In the Warner Brothers adaptation of the
Frank Miller comic 'The Dark Knight Returns', this being Part
One, it's been ten years since The Batman (voiced by Peter
Weller) has hung up his cape, an action we can largely
associate to the death of his sidekick Robin those years ago,
though the details of this are purposely left blank.
Those who know… they know however. These days a fifty five
year old Bruce Wayne gets his action fix by driving race cars
to destruction, drinking a lot, and walking the dangerous
streets of Gotham, but nothing can really tame the beast that
is inside of him. Also entering his salad years is
Commissioner Gordon (David Selby), now seventy and about to
shut it down, but there is a menace floating around Gotham
known as The Mutants that Gordon still has to worry about
before he can hang them up.
These Mutants are bad news, stealing, murdering, terrorizing
the weak and a couple of them even ran into Bruce Wayne one
evening but the old man is still a good 6'5" and weighs an
easy 250, so they wisely thought better of that. Plus
the old dude looked like he wanted to fight, and who wants to
deal with that? Another problem shows up in Harvey Dent
(Wade Williams), completely healed, physically at least, from
the injuries that turned him into Two Face and he is allegedly
healed mentally at Arkham Asylum and set free to live out his
normal life. Like anything good can come out of Arkham
Asylum. We know better.
So with Harvey back on the street who
happens to be the exact opposite of rehabilitated, the Mutants
and their crazed leader (Dee Bradley Baker) making life
miserable for just about everybody in Gotham and Bruce Wayne
still haunted by the events in his life that caused him to
become The Batman in the first place, it's time for a middle
aged old dude to do what he
does best. Yes, Alfred (Michael
Jackson) thinks this is a terrible idea… note that we thought
for sure Alfred would be dead by now… but whatever old man,
it's time for Batman to clean this mess up. And what
self-respecting Batman would be fighting crime without a
plucky sidekick named Robin? Now here's the thing, when
Batman saved this plucky girl, Carrie (Ariel Winter) is her
name, and she went home and put on a Robin's costume to help
Batman fight crime, I thought Batman was going to send her
home with a sound tongue lashing, NOT welcome her to the fray…
a bit irresponsible if you were to ask me… and she did kind of
save his life a little bit, but still…
Anyways, Two Face is trouble, this mutant is worse. Way
worse. Somewhere along the line Batman forgot he was a
middle-aged crime fighter who took ten years off. He's
lucky to be alive. But if nothing else, the man is
pretty bright and he figured out that he was a middle-aged
crime fighter who took ten years off and he will make some
adjustments as only Batman can. Can't wait for Part II.
At this point in the game, when it comes to these Warner / DC
animated movies, they are almost like Pixar and their 3D
movies in the sense that we all know beforehand whatever we
are about to sit down and watch is going to be pretty good,
with the only question remaining is how good is this movie
going to be in relation to the ones before it. 'Batman:
The Dark Knight Returns - Part I' if you were to ask me, is
amongst the best the studio has put out.
It appears to me that these animated features have more
freedom to stick closer to the source material than say the
live action features, and adhering to the rules that are
created in the world of the graphic novels makes it easier on
the filmmakers, I believe, and it certainly endears these
filmmakers to the film watchers who usually revere the source
material that these films originates from. 'Batman: The
Dark Knight Returns' stays about as faithful to the source
material as one could hope.
Now pushing all that rigmarole to the side, the fact of the
matter is that 'The Dark Knight Returns: Part I' is just flat
out solid entertainment. Director Jay Oliva takes the
movie and runs with it, deftly combining the outstanding voice
work, top notch animation, a solid adult themed narrative and
enough animated mayhem to satisfy even the most jaded action
junkie. Peter Weller steps up the plate taking his turn
as the voice of Bruce Wayne and knocks it out the park.
There is a weariness and a tortuous maturity to Weller's voice
and he brings that to forefront as Bruce Wayne, and the way
the story handled a middle-aged Batman putting on the cape
once again was handled just about perfectly. Only David
Selby's voice as Commissioner Gordon took a little getting
used to, but then Falcon Crest was one of my favorite shows
when I was kid… my parents let me stay up on that night… so we
could never be too hard on Mr. Selby.
'Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part One' is just about as
good as a superhero animated film can get and needless to say,
we will be near the front of the line when Part II gets
released in the next couple of months.
