Batman: Year One

Rating: ***1/2

Before Christopher Nolan spun his own tale of Batman’s origins, Warner Bros was in the process of shepherding an adaptation of Year One, the seminal retelling of Batman’s origins as envisioned by Frank Miller. No less than Darren Aronofsky, then well-known for low budget films like Pi and Requiem for a Dream, signed on to direct as he and Miller collaborated on the script, but sadly it was not meant to be.

Apparently what was meant to be was an animated adaptation courtesy of the crew behind the DC Animated Universe series of movies. Technically, this is only Warner Animation’s second stand-alone Batman story after Under the Red Hood, which is a more recent tale from Batman lore, and maybe not yet as influential as other tales of the Dark Knight. Basically, committing to Year One in animation form is as bold a choice as Zack Snyder adapting Watchmen as his third film, just to put this in context.

Fortunately, director Lauren Montgomery and her all-star voice cast is more than up to the task. The film straightforwardly and faithfully adapts Frank Miller’s story and finds an artful and beautiful blending of the DCAU style and the Year One comic artwork by David Mazzucchelli. For people perhaps unfamiliar with the source material, the movie may feel like a lo-fi version of Nolan’s script in Batman Begins, so the filmmakers deserve a great deal of appreciation for their restraint and their reverence for Year One.

What’s interesting about the story is that is really is as much, if not more, like “Commissioner Gordon Year One.” Much of the story follows Bruce Wayne’s return to Gotham City and his initial fumbles becoming a costumed avenger, but the balance is how a young Lt. Gordon, fleeing Chicago after breaking police corruption there, arrives in an even more corrupt Gotham and struggles to make some headway in cleaning up both the streets and the halls of power.

Giving the story its proper weight is the casting of Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) as Lt Gordon. There’s such a heavy quality to Cranston’s voice work, you can feel the stress, and the exhaustion, and the concern. Miller can be rather pessimistic in this writing and his worldview, but Cranston manages to find the humanity and make it real. Benjamin McKenzie (The O.C.) is the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne and does an admirable job portraying the young Dark Knight’s inexperience. He’s not the best Batman ever, but he’s not the worst either.

Also joining the cast is Eliza Dushku (Buffy, Dollhouse) as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, which is a fitting choice given Dushku’s resume and the type of character she’s well known for, but I don’t feel that the character gets a chance to shine in the film. However, the disc does come with a bonus Catwoman short written by Paul Dini that does sufficiently fill the Cat-quota. Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackoff rounds out the name cast as Sarah Essen, a police detective Gordon becomes romantically involved with while investigating Batman.

If you liked the tone of the film Sin City, or are otherwise familiar with the source material, you’ll easily get into Year One. I think the dialogue, especially the narration and the inner monologues is kind of hard-boiled for the screen, but it’s just the way Miller writes that can be rather difficult to translate to the screen sometimes (see: The Spirit).

Still, for anyone interested in seeing Year One realized off the page, you probably won’t get much better than the fine work by the DCAU team. Year One is probably one of the better DCAU films as well, and considering the quality of the series that’s really saying something.

Also included on the disc is an advanced preview of Justice League: Doom, which reunites many of the favourite voice actors of animated adventures’ past including Tim Daly as Superman (Superman: The Animated Series), Kevin Conroy as Batman (Batman: The Animated Series), Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern (Green Lantern: Emerald Knights) and Michael Rosenbaum as The Flash (Justice League). And I’m guessing that unless the filmmakers completely drop the ball, it will be another animated success.

Year One

Rating: ***

Truly, Year One is inspired, as in it’s heavily inspired by just about everything in the Apatow catalogue. Sadly, director Harold Ramis used to be the Apatow of his generation, but now finds himself having to receive his successor’s graces in order to make a comedy people get excited about. Unfortunately, there’s something tired about Year One, and not just the heroic output of Judd Apatow and his cohorts. Basically, Jack Black gets loud and obnoxious while Michael Cera is the quiet but steadfast wall flower that provides back up to his fatter, more arrogant cohort. Well, except for the fact that this is all set during the caveman days. Or maybe the Book of Genesis days, I’m not sure.

I do know that we start out in a caveman village where the over-eager Zed (Black) is always trying to talk up his hunting skills and schmooze the ladies. His good friend Oh (Cera) is a gatherer that pines for the lovely Eema (Juno Temple), who doesn’t even know he exists. Fed up with life in the village, Zed eats of the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge and is cast out by the village as a cursed man. Oh joins him in the wilds for rather non-determinant reasons, but as they make their way to start the new Muscle Tribe of Danger and Excellence, they encounter many of the big names from the first book of the Bible.

In some ways, Year One feels like a throwback to something that Mel Brooks might have done, but in other ways, it feels like an elaborate Family Guy cutaway gag. Ramis co-wrote the script with Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg from the US version of The Office and there’s definitely that type of character based antic humour at the forefront. There’s also an assortment of gags and slick one-liners, but much of Year One is built upon the carefully crafted personas of Black and Cera. In the film, depending on the scene, it either works or it doesn’t. I think that Black and Cera are a good team, and I think if this film had come out a few years ago it would have felt funnier. But I’ve seen too much of Black being loud and demented (not to mention shirtless) and too much of Cera being quietly sarcastic.

Actually, the same goes for many of the supporting players too. David Cross and Paul Rudd as Cain and Abel have the same batting average as Black and Cera, but Cross gets the benefit of doing a really funny bit with Ramis himself in a cameo. Hank Azaria plays Abraham who starts as kind of annoying but devolves into a one joke wonder as he gets into the whole idea of circumcision. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, here-to and forever to be known as McLovin’, plays Abraham’s son Isaac and does himself no service in the opportunity. Most egregious of all is Oliver Platt, whose effeminate and hairy-chested high priest is an elaborate and tired cliché. This is an award-winning actor for crying out loud, why is he involved in a gag where Cera rubs hot oil over his artificially hairy torso?

The saving grace is that Year One is occasionally pretty funny. The true comedy tends to come concentrated in certain scenes as opposed to being spread throughout the entire film. It’s probably Ramis’ strongest film in years, but considering his batting average lately that’s really not saying much. Sadly it also doesn’t give my much hope for the Ghostbusters III script, rumoured to be worked on by the same team, because if they can be so hit and miss on an original script what can they be expected to do with an established story and cast. But overall, I think you will laugh in Year One and if nothing else, it’s a satisfying, if not completely successful comedy. Maybe if the cavemen had a hangover this thing would have really been kicked up a notch.