Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One comic from 1987 is one of the greatest comic book stories of all time. It traces Bruce Wayne’s transformation into the vigilante known as Batman while simultaneously tracing Jim Gordon’s first year policing in Gotham.
It partially inspired Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) and has influenced countless comics since it was published.
For well over a decade DC has been creating straight-to-video animated movies that are adapted from some of their best and well-known comics (or periodically are original creations). I’ve seen a few and I mostly like them. They often involve A-list actors and creators and exist somewhere between what you’d normally think of as a straight-to-video release and true made-for-the-theater cinematic experience.
It has been far too long since I read the comic, so I can’t say how closely this adaptation follows the story, but from what I’ve read online it does indeed follow it closely. Perhaps too closely. A good adaption needs to let go of the source material in some ways so that it can allow cinema’s strengths to shine through.
Bruce Wayne (Ben McKenzie) returns to Gotham City after a 12-year absence. He’s still mourning the loss of his parents and his one goal is to enact the type of justice the police force seems incapable of granting.
Police Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Bryan Cranston) has just transferred to Gotham. He left his last post because he dared to take down a corrupt cop and the rest of the police force shunned him for it. Gotham Police isn’t just a place with a few bad apples. It has a basket full of them. Hell, the entire tree is corrupt from top to bottom. Police Commissioner Loeb (Jon Polito) is openly corrupt.
The film follows Bruce Wayne as he becomes Batman and fights crime in Gotham, while Gordon battles corruption on the police force.
It is pretty good. Again my memory of the book is too fuzzy to really compare, but I do know I loved the book and I didn’t love this. It is a fine story told well. Cranston especially is good as Gordon. The animation is fine. The action sequences are well-developed. But it never wowed me. I’d never recommend this over the comic.
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