Batman The Doom That Came To Gotham

I'm not entirely sure where I stand with this.

When I saw the trailer I thought, oh shit yeah Gotham By Gaslight meets H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos, sign me the hell up! I mean what a fascinating idea, to do a late 19th/early 20th century story where Batman has to stop some whacked out cult from essentially doing what Rasputin was trying to do in Hellboy and summon some Outer God leviathan to our realm, that's a solid ass plot that I think is awesome! That really is not entirely the movie I got, and I truthfully 100% can absolutely see this from both sides. There's Batman iconography present, you do get some of the characters but they pretty much take the lore, throw it up in the air, watch it fall into a shredder, and take a flamethrower to it just for good measure. I kind of expected this to follow the Gotham By Gaslight adaptation with Bruce Greenwood returning, but it's an entirely other adaptation of a comic I had no clue existed until the credits rolled, and it's just so fundamentally different to an almost extreme level. On one hand I kinda appreciate that, they don't do some partially by the numbers Batman movie and do so much original and innovative things with the concept of these characters but at the exact same time it's such a radical change that it's almost alienating even to a hardcore fan like me. I know they wanted to tell a grand epic story mixing and melding these two very different worlds together but I think the direction was in the wrong place while their hearts were in the right place. And the same goes for the Cthulu mythos themselves, it takes pre-established facts about these enormously unnatural beings and kinda just wanted to use the imagery but not the essence of those literary sources. Bruce stares down an outer god not once but twice and retains his sanity almost fully, and I'm like.....???? Beg pardon? Cause that's kinda what they do, that's part of the horror of it all to see such overwhelmingly just unearthly creatures to where your mind can't process it and you go insane instantly. When fucking Bird Box does a better job with this shit, I don't think you get it. I really do think this is a film that appeased neither fandom and falls through the cracks. And yet there are aspects I quite like! I think the animation is very solid, I like the idea that Talia and Ra's are the head of the cult trying to summon Yog-Sothoth pretty much, I like how Etrigan comes into play he fits perfectly with this kind of story, seeing the steampunk detailing for the gadgets are fucking sick honestly, even just as simple of a concept as Batman having to utilize science to fight magic is fascinating. There are little gold nuggets here and there, and you could tell they were onto something good but it came apart at the seams. That sucks man. Especially when the story really didn't seem that hard to fuck up. Craft a story where Bruce returns to Gotham and becomes the Batman, have him wander across a truly disturbingly brutal ritualistic killing case, do some detective work into the Cthulu mythos that leads him perhaps to Ra's perhaps to some Otherworld's variant of the Court Of Owls, he learns their plan, you pepper in some fights against henchmen and maybe individuals who enhance themselves with dark magic throughout the movie, maybe he employs the help of Jason Blood at one point to equip Batman with some magical protective gear, they go stop the ritual midway as this multi-eyed tentacled creature is coming through a portal, bada-boom! Perfect! End of movie. Brevity is the soul of wit, you keep it nice and simple and it most likely will turn out good! So I can't fullheartedly recommend it to fans novice or experienced in either camp, but it certainly isn't horrible either. I give it 2 stars, 5.5/10. We got some more horror stuff so fingers crossed and I will see you next time.

Batman Soul Of The Dragon

The second I heard this concept I knew I was game for it.

An Elseworlds tale of Batman in the 1970s, with influences of martial arts, Bond, and weird cults, sign me the hell up! And I actually can fully grant this a strong rating, I had a real good time with this movie. You can tell the director knew exactly what he wanted to do, taking so many elements from so many sources and incorporating it to make a solid good movie. You get a bit of Bond at the beginning with a flat out call back to The Living Daylights, you get the oriental martial arts stuff like Enter The Dragon and even some Big Trouble In Little China stuff, and it fully embraces the 70s style, jargon, and aesthetic. I do however feel the title is a bit misleading, it genuinely is the one thing I actually don't like about the movie because Batman is like in two scenes. Oh Bruce is present almost from the word go, but you really only see the cape and cowl on two occasions which is a shame because I really like how it adapted Neal Adams 1970s suit, with the grey and blue with the yellow bat symbol, I could kinda argue the cowl looks off but everything else looks so good. The story is more an ensemble with Batman, Bronze Tiger, Shiva, and more obscure character Richard Dragon as we kinda delve into Bruce's training and them hunting down this weird syndicate/cult led by Kobra who I briefly mistook for Copperhead. It's a simple but good story and the cast brings that perfect balance between serious and fun, David Giuntoli has a strong good voice for Batman and I believe this is the first time he has done the role and he did a mighty good job I'd say. Michael Jai White is excellent casting for Bronze Tiger, and to see some Black Dynamite influence in the movie made me a very happy camper. It was so great seeing Kelly Hu back as Shiva after playing Arkham Origins so many years ago, she's awesome and brings a lot more to the character than before so nothing but love from me there. Mark Dacascos while sharing the lead with David does a good job and gives a proper good introduction to this character I find, you can obviously see the Bruce Lee inspiration yet still retains an identity of his own. We even get friggin' James Hong, bless that man, we get David Lo Pan and he is perfect as always. I knew it was him instantly and I was thrilled to have him in this. The animation was also spot on, having great fluidity for the action scenes and worked great with the aesthetic of the time period, hell this movie had me at opening credits seeing that 70s Warner Bros. logo told me everything I needed to know about the visuals in this film. And I gotta say, I was about to go on the rant again about another R rated DC animated movie, yet it actually kinda warranted it and didn't even attempt some horseshit sex nonsense, it delievers some blood and some deaths without it reaching that animated Mortal Kombat movie levels I reviewed earlier this year, so shit I'm kinda stumped what to say next. It's a good movie, solid but not outta sight, 4 stars, 8/10. Well worth a rental and if you're hardcore about the animated DC stuff, is a welcome addition to the collection in my opinion. What did I review last time that was animated DC? Wonder Woman Bloodlines and Superman Red Son, those were pretty good too so I hope the trend continues as we talk next time about the highly anticipated The Long Halloween. Please God. Please. Don't be bad. When it comes to the big proper beloved titles of the Batman it has been some hit and miss, so fingers crossed guys. See you then.