Batman fans the dark knight has featured in so many animated films ranging from great to bizarre but he's never been in a two part film before will in 2012 and 2013 that all changed with the release of the two part film adaptation of the Frank Miller classic The Dark Knight Returns so here is my review of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1.
The plot for part 1 is Batman has not been seen for ten years a new breed of criminal ravages Gotham City forcing a now 55-year-old Bruce Wayne back into the cape and cowl but does he still have what it takes to fight crime in a new era?. yeah this part of the film is mainly about Bruce coming out of retirement and I have to say that seeing an old Bruce suiting up as Batman perfectly ties in with his character and the story is fairly solid even if it is basically the first half or so of the graphic novel.
Starring as Batman in this movie is Robocop i'm not even making that up actor Peter Weller who plays Batman in this film also played Robocop in the original film and he is joined by Ariel Winter as Carrie Kelley , David Selby as Jim Gordon , Wade Williams as Harvey Dent , Michael Emerson as The Joker , Maria Canals-Barrera as Commissioner Ellen Yindel , Michael Jackson (no not that one) as Alfred Pennyworth , Bruce Timm as Thomas Wayne and Gary Anthony Williams as Mutant Leader.
I was honestly shocked at how good Peter Weller was as Batman / Bruce Wayne I really can't say how he portrays him but it's one that suits the tone of this film very well and I liked Ariel Winter in this film and I think her version of Carrie Kelley is solid since her character does provide some of the much needed comic relief and the rest of the cast are pretty solid and I will say now that some of the characters who don't have a big role in this film have a bigger role in part 2.
After many moons of digging and more digging I finally ran out of shovels and then I went online and found out that the animation for this film was done by Moi Animation aka the studio that animated Avatar and I have to say that the animation in this film was honestly really good it's not by any means perfect you do get the odd drawing here and there which is to be expected in any movie really but here since the story is so good and so strong it doesn't really take anything away from the film.
I mentioned before how Bruce being old and yet suiting up was in his character and it's so true Bruce Wayne not for one minuet would allow himself any bit of happiness no matter what form it took in fact the only reason why he stopped being Batman for so long was the fact that he's drinking alot.
If you think back to the very first animated Batman movie we have a series of flashbacks where we see Bruce be happy and in one of those flashbacks he's begging his parents to not keep him to his promise and let him be happy in my mind the same thing is kind of happening here Bruce is happy not being Batman and in this case he's begging the city to let him stay happy but when the city says no you made a promise so keep it that's when he finally suits back up.
I havn't read the original source material so I cannot say if this is a faithful adaptation or not but I can say that as a film the story is really good and as you can no doubt tell by the above picture that iconic cover does appear in the movie and to me that was the only scene in the movie that felt like total fan service it's not a bad scene but if you look at in context of the film you can just tell that it was there for fan service.
I have to mention the awesome Batman reveal to me that was one of the best scenes in the whole movie that whole scene was just so well done (just to make things clear i'm talking about the scene where Batman first comes back not the opening of the movie) everything in that scene made it feel like Batman coming was a big deal which is what it should have done since it is a big deal it was well edited , animated , written and acted I also like the fact that it was a slow build for the vast majority of that scene we barely see Batman in full we either just see certain body parts or it's his shadow.
Rather shockingly there isn't that much action in this movie but what action there is in the movie is really well done this is a UK rated 15 film so you get to see alot of blood in this movie and alot of it comes from Batman himself and that's something you very rarely see in animated media and it always happens after an intense action see which to me says that the action scenes in this movie mean something there not just there to add a bit of excitement they are here to help advance the story.
Overall this is a really solid first part and to me it's one of the few films that does the whole two part film right but tho it does have it's fair share of problems and ironically there the same problems that all first part films have but it's still an enjoyable film in it's own right and it scores an 8 out of 10 from me.