This ain't no joke!

Just in time to grab some home-video (or should that be DVD?) dollars to cap off a summer filled with everything comic book fans love to love, one of DC Comics most unstoppably powerful creations returns to the world of animation once more in this six-piece anthology film from the producers of Batman Begins and (you guessed it) The Dark Knight.  While cinema has always welcomed the character whole-heartedly, animation practically adopted it long ago, with many Caped Crusader fans (including yours truly) finding the mid-90s Batman: The Animated Series the best overall adaptation of the character and his many adventures.

Much as they did with the build-up and subsequent release of the (hopefully) final Matrix films, Warner Bros enlists the help of both talented Japanese anime production houses and some choice comicbook writers, particularly those familiar with the Batman mythos.  Six separate stories, each with their own unique style and some semblance of a continuing storyline connect and help create the running time of this made-for-home feature film.  Although ambitious, the overall effect is dulled somewhat with reused ideas from Batman's long, long legacy and whatever ambitions to create a connective framework by the end is largely abandoned.  The only thing each story has in common -aside from a love for men in batsuits - is the welcome return of voice-actor Kevin Conroy, who played the character in every post-90s animated version and has the distinction of playing the character longer than any other.

In case you're curious, the animation quality varies as much as the individual pieces themselves.  Although nothing here goes beyond the typical OAV (Original Animation Video) level of quality, each section contains its own sense of style and varying degrees of sophistication.  This was bound to be the case, given that five different animation studios worked on the feature, with just as many writers.  As I'm not personally as 'involved' in the intricate - sometimes frightening - world of Japanese animation as I used to be, I can't say that any of the individual houses at work here stood out on name recognition alone, although for my money it was the work of Studio 4°C (Working Through The Pain) that was by far the most impressive here, thanks to a particularly strong story by comicbook writer Brian Azzarello.

While I understand the need to help showcase the varying personalities and ways to visually present this character (dependant on which anime house is producing), the overall effect is largely nullified simply due to the fact that since his creation in 1939, we've already seen many variations of this character - with almost every one of them popular in their own right.  Nobody would mistake the Adam West creation for Tim Burton's macabre take on Bats, nor would anyone confuse Christopher Nolan's recent Batman films with the also-recent The Batman animated series.  Yet, they're all Batman and easily recognizable as such.  Perhaps there's just something inherently archetypical with the legend of Bruce Wayne and his vigilante doppelganger (or should that be the other way around?) that folk just 'get'... but history alone won't help fans from enjoying this showy - if predictable - perspective on the character.

Anime fans will probably eat this one up more than hardcore Batman fans will, if only because the product itself was always meant to be larger on style than progressing any inner Batman mythos.  Still, for what its worth Batman: Gotham Knight is still a nicely produced, tight little package that looks great and is fun to watch.  Of course, if its real purpose is to get fans excited for the upcoming Dark Knight theatrical bonanza, they needn't have worked so hard - our tickets were already sold after Batman Begins.