham night. Let's

see eight million sixty six thousand seventy

six Wow god eight million dollars So it paid

for it paid for it paid for Christian Bale stand

-in Yeah Hey Kevin Conroy does a way better Christian

Christian Bale does Christian Bale I'm saying

that when you look at how much it made versus

Dark Knight Yeah, yeah and and to be honest Christian

Bale, you know with Christian Bale's Batman voice

Kevin Connery doesn't blame Bale one bit so Well,

no, he blames the writers no, he actually blamed

the directors He said that someone should have

been watching the dailies and stopped him because

as an actor you don't really know what you're

doing Yeah, but this one along with a couple

other the films that we'll be talking about in

this spotlight This is one of the ones that made

Close to what doomsday made which again, I guess

people love to buy bad movies. I Think part of

it was the the false advertising is this as a

piece of bridge media. Yeah, that's that's true,

too Don't it so you have six you have six shitty

shorts But guess what this also comes with four

of the best episodes of the animated series.

Oh Well, I love is this well, you will guess

what the four Batman the amazing episodes that

came with this is Legends of the Dark Knight

So they're just asking you to compare it So you

get six of the episodes and four good ones. Yeah,

Heart of Ice, I Am the Night, Legend of the Dark

Knight, and Over the Edge. Oh, there's a novelization?

Yes. They don't make no goddamn sense. No, not

for this movie, it doesn't. Not at all. All right,

so we are the IGN replacement crew, one to four.

Neil, what do you rank it? I'll give it a one.

I wish we could add a zero to this, which is

punch someone in the mouth, but I guess we can't

do that. If you meet someone who has this, just

punch them. Don't watch this. Don't spend your

money on it. Buy the actual box set of the Batman

Season 1 set, or whatever season you don't have.

If you have all the season sets, get called for

thirteen instead cia uh... then what do you rate

this i read this a one that if i could read it

as you know like me i would i would say you know

i would pretend that this doesn't exist yeah

i i think i am going to add a zero to the ranking

so to be zero through four yeah this is a complete

zero anytime you see somebody carrying this home

from wal -mart just stop punching in the face

and and you know set the dvd on fire Bring it

to the ground heard it to the ground As we covered

it is on DVD. It's on one disc two disc. It's

probably on blu -ray As Neil said Hopefully everyone

that loves Batman the animated series either

has all four volume sets or they have the complete

series big box set uh... but if you don't really

those for honestly even those four episodes that

are on this on this dvd are awesome i still can't

say to someone you need to buy this just to get

those four episodes now for the same price you

get one of the volumes you get a better deal

exactly so here on Tooncast Beyond we're gonna

take a break you're gonna hear some really wacky

ads and then we'll come back with our final thoughts

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directors from The Animatrix and I think they

tried to do the exact same goddamn thing and

they goddamn failed with the goddamn Batman.

Goddamn it. Neil? For our version of the show,

I think I'm just gonna insert a flushed sound

right here. This movie was hard to watch. Fortunately,

I watched this back -to -back with Wonder Woman

and I watched Wonder Woman second, so I had a

good palate cleanser. Yeah, so Neil gives us

a definite upper decker. One flush or two. Thank

you sir, may I have another? Yeah, and for me,

no one should watch this movie. It's considered

a war crime. It's a crime against bat nature.

It, uh, you know, fully covered in the Geneva

Convention. It's like Ace Ventura eating bat

guano. Don't say that again. Thank you for joining

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We will... Talk to you later. I have no words

for this outro because this movie was so fucking

bad This will be shocked it you need the bat

that you need the bat shark repellent That would

have made it better actually because this movie

definitely did jump the shark We're saying good

night