 The content of this podcast has not been reviewed or approved by official sources, we are solely responsible for its content, brought to you in association with Two Black Labs Audio, this is A Week in Gigum! Greetings and salutations my friends and welcome to the first ever A Week in Gigum Reviews, the webisode series. I am your host, Giovanni Menendez, and will be bringing you all the reviews that you can quite possibly handle. As you know, our little show here first started off as a review segment in A Week in Gigum, a geeky podcast dedicated to everything from comic books, video games, movie news, tv news, the works, you know it, I know it, all the stuff you care about, but that you've probably already heard about and we're gonna rant about it anyways. But yeah, we had a review section and we decided to revive it. It was dumped up the first episode, I don't know why we didn't kept on doing it, but here we are on youtube.com a week in Gigum. And for our inaugural episode, I will be reviewing, oh and by the way, yes this is a floating hand amidst the darkness. No, but for our very first episode, I am going to be reviewing the animated movie brought to you by Warner Bros and DC Universe. It's Batman year one. Now as you all know, Batman year one or for those of you that don't know, it's an adaptation of the great comic book story written by the great Mr. Frank Miller and illustrated by the wonderful David Matsucheli. Really superb artwork right there folks and basically it recounts the beginnings of Bruce Wayne's career as Batman. Of course as the title implies, it is year one so it's brand new, you don't got all the smarts, all the gadgets and all the stuff you love, but it's a really good story. And of course it details with the starting with the rookie, a Jim Gordon at the Gotham City Police Department. As an adaptation goes, I thought it was a pretty good adaptation. You know, it's not easy translating page to cinema or in this case, original animation movie. But I think the boys at Warner Bros did a pretty darn good job. I mean everything was solid. The animation was great, the voice acting, I'll get to it in a little bit, it was okay at best. But really it covered all the points that you wanted of this great classic Batman book. And really if you have a chance, read the books first and then go back and see this DVD. So you can sort of see where or what they took from it and what they left out. But it was pretty much all there. I mean, it's four books and I'm guessing about 80 good percent of it was faithfully presented on the DVD. And of course you can get this on Blu-ray and DVD. The actual box looks gorgeous. Let's just say that. It's eye candy for every Batman fan out there and it includes a DC short for Catwoman which I will be talking about in just a tiny little bit. But first, let me get this right out of the way. Voice acting was, I thought it was great. I mean obviously Andrea Romano knows her stuff when casting. But really the voice for Batman, Benjamin McKenzie, he did a great job. I mean, listen, it all can't be Kevin Conroy. So sorry fans. But Benjamin did a really good job, except on some parts I thought it was a little bit monotonous. I don't know about you guys, but I don't know. It was sort of repetitive, I guess. There was no ups and downs for his role. And he wasn't really there a lot of the scenes. So basically I would have called it Gotham City Year One or Jim Gordon Year One because basically they're the stars of the show and for me it was a disappointment because I really wanted to see more of Batman and get inside his head as he traversed through Gotham City against a corrupt backdrop. And we've also got Brian Cranston doing the voice for Lieutenant James Gordon. He is, in my opinion, the best work that has been done for the character James Gordon, the best voice I've heard for him. It's the ideal voice, the one I had in my head for him. And he also had Alex Rocco for Carmine, the Roman Falcone, John Polito for Loeb, and Jeff Bennett for Alfred Payneworth. And a lot of great casting all around. And of course, Eliza Duskoo for Selena Kyle, Catwoman. It was just a great casting. I think they could have picked a better Batman, but that was just me. And yes, it can't, it cannot always be Kevin Conroy. But when you make a pick like that, you gotta make sure it's top notch material. But the story ended of itself was great. I mean, this is a spoiler free review, folks. So I'm just gonna say, basically, if you've seen, well, if you're watching this and you're interested in Batman Year 1, you've already seen Batman Begins. And that basically has tons of elements from the Year 1 books. But my main complaint of this movie was that basically, it all happens like quickly. You know what I mean? One scene takes place in one date and the other one in another. And by the time you know it, it's over. And speaking of that, I didn't really like the ending. You know, I thought, I thought it was kind of lame. I mean, I know the book ends that way. But at the end, I was like, wait, that's it. It's over. You know, and I sort of had that problem with the book. I mean, you wanted to keep it going. But I guess, you know, that's what you get. I would have preferred a different type of ending, but that's just me. But yeah, one of the best adaptations I've seen, you know, the pages literally come to life. I thought, however, I thought, and this is just a gripe. I mean, 64 minutes to sell such a complicated story for everybody. I'm just not buying it. You know, if you're going to sell me this, you've got to make it at least 90 minutes, you know, you're covering your adapting for books. It should be a little bit more. So yeah, I mean, it's on DVD and Blu-ray with a digital copy. You can get that in retail and online stores. Highly recommended folks. The DVD looks stellar. It has tons of amazing bonus features as always DC always shines with its bonus features. And with everybody at work in this, which of course was directed by Lauren Montgomery and Sam Louie. But oh, and the DC showcase for Catwoman, that was stellar show right there. I mean, it's not for the kitties. I wouldn't recommend it, but it was a great animation. And I'm definitely looking forward to see what they do in the future with the Selena Kyle character. So overall, I'm going to give this Blu-ray DVD digital copy version of Batman year one a four and a half out of five. It had all the good elements. It just needed that extra spice with a little bit more plot and a little bit will actually a whole lot at least 30 minutes of running time. And it would have been an even greater adaptation. So there you have it for four and a half out of five, which is pretty good. So actually, you should really check this one out. I highly recommend it. So yeah, folks, this has been a week in geek, a week in geek thumbs reviews. I've been your host, Giovanni Menendez, and come back next time for episode two, where we will probably be reviewing some of the new 52 comic books from DC. So until then, my friends, see you later. The Floating Head