Batman fans the film that i'm going to be reviewing for you all today is a film that I in all honesty wasn't expecting to be available until Tuesday. However to my surprise and to my shock when I logged online this evening (yes i'm writing this review on Saturday evening deal with it) I saw that the film had become available to watch online and so join me as I review the first film in a two part Batman film with this film in question being called simply just "Batman: The Long Halloween Part One" and yes this review will be 100% SPOILER FREE enjoy.
The plot of this film is there is a serial killer going around killing people on various holidays and it's up Batman , Harvey Dent and James / Jim Gordon to find out who is killing all of these people before the next murder from this person happens. In terms of what I thought about the plot of this film in all honesty I thought that the plot of this film was OK at best which I guess makes sense since this is a two part film but at the same time the plot for the first part of any two part film still needs to be an actually good plot and not something that like I said is OK at best.
Starring in this film is Jensen Ackles as Bruce Wayne / Batman and the late and always great Naya Rivera as Selina Kyle / Catwoman. Also starring in this film is Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent , Billy Burke as James Gordon , Titus Welliver as Carmine Falcone , David Dastmalchian as Julian Day / Calendar Man , Troy Baker as The Joker , Amy Landecker as Barbara Gordon , Julie Nathanson as Gilda Dent , Jack Quaid as Alberto Falcone , Fred Tatasciore as Solomon Grundy , Alastair Duncan as Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Pirri as Sal Maroni.
Now then boys and girls in terms of what I personally thought about the acting that's featured / presented to us in this film in all honesty the acting that's featured / presented in this film was in all freaking honesty really good. Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone since the acting in pretty much every single direct to DVD DC Comics animated film is always really good and so it's only naturel that the acting in this film is also in my humble and very honest opinion anyways / at least really good as well.
Doing the animation for this film is Studio Grida who worked on Justice Society: World War II and Superman: Man Of Tomorrow. Now then in terms of what I thought about the animation that's featured / presented to us in this film in all honesty the animation that's featured / presented to us in this film was really freaking good with all of the characters having some really nice and fluid movements and the backgrounds looked really freaking good as well however and yes there is a however I really didn't like the really thick lines that they gave the characters as I personally found it to be very freaking distracting.
Now then for those of you that either don't now or you didn't care or even you just straight didn't even realise but this is only the second ever two part animated film with the first two part Batman direct to DVD DC Comics animated film being Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. This was in all honesty something that I didn't even think about until I was doing research for this review and I honestly couldn't believe it since Honestly believed in my heart of hearts that there had been more two direct to DVD DC Comics animated Batman films but nope there's just these two films and I hope that there's more of these to come since Batman as a character could really benefit from the two part film structure / idea with the first part of the two part film being about setting whatever the mystery up and setting up all of characters while part two could be about solving whatever the actually mystery of this two part film was.
Naturally tho not every single Batman film needs or even should / deserves to be a two part film since you'd need a strong enough story to support both films which as I mentioned at the start of this review sadly isn't the case for this particular film. Plus like every single two part film this film has the issue of it just being an hour and half long trailer for Part Two which is always going to be a problem for every single two part film.
In all honesty I don't really see why this film needed to be a two part film since you very well could have told the entire story of both parts of this overall story in this one film. Yes some stuff from the comics would have had to have been cut out but that's going to happen with any adaptation of any story be it that story come from a comic book or not and as long you keep the spirit of the original story intact and you tell a good story then comic book fans myself included would have been left very happy indeed.
This film has a grand total running time of one hour and twenty five minuets and thirty six seconds and well I personally felt that that running time was the right amount of time for this film. Since there really wasn't enough there in terms of story or characters or anything else to cover anything even close to two hours and heck the film even struggled to reach the one hour and thirty minuet and thirty six second mark which is another reason as to why this story didn't need two films in order to tell it since it's a story that you could and even in this case should have told this story in one film instead of getting greedy and spreading it out across two films.
Now then boys and girls this film is an action film after all and so that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's / that is featured / presented to us in the actual film itself and well to my surprise and to my shock there was very little actual action in this film. Which given that this is a two part film does make alot of sense but at the same time the action in this film is so good that it leaves you wondering why there aren't more action scenes / sequences in this film.
Overall I cant say that this film is the worst Batman live action or not or theatrically released because it' really not but at the same time it's clearly not one of the better Batman films either which is a shame because the plot of this film and the idea behind this film is interesting it just needed that extra something to make it something other then just an average film. Now then since i've talked about / spoken about both of the good and as well as both of the bad things that are in his film in this very review that means that I give this film a grand total of a 6.5 out of 10 from me.
As for where I got all of the images that I used in this very review well / now then boys and girls I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Scooby-Doo fandom wiki page , the official Batman fandom wiki page , the official Batman The Animated Series fandom wiki page and from Google Images. With my personal preferred website to use to get images from this fil being Google Images simply just / simply due to the fact that Google Images actually had images from this film up on Google Images which sadly wasn't the case for the official Batman fandom wiki page which is a shame because all of the images that I personally used that I got from the official batman fandom wiki page were all fairly high quality and as as well as being fairly high definition and yes I used "other methods" in order to see this film and no I do not recommend using "other methods to watch any film as you should always watch a film legally.
