Product Description
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When Gotham City is in desperate need of heroes, two men take a
stand for justice…but on site sides. Bruce Wayne returns home
after years abroad to become a crimefighter, just as honest cop
Lt. James Gordon moves to Gotham and finds corruption at every
level. When Bruce becomes the ed vigilante Batman, the city
explodes as his new nemesis Catwoman, the mob and Gordon all
close in! Don’t miss this thrilling DC Universe Animated Original
Movie based on the groundbreaking story by Frank Miller and
featuring Bryan Cranston, Ben McKenzie, Katee Sackhoff, Eliza
Dushku, Alex Rocco and Jon Polito in its stellar voice cast.
Experience a bold and dynamic vision of the Dark Knight’s first
year in action and the start of his enduring friendship with Jim
Gordon.
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DC Universe's original animated movie takes on one of the most
accled texts among Batman fans: Frank Miller's Year One, which
retold the Dark Knight's origins as a crime fighter from a
decidedly hard-boiled point of view. The feature follows Miller's
story arc faithfully, with young Bruce Wayne (voiced by Benjamin
McKenzie of Southland) arriving in a vice-ridden Gotham with a
decade's worth of martial arts training and a head full of
vengeance over his parents' murder. At the same time, new
transfer Jim Gordon (Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad) settles into
his job, where he discovers that the are often worse than
the criminals. What follows is an inversion of the traditional
superhero story, with both men, ostensibly on the side of law and
order, taking the business of saving Gotham into their own hands,
with Gordon untangling the web of corruption around the city
while Wayne, as Batman, adopts a more hands-on (read: violent
pummeling) approach. The feature, codirected by Lauren Montgomery
and Sam Liu (who previously shared helming duties on Justice
League: Crisis on Two Earths), captures the visceral grit of
Miller's take, but not the depth of character and story, which
made the source material so rich. Exposition is delivered through
cumbersome voice-over, while the plentiful action threatens to
overwhelm the scant characterizations afforded by Tab Murphy's
script. Casting is another mixed bag, with Cranston delivering
Gordon's frustration and fury with skill, but McKenzie and Katee
Sackhoff (as Sarah Essen, Gordon's lover and future wife) not
quite striking the same balance. Striking the right combination
of Miller's literary leanings in the original text with the
visual elements required to keep an animated feature interesting
is a formidable challenge, and one that the makers of Batman:
Year One got only partially right.
Extras on the Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy set are typically
plentiful, with featurettes and interviews giving an in-depth
look into the origins and making of the film. Chief among these
is the original short Catwoman, which pits the whip-wielding
feline ale (voiced by Eliza Dushku, who has a cameo in Year
One) against a dangerous smuggler. As with its accompanying
feature, the action is fast and frenetic, though scenes in a
strip club make this definitely PG-13 material. Batman producer
Michael Uslan is front and center for Conversations with DC
Comics, which features the DC Entertainment team's thoughts on
the Batman: Year One text and its long-reaching influences, while
Heart of Vengeance looks at Miller's work and its impact on the
comic marketplace. Liu, producer Alan Burnett, DC writer/editor
Mike Carlin, and voice casting director Andrea Romano are
featured on an info-heavy commentary track, while two episodes
from Batman: The Animated Series, previews for previous releases,
and a sneak peek at Justice League: Doom, the next feature from
DCU, round out the sizable set. --Paul Gaita