With the release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, I decided to take it upon myself to watch the Gotham Knight series in anticipation to my trip to the cinema.

For those of you who are unaware, Gotham Knight is a 75 minute collection of animations, that are seperated into six chapters that are intended to be viewed as a whole, that explore Bruce Wayne’s transition from his beginning as a tormented vigilantee to The Dark Knight of a crumbling metropolis.

Now, in truth, I should inform you that I am not a huge Batman fan. I have in fact watched all of them since the days of Michael Keaton, however, the Val Kilmer series of Batman movies left me feeling slightly dead inside, with the poor Arnie puns (”Ice to see you”) and poor choice of characters.  And it was this series of film that made me lose all hope in the series, despite thoroughly enjoying the Michael Keaton series of movies.

However, with the recent release of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, my faith was restored in the series, and I decided to lower my defenses and actually watch the anime/cartoon of the Batman Saga.  And even though I did lose faith in the series in the past, my faith has been restored, and I found myself even impressed by this anime movie/series.

Initial impressions of the Gotham Knight made me remember the Animatrix series, the style was very similar.  Each chapter uses a different art form and style, however, please don’t think that this movie is as poorly made as the Animatrix.  In fact, I found the story compelling and unique.  The art style pretty in places and unique in style.  This is one of the few movie follow-ups that I hav found myself truly enjoying.

Gotham Knight is full of action and plot, and in one story in particular, it shows how people can interpret Batman in different ways, allowing their imagination to go wild.  It’s a nice breath of fresh air for a dying industry in Hollywood.

Though, as always I do have my issues with the series.  For example, as much as I like to see new tools and gadgets, some of the chapters do seem to lack in the action scenes.  Sometimes, all I wanted to see was Batman foiling evil plots, and disposing of the bad guys one by one, however, a lot of the time the fight scenes were short, if not absent.

But this is a nice change from the usual drivvel that comes from the movie industry and I really enjoyed watching this.  I think it was also more enjoyable as I had yet to see The Dark Knight (which by the way is AWESOME!!!!) and it all added to the anticipation of the film.