Verdict
Summary
The film works really well if you’re a fan of both Batman and Lovecraft, and it goes places I wasn’t really expecting because I haven’t read the source material.
Plot:
Bruce Wayne becomes Batman for the first time in the 1920’s, and his first great enemy is a creature from beyond time and space.
Review:
Gotham was founded hundreds of years ago by settlers looking to make a new life, and its founders – which include Bruce Wayne’s father Thomas, Oliver Queen’s father, and Oswald Cobblepot – and Gotham flourished because of a pact they all made with an ancient evil. Now, it’s the 1920’s and Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham after being on an expedition throughout Antarctica with his team, hunting for Cobblepot, who is out there living amongst the penguins. When Wayne returns, he encounters unearthly creatures and a cult that worships some kind of ancient creature from beyond time and space, and at first he has no idea how to battle the cult (which is led by Ra’s al Ghul), but as his team – including Oliver Queen (a.k.a. Green Arrow) – is systematically killed and turned into hosts for the cult’s minions, Wayne must embrace his true form, the Batman, to properly fight back against the horror that will surely devour the world if he doesn’t stop it.
A reimagining of the Batman mythos in the style of a Lovecraft horror story, Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham is adapted from a comic book by Mike Mignola, Richard Pace, and Troy Nixey. The film works really well if you’re a fan of both Batman and Lovecraft, and it goes places I wasn’t really expecting because I haven’t read the source material. It’s got some gnarly stuff in it, and the climax where Batman faces Cthulu is a trip. Kudos to the casting director for hiring Jeffrey Combs to voice a crucial side character. This is one of the better recent DC Animated movies from the DC animated line. From directors Sam Liu and Christopher Berkeley.
Warner Brother has just released a 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray / Digital Combo pack of this title, and it comes with an audio commentary, a feature entitled “Batman: Shadows of Gotham”, and two bonus cartoons from the DC vault.
