Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One is the best DC animated movie in years, a dark, atmospheric and suspenseful crime drama. Jensen Ackles is a surprisingly great Batman, Troy Baker is reliably perfect as Joker and Naya Rivera, Josh Duhamel and Billy Burke are all great. The animation is excellent and Chris Palmer's direction is really good. The music by Michael Gatt is good. It's reasonably well paced although some of the time jumps are a little jarring.

"Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One" is a fine kickoff and jump start done in fine animation as it's take on the classic graphic novel is entertaining and interesting a mystery like feel of drama and twist. As the times in Gotham are dark as the power struggles with Captain Gordon, D. A. Dent, and the Falcone crime family all blend in with a new wild card subplot and that's the holiday killer who murders on every holiday! All this blends an underworld of corruption and terror, along the way as Batman becomes involved Catwoman and the Joker play key figures in the chain of events with twist! If you like D. C. comics then yes watch this.

The long Halloween part one is a fascinating and awesome start to this two parter. Even if sometimes the movements of the characters can be stilted at times it makes it up with other great elements in the animation (the action scenes and the designs), the acting is great (Jensen ackles and josh duhamel especially), the action is fun, the story is great (so far), it takes its time (which sets a pretty great atmosphere), the characters are fascinating to watch and the ending offers a good shock. A great animated Batman film and I hope the second part lives up to it.

Fans have been disappointed by recent animated adaptations of Killing Joke and Hush. I've been more disappointed by the recent batch of animated films like the boring voice cast for Justice Society and the Batman-less Soul Of The Dragon. I'm pleased to say they've delivered an outstanding part one of the Long Halloween. I was thoroughly entertained. The voice cast is fantastic. Naya is quite possibly the best animated Catwoman for me. Troy Baker delivers a spot on Joker channelling Mark Hamill which adds to the atmosphere and style of the Batman animated series from 1992. All this adds up to a win win release.

Definitely has a good story to it, don't expect too much action like other DC animated movies. Less detective work from the Bats to be honest. Voice casting seems perfect, though really sad to hear about Naya Rivera. Can't wait for Part two, how it all ends.