Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

When it comes to horror I can be a bit biased due to my love of the genre, but that aside I thought this was really good. While I enjoyed the color grading in Gotham by Gaslight a bit more as it truly invoked that story's era as well as the steampunk vibe it was going for, The Doom That Came to Gotham also looks stellar and the animation as well as the artwork is some of the best

Overall Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham has a solid premise set to a tight pace that never lets up, with fresh takes on both Batman's allies and adversaries and artwork that makes it stand out from the crowd of animated DC films that exist. It's adult themes (and actual life and death consequences) coupled with smart narrative choices makes this worth seeing and as Batman stories go it deserves to sit up high with some of the best we've got from this medium thus far.

Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham doesn't live up to the potential of a lovecraftian take on the world of the Dark Knight but it's still good thanks to a reasonably engaging central mystery and a period setting that allows it to have some fun with the pre-established characters and events.

David Giuntoli is a good batman once again, he isn't given particularly memorable material but he certainly has the required gravitas for the character. The rest of the voice cast are all fine, with some DC animated veterans in fine if forgettable form.

The animation is good overall, it's nowhere near as stylish as it could've been but it looks nice enough. The music by Stefan L. Smith mostly goes unnoticed but does have a few fun moments where it does come to life. The longer run time is also appreciated, even if the ending feels rushed.

A Gotham city set in the 1920's with a steampunk Batman was a great concept and could've made for a great DC animated film but unfortunately it wasn't. I quite enjoyed the 1st act of this movie but near the end of the 2nd act things started falling apart. This movie introduced too many characters too quickly, some that had no real impact on the story and seemed to have been added to please the DC comic fans. There was lots of occultism which is nothing necessarily new in DC animated films but there was an excessive amount that seemed kind of out of place in this movie. To have Batman opt out of his detective logic, using his mind, but instead to resort to magic as a solution for his problems was just odd and unlike Batman. The 3rd act was messy, there was so many villains introduced back to back to bring us one step closer to the final villan which in the end was disappointing and in the final battle something happens which is just once again odd. I can appreciate a different take on a Batman animated film and I loved the time setting but I feel like there's a balance where if you change too many components to a Batman movie where it doesn't really feel like one anymore. This is still worth a watch but will definitely not be in my top Batman animated movies.

For DC animated films, it's often hit or miss on quality and unfortunately, The Doom That Came to Gotham is the latter. While it has fresh ideas and is visually entertaining by introducing new designs for some classic characters. Other than that, I found myself bored and waiting for the already short runtime to hurry up. The voice cast does their best to draw you into the mystery at hand and they are all fairly enjoyable in their roles. As an adaptation, it does the source material justice, but just because a comic exists, does not mean it needs to be adapted. It is by no means the worst of DC Animation, but in this case, boredom definitely came to Gotham.

Animated adaptation of Mike Mignola's comic from 2000. In the 1920s, Bruce Wayne returns home after travelling the world for 20 years following the murder of his parents. He soon becomes aware of mysterious events stretching back to the founding of Gotham, and a connected present-day plot to unleash an ancient evil. He also starts to find that those events shine a different light on some aspects of his past.

The movie opens with Bruce and others in the Antarctic. A journey across gorgeous snowscapes - which begins behind the opening titles - is really striking, eventually leading to the stark contrast of abandoned remains of an expedition and several frozen corpses (which look like they've been photo-referenced from perhaps the Franklin Expedition). Bruce catches sight of what may be a survivor, and we're off into HP Lovecraft territory...

Apparently there's some race/gender-swapping of supporting characters; I've never read the original so this didn't tick me off; the characters presented are still relevant to Batman's mythology (and there's some cool name-play). Voice acting is fine; David Giuntoli as Batman, John DiMaggio as Jim Gordon, Jason Marsden as Dick Grayson, Jeffrey Combs as Kirk Langstrom (I won't list more for fear of spoilers) all do well. Standout for me is Brian George (Raj's dad from The Big Bang Theory) as Alfred, sounding uncannily like Efrem Zimbalist Jr in BTAS!

The plot is fine up to the introduction of a certain pair of characters, when it starts to go downhill; this may be Elseworlds but I still want it to feel like Batman - this could have been a John Constantine story (nothing against JC, btw). And the climax feels a bit generic. Frustrating after such a promising start.

People seem either bowled over by this or find it pretty meh. Sad to say I'm nearer the latter. 6/10.