Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One

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.

The new DCAU movie is first of the two part movies based on the acclaimed limited comic book series of the same name by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale published in the 90s.

The movie is among the few screen adaptation of the Batman that showcases his abilities as a detective. I think the movie faithfully follows the original source material while providing a fresh update to the story for modern sensibilities. The visuals share the noir-tinged sensibilities with a Gotham City and character designs that bear a more subtle inspiration to the source material.

Another highlight of the movie is the performance of Jensen Ackles, who previously voiced Jason Todd in Under the Red Hood did a wonderful job as voicing the Caped Crusader/Bruce Wayne. Josh Duhamel's Harvey Sent also requires special praise along with Naya Rivera as Catwoman and David Dastmalchian was particularly effective as the sinister Calendar Man.

Overall with an atmospheric mood punctuated by thrilling set pieces, The Long Halloween is one of the most effective DCAU movie.

With plenty of the comic story still to go, this suggests Part 2 will be even more rapidly paced, as it introduces additional players while moving towards its grand finale.

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.

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.

The animation the tone the background music the cast everything is excellent in setting up the type of the batman animated movie we would like to see. It portrays batman in his early years so he has less of detective skill than we are used to which may be covered in part 2 but this movie is as satisfying as a batman movie could be. Do give it a watch.