Batman Year One Review

To someone who hasn’t read the comics or graphic novels (such as myself) this movie comes across as Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Sin City and LA Confidential in a sandwich.

By way of a synopsis, the film opens with the return of Bruce Wayne, to his home city of Gotham, after twelve years in self-imposed exile. At round about the same time, Lt. James Gordon is transferred to Gotham P.D following troubles in his last stationing.  

The majority of the film’s exposition is dealt with through first person internal monologues from the perspectives of Wayne and Gordon. While Gordon’s monologues give far more insight into the character’s motivations and background, Wayne’s come across a bit one dimensional, the resounding message being “I don’t like crime” (which happens to be true of most people). The only significant thing we see about Wayne from the what he tells us, is the suggestion that Batman as a concept is less about imparting his own fear onto others and more about the damage present in his own psyche. There’s even the suggestion that he believes that his father is directing him to become Batman from beyond the grave.

For me, the most interesting thing in this film, was the focus; the primary enemy in this film being Police corruption, with the Mob taking the role of secondary villains. I can’t help but compare this to the Nolan trilogy, where this is more or less reversed.

The further difference shown are in the personalities and abilities of the characters. While Gordon remains incorruptible in terms of your typical bribes and heavy handedness criterion, he’s certainly not the faithful husband and father of the Nolan films. He also happens to be a badass, capable of beating guys twice his size into unconsciousness.  

Batman too is very different, not possessing nearly as much confidence as any of his live action counterparts. At one point he even has trouble taking down three simple crooks, seemingly through sheer inexperience, something I don’t see the Christian Bale version ever falling victim to.

If nothing else, this film is a great comparative piece, allowing us to see perhaps how many liberties Nolan took in his trilogy. Gordon’s partner (Detective Flass) for example; in Batman Begins, he’s a fat incompetent, who moonlights as a Mob enforcer, in this he’s a former Green Beret, who seemingly makes enough money through taking bribes and enforcing the private interests of more senior (and equally corrupt police officers).

Eliza Dushku is pretty awesome as Selena Kyle and her back-story of – spoiler warning  - being a prostitute and possibly having a lesbian relationship with her friend Holly is somehow more believable than the Anne Hatheway version in "Rises" and definitely the Michelle Pfeiffer version in "Returns."

There are a couple more differences that really shine through, but overall it follows roughly the same ground as the Batman Begins.

This might not be for everyone; some may question why it even needed to be made, in light of the live action films, but this film really gets to grips more with the characters. It also manages to bring the grit of Gotham to life at least as much as the Nolan films, which is saying something.

It’s good, but if you haven’t read the comics or novels, you’ll find yourself retreading bits of old ground and kind of wishing Morgan Freeman was there