561: Batman: The Long Halloween Parts One & Two

[Henry Faherty]:\nTwo sixty seven. Let's get to a bonus review, which is Batman, the long Halloween. And I will be talking about both parts. It was separated into two movies, but you can also watch it as one. So that's what I'm gonna be doing just for the sake of conversation. It came out in twenty twenty one. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nIt is directed by Chris Palmer. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nStars a stacked cast, Jensen Ackles, Josh Duhamel, Naya Rivera, Troy Baker, David Dostmalkian, Katee Sackhoff, Jack Quaid. And the synopsis is atrocious serial killings on holidays in Gotham City send the world's greatest detective into action, confronting both organized crime and a unified front of classic DC supervillains while attempting to stop the mysterious murderer. I decided to throw this one in partially because I had just done the two Joker films on previous collections. I didn't know anything about the plot with this. I in general, I like DC animated films, especially Batman ones. They're just something that the world of Gotham and Batman naturally lends itself to animation. With all that being said, I thought this movie was fantastic. For one, the animation is gorgeous. And just the look of Gotham City in wintertime with the snow, the clouds, the rain does not get better than that. This features a big group of some of the most iconic characters from the world of Batman. You got Joker, Scarecrow, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthe Penguin is in there briefly, Poison Ivy, Harvey Dent, Falcone. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nReally, one of the only ones that's not in there is Harley Quinn, which was too bad. I was kinda hoping for that, but it's not a big deal. The concept of this string of murders happening on holidays is very interesting, where it starts on Halloween, then goes to Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, etcetera, and goes until that Halloween the next year. An aspect of this style of movie, of this style of animation that is always usually, is always an issue for me is the action. For some reason, whenever there's big spectacle action in these movies, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nthat's almost always the time when I phase out. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd in this, why it works so well for me is there's little to no action until the very end. So it relies very heavily on the strength of the narrative, the characters, the writing. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI don't think I've seen any of the other Batman animated films that have Jensen Ackles from Supernatural as Batman. He's great as that voice. It's also one of Josh Duhamel's better performances. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nUsually, I'm not a big fan of his, but he's very good in this. I love Katee Sackhoff. She's not in it that much, but she's great as Poison Ivy. One of the more unexpectedly good sequences and voice performances is by David Dastmalchian. Sorry if I'm saying that name wrong. He's a great, very underrated character actor. He's been in the Dark Knight, Prisoners, the boogeyman that I just talked about. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnd his character, Calendar Man, who is in Arkham throughout this whole story, I'd never heard of that character before. I don't know anything about his origins or anything. I don't wanna get too repetitive here, but what a great performance. It's one of those really quiet, creepy, but very confident villains who feels very calculated, feels like he's on top of the world. He knows it, but no one else does, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nwhich we've seen a lot before. But that performance nails that character, whether it's like how he is in other movies or in the comic books. Jack Quaid as the young Falcone brother, Alberto. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nI know I also almost always mention the score, but the score for these kinds of movies are not always that great. They're very kinda conventional, very classical, which isn't bad inherently, but the score in this, unusually good. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nAnother thing on the story is I know a lot of people have described this as Batman meets the Godfather. I'd say that's pretty accurate. Batman has to go into this underworld dealing with Falcone and all these mobsters. But then Joker gets involved. There's all this business corruption. Harvey Dent gets targeted. Now this isn't till the second part more so, but the fall of Harvey Dent is very confidently and emotionally well done. It's quite similar to how it is in The Dark Knight. In this case, though, he gets acid thrown on him while dealing with someone on the stand in a court case, and that's when he truly becomes two faced. And that design is great with the red half on the left side of his face and then the white hair and the deep gravelly voice, \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nbeing someone who sticks to the law, but then to take down Falcone, to take down these other horrible criminals, he has to, in a lot of ways, destroy himself and or bring himself down to their level. That, of course, destroys his reputation. And then even more tragic, when Falcone is killed by him, there's the question of, was all this worth it? Is it gonna end Falcone's entire operation just by cutting the head off the snake? Probably not. \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nThe reveal of the killer being the wife of Harvey Dent, I didn't see that coming at all. That was very strong direction to at least maybe I'm stupid in in the minority, but I never for once guessed it would have been her and how they presented that character and her relationship of trying to keep Harvey safe, but also wanting to start her own family. But then there's this disconnect. Troy Baker as Joker. I don't know if I've seen a lot of his other voice roles as Joker before, but he was good. Oh, and I didn't even mention Catwoman embarrassingly. That relationship between her and Batman to me will always be interesting and compelling and alluring and mysterious. I'm so glad that she was used so well in the Batman, and Zoe Kravitz was great as Catwoman, so I'm glad that that character has had a redemption. Even though Anne Hathaway did very well in The Dark Knight Rises, I am very anxious to see the next live action version of Poison Ivy. I think there are a lot of great things you could do with that in a live action form. Some standout scenes, the midpoint or the end of part one when they're on the yacht, and there's the murder of Alberto Falcone when Joker flies the plane and attacks the yacht. Part two opens with Poison Ivy taking control over Bruce Wayne and keeping him and Alfred brainwashed for most of the year, and you see all of those holiday murders continue without their help. But then Catwoman shows up and gets poison ivy out of there and things are restored. Scarecrow is a great character. Overall, of course, that's not a new thing to say, and I hope that we see more of him in the live action form than just the little bits that he's in the Dark Knight trilogy. But when he gets Bruce Wayne under the toxin and Bruce Wayne sees his mom and has that hallucinatory episode, after Dent becomes Two Face, and he gets tricked by two of Falcone's men at the pier or wherever that is, is able to get the one up on them and escape. Thankfully, even though it's a long movie, it's almost three hours total. It doesn't feel that long. The pacing is pretty good. If there was anything wrong with that, the second half maybe feels a little dragged out at times, but nothing too bad. And the final thirty minutes or so, despite it being action, it's not that epic in scale. It's mostly gunfights and things like that. Lastly, when Bruce Wayne is back at the manor and there's trick or treaters, they open the door, and it's a kid dressed as Batman. And he gets that reaffirming that he has had an impact on people, and they look up to him. And, yeah, it's a very touching final moment. It's a great example for films that a lot of people may not take seriously or write off as, oh, that's just for diehard fans or anything in that realm. This could be one to convince you otherwise. That is a heavy four and a half \n\n[Henry Faherty]:\nout of five. \n\n