Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

If you are a fan of Batman and want to see what this entire universe would be like in the early 1900s, you are in the right place, however, if you want to watch good animation with an incredible script, you are in the wrong place. Throughout the film several characters appear and this is the coolest part of the film. The curiosity to know what the characters are like in this universe is really cool, the problem is that the characters are just thrown into the movie and that ends up making the script worse precisely because it doesn't know what to do with so many characters. The only reason the movie isn't terrible is because of these references, which are really cool to catch, but by the end of the movie, it's already tiring that this happens so much. The film is quite mediocre, at times it is tiring and most of the time the action doesn't work so well. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, just Batman fans who are curious about this type of situation.

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.

In Brief: Solid 7/10 - Well rounded experience following the major plot points of the graphic novel with above average VA work and lovely anime-esque animation.

Caught an advance screening of this over a month ago and have been waiting to review it ever since. David Giuntoli lends his voice to Bruce/Batman in this outing and honestly it decent justice to the legacy of batman voice acting, sounding pretty much exactly how you'd expect - closer to the Arkham games than to more recent adaptions. The same can also be said for Harvey and Alfred, who are particular high points, but sadly this doesn't extend to the supporting cast, with the younger voice actors coming across a little rigid at times.

Animation wise, it leans into an anime style for the action oriented series and falls back to traditional western styles for backgrounds and story moments, providing a well rounded experience that looks excellent for the vast majority of the movie.

Why have you given it a 7 instead of X?

Without spoilers, there's some younger characters (Sanjay, Kai) who lose a lot of their agency between the source material and the adaption and are relegated to "let's drive the plot forward" instead of having motivations or proper backstory but y'no, it might just be the best elseworlds adaption to date!

Give it a watch, if you liked Red Son, Gotham by Gaslight and felt utterly betrayed by the Injustice adaption, then this will likely be for you!

The Doom That Came to Gotham is almost a companion piece to Gotham by Gaslight (2018). Here we have a turn-of-the-century Dark Knight investigating a cult who may be trying to summon up ancient forces of evil (spoiler: they are). Forbidden books, vast tentacled monstrosities and madness abound.

Lots of the usual Bat cast are thrown in - some given horrific make-overs, some don't make it to the final credits - and the voice work and animation are all above average. David Giuntuli is a terrifically fierce but impassioned, human Batman - he might be one of the best of the many voice actors in the role. This is a truly dark night for the Dark Knight, who at one point just stands in the Batcave and announces Gotham is doomed over and over again. To the wall.

As much as the movie uses such classic tropes and conventions from HP Lovecraft's stories, the biggest one - the overwhelming sense of unknowable dread - is something that just can't be conjured in a 90 minute animated action adventure. Slow-building tension and increasing unease are something it just doesn't have time for - also the problem with the first Hellboy movie, which Doom That Came to Gotham is very similar to.

However, as an atmospheric period superhero adventure, tinged with nightmarish horror, this is a winner.