Movies: Batman - Gotham Knight

Batman gets the "Animatrix" treatment in "Gotham Knight," a collection of animated shorts set in the same universe as the recent Christopher Nolan films. I was curious about how others might run with the whole "Batman: Year One"/"Killing Joke" mishmash that Nolan has adopted.

I guess alarm bells should have gone off when I read the list of directors. Whereas "The Animatrix" was directed by some of the most well-respected anime directors around (Koji Morimoto, Shinichiro Watanabe, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, etc.), the people behind the "Gotham Knight" shorts are relatively unknown. The shorts themselves are also more wedded to a single storyline than in "The Animatrix," so you have less playfulness and experimentation.

Like "The Animatrix," the results are a mixed bag - you'd love to see some shorts expanded into full features, while others are fairly forgettable. The overall running length is about an hour, so this is definitely more of a rental than a purchase. If you're a dyed-in-the-wool Batman fan like me, though, it isn't bad, so I give this one a...


Rating: 6/10