The history of batman animated films has been a slough of detective work, gadgets, and campy humor…until now. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns part 2 brings the audience a new spin of script and violence that no other batman animated film has seen before. Beautifully directed, cast, and animated this film will go down in comic history as the first of it’s kind to tap Frank Millers perspective on the Dark Knight himself.
This film covered a whole array of subjects proving to the comic loving viewers that these books are not only meant for children anymore. This film features actor/director Peter Weller as an older batman.The idea that batman has been warn down and entering retirement is a little unsettling to viewers, but accepted when we find out that he is still the biggest bad ass we’ve ever seen. This two part film series follows the story of late life batman who is drawn out of retirement when Gotham City is overrun with crime. After the death of protege Jason Todd, Wayne acquires a new Robin in the form of a young girl named Carrie Kelley, voiced by Ariel Winter. All of these facts are presented in the first part of this series. In the part two of this film, viewers are given the Joker, voiced by Michael Emmerson. He plays an intricate part as batman’s true arch nemesis and the representation of all that is maniacal and evil. In this installment Joker weasels his way out of custody and onto a television show where he creates a spectacle and returns to causing chaos in the street of Gotham once again. Through a series of unfortunate events featuring an older and very out of shape Selina Kyle, Batman is led to the Joker in his cliche carnival stake out. In an epic battle featuring some of the most brutal animated scenes that fans have ever seen, Batman and Joker’s duel reaches a climax with a very unexpected finish. Through out this time there are many different plot twist and separate story lines which all lead to a battle between Superman and Batman, which honestly, is something that every fans always secretly want in their lives. With no spoilers given, this film is a must see.
Metal machine also had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of this film at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan. We spoke to director Jay Olivia and voice director Andrea Romano and producer Michael Uslangiving some insight into the making of this film and the inspiration behind it. With a question and answer session following the film with Andrea Romano and Jay Oliva we discovered intimate details about what the directors loved about this project. Andrea was thrilled that she had a cast of around 30 actors in this film who all did multiple voices for the different characters. Jay admitted that his favorite part of the film was the Batman vs. Joker fight. Michael Uslan even voiced his extremely well educated fanboy opinions about how comics “turned his whole world upside down” and he is thrilled in how far the video production of them have come. We also were indulged with some easter eggs, history homage, and even some slight hints at some deathly humor film ideas. Watch the interviews here.