Review of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012) by Austin G — 01 Sep 2015

The Dark Knight Returns is a masterpiece of a graphic novel. It's an elaborate dance between a painting and a poem. It's visually stunning, it's emotionally grabbing and the parts leading up to the first appearance of batman are among the most beautiful things I've ever read. The pacing the, the verbal imagery, everything was perfect.

So obviously I was excited to see it animated even though the Year One adaptation was incredibly disappointing. But hey, the source material wasn't as good.

So I watched it.

And the irony that the animated version would have all the soul ripped out of it. Key points of the story are still there, but the poetry of the words is gone. The narrative, the character depth, Batman's awesome one-liners, stripped. And the contrast between the gritty watercolored panels and the awkwardly sterile, textureless, cell shaded animation is depressing.

So much was obviously changed for censorship, I'll give you that, but The Legends of the Dark Knight episode of the animated series, even, with as short of a segment they had and the inability to show blood onscreen was leaps and bounds better than this.

It just feels so incredibly half-assed I want to punch someone. Just about everything that make the comic good and memorable was cut out and we're left with this embarassmen of a movie that somehow is getting good reviews. From comic book fans? for batman fans? from people who have seen movies before? people who aren't getting paid to promote the movie?

I don't know how you get the same company that made Justice League Doom, Young Justice, and the at least decent Gotham Knight. And producer Bruce Timm, who did the entire Batman the Animated Series, and Sub Zero and Mask of the Phantasm to make something like this.

I give it 2/5 stars. One for the source material and one because Carrie Kelly's parents are still hilarious.