Batman: Year One (2011)

Pretty Good

Brilliant and touching

Absolutely the worst movie.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Did somebody pay someone something to make this p.o.s.? Even going by the low standards to which I hold animated features this is utter garbage. It feels like somebody gave their 7 year old a budget to make a Batman animated feature. I never read Batman Year One, but I had heard of it, and therefore assumed that it was a decent graphic novel. The fact that several reviewers here have claimed this animated feature's faithfulness to the graphic novel is severely alarming, as I've read other Frank Miller yarns and never seen him produce any storyline from which could be derived crap like this by anyone other than an infant playing with his Batman Lego. Batman has appeared all of once 10 minutes in, Gordon just joined the force and is in a car with Essen (or whatever her name is) and immediately, for no apparent reason, coming with a random conclusion fully out of the blue, she's like "Well, Bruce Wayne's parents died and he's the only one who can afford to be Batman"....Well then, case closed! Worst secret identity ever?!....A bat flies through the glass of his study window even destroying the wooden frame and lands up the head of his dad's statue? WTF? Superbat?! That freakin' bat shoulda been the hero!...Gordon opens fire on the goons who have his baby in hand threatening to kill it, and they just drive away, fleeing instead of carrying through with their threat? Did mommy call them home for dinner time?... And Bruce Wayne can fall faster than everyone else due to his mastery of gravity, a heretofore undisclosed power of Batman's, hence jumping down from the bridge, PAST Gordon and the thug who are already falling, and catching Gordon's child whom those two had dropped? Do physics or any amount of believability matter to any of you people? If this is storytelling then I just wrote the best script ever! Who wants to make a movie out of my review?! It's gonna make as much sense as Batman Year One at least! The ONLY thing I liked about this p.o.s. was how they made Batman look like he was making rookie mistakes. I gave it 1 extra star for that. R.I.P.

Animation grows up. Batman: Year Zero shows what the medium can do if you get the right talent behind the camera: It's a relentlessly downbeat expose of the first year of the Caped Crusader's reign, but it's not just him punching bad guys and smashing drug rings. Sharing just as much screen time is Police Commissioner Gordon, who arrives in Gotham City at round about the same time, and Catwoman (also known as Selina Kyle) with her lowly beginnings as a sleazy prostitute. With extramarital affairs, graphic violence and even a BABY being threatened at knifepoint this certainly is a long way from the camp 60's icon your mum and dad grew up with... And THANK GOD for that.There's no padding here, no monotonous voice-over to set the scene... Just BAM straight into the action. We're given a date, we're shown what happened on that day... And then, the plot moves swiftly on. Some of these diary entries only last for a second... Others, like a fight in a burnt-out warehouse (there's ALWAYS a big battle in one of them) take much longer. And all the time, the movie never loses touch with it's human side... The morose, often tragic figures here are just as a pleasure to follow as the slick, brutal beatdowns Batman often finds himself in the middle of. It's tense, gripping, compulsive viewing from start to bloody finish. 7/10

Batman: Year One is a remarkably loyal, almost frame-for-frame adaptation of Frank Miller's revolutionary graphic novel of the same name. Admittedly, as a fan of the Batman comics and of Miller's distinctive style, I really enjoyed watching his frames come to life; and it's hard to dismiss the fact that Year One is one of the finest Batman stories ever written, and it deserves the wider recognition that an animated version may give it. Unfortunately, Year One doesn't come close to fulfilling its potential; the frames and dialog are lifted almost directly from the comic, but the pacing is poor which leads to an absence in tension and leaving the viewer completely outside the film. It doesn't help that Ben McKenzie may well be the worst Batman I've heard, reading the lines from the script as if he wants to get it over with as quickly as possible. Bryan Cranston almost saves the day in his amazing performance as James Gordon - and dear lord, how I'd love to see him play that part in a live action adaptation! - but it's not enough to make Year One anything more than an illustration of the novel, one that can never come close to matching its impact and would probably have a hard time finding an audience outside of devoted Batman fans.

I was more reserved than most to see this movie. As a huge fan of Frank Millers comic for a long time i was worried how it would be transferred to the screen, but boy was i wrong. I feel embarrassed it has taken me this long to watch this movie, this was Batman at his animated best.The main reason i thought the film would struggle to do justice to the comic is, as anyone who has read the comics will know, Its a much darker, grittier version of batman and after recently watching under the red hood, which i enjoyed, it doesn't have that dark edge that i see in Batman. However the same cannot be said for this movie. It was like the pages of the comic were been lifted to the screen and coming to life before my eyes! its the closest adaptation of paper to screen you will ever see. The animation is done to a high standard, smooth and more colour than i had originally expected. The action sequences are particularly impressive without giving the viewer too much to concentrate on. its a well written script by Tab Murphy, although much of that credit has to go to Frank Miller as a lot of the dialogue is VERY similar to the source. The only let down for me was the voice casting. Bryan Cranston put in a solid effort as Jim Gordon but unfortunately Ben McKenzie did not do such a good job, he just doesn't have that grittiness i feel batman needed in this film more than any other. Such a shame they didn't use Kevin Conroy as i'm sure most fans will tell you, he is the voice of Batman.Overall, a really really good effort. Worth spending your hard earned money on, but definitely not one too see with the kids!