Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

This movie tries to be to much like Gotham by Gaslight and it just doesn't work. The story is not very interesting and just throws in random things to introduce characters that reference the comics. Also, this doesn't feel like Batman to me. You could replace Batman with almost any other character and besides some plot changes, the movie would feel the same. Some of this may because this isn't really a Batman story. This isn't a noir or a crime-fighting story. It's about ancient legends and things that usually wouldn't apply to Batman. The animation itself was pretty good but it doesn't make up for a bad script.

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.

Right, well I figured another year another reboot of the "Batman" story. Yet, I opted to sit down and watch this 2023 animated DC movie titled "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" without really knowing what I was getting into here, aside from it being a caped crusader animated movie, of course.

And true enough, once again we have to sit through "Batman" reinvented. And this time in the 1920s.

But that is where "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" stopped being annoying for me, because writers Jase Ricci, Mike Mignola and Richard Pace definitely put together quite the grand script and storyline here. Sure, I haven't read the comic book upon which this 2023 animated movie is based, so how true it is to the source material, I can only speculate. But without having read that, and only watching this, I have to say that I was entertained and I was impressed.

"Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" combines the classic "Batman" tale with something I like a lot, and that is the H. P. Lovecraft Mythos. I wasn't prepared for that, so this was quite a pleasant surprise for me to sit through.

Lots of really nice visuals throughout the course of the 86 minutes that "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" ran for. And there were a lot of subtle hints and references to Lovecraft's works, so if you are a fan, keep your eyes and ears open.

Visually then "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" was good. It is an archetypical "Batman" drawing style, which is actually good. But the added Lovecraft Mythos elements was just the icing on the cake.

With "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" being an animated movie, then having a good voice acting cast ensemble is alpha and omega. And I have to say that they definitely had a good ensemble put together for voicing the characters in this animated movie. And having Jeffrey Combs do the voice of Kirk Langstrom was just such a great homage to us fans of the Lovecraft cinema.

I was genuinely entertained by directors Christopher Berkeley and Sam Liu's 2023 animated movie. And if you are a "Batman" fan, then you should check this out. And if you are a Lovecraft fan too, definitely check out "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham".

My rating of "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" lands on a seven out of ten stars.

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.

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.