The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1

After Christopher Nolan’s dark, epic take on Batman, it’s hard to believe that the film series ever sunk as low as this. But it’s even harder to believe that at one time, the comic itself had reached such a level of camp. Yet, long ago, well before the superhero movie renaissance, the Caped Crusader had done just that.

That changed in the mid-1980s. One of the biggest reasons for that was the work of Frank Miller. Though he seems to have lost his mind of late, at the time, he was one of the best comic book writers in the business, and he wrote what are easily the two greatest Batman stories ever written. One was 1987’s Batman: Year One, a retelling of the character’s origin updated to a then-modern day realistic setting (Nolan’s Batman Begins was at one point slated to be a direct adaptation of Year One, and the final film contains several references the story).

The other (actually, the one that came first) was The Dark Knight Returns, a four-part graphic novel released in 1986. The story featured an older, meaner Batman, unlike the clean-cut hero he had been for so long. Miller’s gritty story gave the Dark Knight a much-needed shot in the arm, and formed the basis for the character as we know him today.

Year One was adapted last year as one of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies (rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?), which are direct-to-video adaptations of specific DC Comics story arcs. Now, The Dark Knight Returns is getting the same treatment. Only instead of editing the dense story down to a single 70-plus minute feature, the filmmakers saw fit to give us two to tell the whole story. Part 1, out now, adapts the first two parts of the graphic novel.

The story begins ten years after Bruce Wayne (voiced by the original Robocop Peter Weller) has quit fighting crime as his alter ego. In the decade since hanging it up, he has become a cynical old man, his anger stewing as Gotham City becomes more crime-ridden than ever. When an ultraviolent gang called the Mutants grips Gotham in a fit of terror, Wayne finally dons the cowl once more and returns to save his city (if this sounds familiar, yes, certain elements were borrowed in The Dark Knight Rises).

Watchmen showed that adapting a comic scene-for-scene doesn’t exactly make an effective motion picture. Well, this movie shows how to make an adaptation right. The story is transcribed to the screen very closely, but the filmmakers understand the difference in form between a moving picture and a comic page.

For instance, Miller’s comics are often heavy on first-person narration, with characters going on long internal monologues. This works in a still comics panel, but it doesn’t translate too well to a movie, as film moves too fast for Miller’s amount of narration. This problem was evident in the film of Year One. This time, the narration is dropped completely (save for one introspective scene), or incorporated into the dialogue whenever possible. This makes for a more laconic Batman, but still true to Miller’s story. Another example is the television news reports that pervade the story, which are wisely relegated to the background or placed at cuts between scenes, rather than always hovering over the action like they do in the comic.

It’s great as an adaptation, but for those who haven’t read Miller’s comic, the film is still a fantastic Batman experience.

The animation finds a nice balance between Miller’s gritty, realistic style and a sleeker modern look, creating a Gotham City with a mix of retro/futuristic cityscapes and the hellish urban decay of the comic. The book employed several series of repeating images to create an almost cinematic reading experience; though the art doesn’t move, the story unfolds at the breakneck pace of an action film. Onscreen, these images come to vivid, thrilling (and bloody) life. The action sequences, such as Batman’s final showdown with a surgically-healed Harvey Dent and the battles with the Mutant Leader, are edge-of-your-seat intense, and the flashback to the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is touching, macabre, and beautiful.

To me, Kevin Conroy will always be the true voice of Batman (I grew up on The Animated Series, and I still read the comics in his voice), but Peter Weller is not bad, either. His gruff vocals fit the older, wiser Batman perfectly. The rest of the voice cast is adequate, but none stand out quite like Weller; this is his Batman’s movie, through and through.

There are a few expository elements from the comics that were deleted, so a few story points might go a little fast for those who haven’t read the comic. Really, though, the only complaint is that we have to wait until next year for Part 2. The Dark Knight Rises was nearly three hours, so why couldn’t they have just made a longer animated film? Then again, Part 1 is so action-packed that an intermission is kind of in order (and the film ends with the perfect scene, moved to later in the story than the comic).

I'll return with a full review in 2013, but as of now, The Dark Knight Returns could very well be the greatest DC direct-to-video movie yet. And apologies to Christopher Nolan: I liked The Dark Knight Rises, but this will always be the definitive final Batman story.