Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham

Right, well I figured another year another reboot of the "Batman" story. Yet, I opted to sit down and watch this 2023 animated DC movie titled "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" without really knowing what I was getting into here, aside from it being a caped crusader animated movie, of course.

And true enough, once again we have to sit through "Batman" reinvented. And this time in the 1920s.

But that is where "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" stopped being annoying for me, because writers Jase Ricci, Mike Mignola and Richard Pace definitely put together quite the grand script and storyline here. Sure, I haven't read the comic book upon which this 2023 animated movie is based, so how true it is to the source material, I can only speculate. But without having read that, and only watching this, I have to say that I was entertained and I was impressed.

"Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" combines the classic "Batman" tale with something I like a lot, and that is the H. P. Lovecraft Mythos. I wasn't prepared for that, so this was quite a pleasant surprise for me to sit through.

Lots of really nice visuals throughout the course of the 86 minutes that "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" ran for. And there were a lot of subtle hints and references to Lovecraft's works, so if you are a fan, keep your eyes and ears open.

Visually then "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" was good. It is an archetypical "Batman" drawing style, which is actually good. But the added Lovecraft Mythos elements was just the icing on the cake.

With "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" being an animated movie, then having a good voice acting cast ensemble is alpha and omega. And I have to say that they definitely had a good ensemble put together for voicing the characters in this animated movie. And having Jeffrey Combs do the voice of Kirk Langstrom was just such a great homage to us fans of the Lovecraft cinema.

I was genuinely entertained by directors Christopher Berkeley and Sam Liu's 2023 animated movie. And if you are a "Batman" fan, then you should check this out. And if you are a Lovecraft fan too, definitely check out "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham".

My rating of "Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham" lands on a seven out of ten stars.

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.

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.

A Gotham city set in the 1920's with a steampunk Batman was a great concept and could've made for a great DC animated film but unfortunately it wasn't. I quite enjoyed the 1st act of this movie but near the end of the 2nd act things started falling apart. This movie introduced too many characters too quickly, some that had no real impact on the story and seemed to have been added to please the DC comic fans. There was lots of occultism which is nothing necessarily new in DC animated films but there was an excessive amount that seemed kind of out of place in this movie. To have Batman opt out of his detective logic, using his mind, but instead to resort to magic as a solution for his problems was just odd and unlike Batman. The 3rd act was messy, there was so many villains introduced back to back to bring us one step closer to the final villan which in the end was disappointing and in the final battle something happens which is just once again odd. I can appreciate a different take on a Batman animated film and I loved the time setting but I feel like there's a balance where if you change too many components to a Batman movie where it doesn't really feel like one anymore. This is still worth a watch but will definitely not be in my top Batman animated movies.

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.