Batman – Gotham By Gaslight: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review
“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the title I reviewed. The opinions I share are my own.”
The Movie:
Batman: Gotham By Gaslight takes place at the turn of the century as America’s industrial revolution is to be showcased at a World’s Fair hosted by Gotham City. But while the world prepares to witness Gotham’s technological advances, there is a killer loose in the city’s shadows, preying on the city’s women. As Police Commissioner James Gordon tries to calm the fears of Gotham’s citizens regarding the butcher called Jack the Ripper, the masked vigilante Batman enacts his own detective work to stop the Ripper’s murderous spree.
This is definitely one of my favorite Batman stories that has been told. It’s just so unique and to see the usual Batman villains remixed in a really different way and with that said I thought they did a great job at adapting that story. The plot is very clever and blends the stories that we’ve read or heard about Jack The Ripper and throws The Dark Knight in to create a story that is interesting with a nice twist. It doesn’t feel as action packed as the typical superhero film but it is a great take on an old school crime mystery. The voice cast was pretty great as well. Now Bruce Greenwood is no Kevin Conroy but I thought he did a terrific job as The Dark Knight. This isn’t the best DC Animated film but it is a really solid one that gives something to the casual audience that they’ve never seen before and I hope they continue to adapt more Elseworlds books because there are some really good stories to tell there. 8/10
4K Presentation:
Animated films usually lend themselves nicely to this format and this film was no exception. I loved the crispness and clarity of the film and the colors (not really any bright ones) looked great as well. The thing that I was really looking for was to see how the black levels were because the majority of the movie is really dark. From what I could tell black levels looked just right. You could really see everything that would typically be shrouded in darkness without it taking anything away from the setting. Very nice 4K animated film.
Special Features:
Caped Fear: The First Elseworld – Bruce Timm and others talk about how GBG got its own limited issue run in comics and they discuss their work on this film.
A Sneak Peek at DC Universe’s Next Animated Movie, Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay – A cool preview of the upcoming animated film. We get to see a few scenes and some storyboards.
From The DC Comics Vault – 2 classic animated episodes (Batman: The Brave and the Bold, “Trials of the Demon! and Batman: The Animated Series, “Showdown)
A Sneak Peek at Justice League Dark
A Sneak Peek at Batman: Bad Blood
Audio Commentary with Executive Producer Bruce Timm, Director Sam Liu, and Writer Jim Krieg
