WesternAnimation Gaslighting
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: It is Victorian times and Gotham is looking a little Londonish. There is a killer afoot named Jack the Ripper stalking the streets. Also stalking the night is a masked vigilante known only as The Bat. Can Commissioner Gordon solve the cases with the help of his prosecutor Harvey Dent and Dent’s millionaire childhood chum Bruce Wayne?
The Good: The greatest thing about Gotham by Gaslight is what it doesn’t do. There are no Tesla or Lovecraft cameos. Nobody invents an airplane powered by a diamond. It is a realistic (relatively) style environment with people that act like people actually did back then (Guy in Bat costume excepted).
Gotham by Gaslight also finds proper roles for Batman’s Rogue gallery and his allies. Commissioner Gordon, Alfred the Butler, and Harvey Dent keep their old roles. While other's get to put on a new hat. Hugo Strange is a progressive doctor running a psychiatric hospital and Poison Ivy is a vaudeville stripper. The movie has Batman in the role of Sherlock Holmes with focus on detective work rather than Bat punching. Selina Kyle (Catwoman) takes the role similar to Sherlock’s love interest Irene Adler and three Robins (Dick, Jason, and Tim) take a role similar to the Baker Street Irregulars. It is a lot of fun seeing well-known characters in their new roles. The movie handles this quite well.
The Bad: Why is this an “R” rated film? There are some adult themes but neither Poison Ivy nor Selina Kyle shows any nudity despite some obvious story beats where it would have been expected. The violence is muted and the camera turns away from anything possible offensive. I have to think this us more of a marketing ploy (An Adult Batman Cartoon) rather than a reflection of the material. If you are going for an “R” rating and your story is about a serial killer that murders prostitutes it is not as if there is no material to work with.
In Conclusion: A Sherlock Holmes mystery with a Batman dressing. It is a good mystery that will keep one guessing. Characters are well written and voiced with Selina Kyle and Harvey Dent being standouts. Overplayed Victorian elements (see above) and overplayed Batman elements (Joker) are nowhere to be found. A good family film despite the “R” rating and an excellent treat for fans of the bat.
WesternAnimation Quick Robin, Use the Bat Velocipede!
2018 has been quite the year for period setting takes on Batman. First was the lamentable Batman Ninja, and now I've stumbled across Gotham by Gaslight, a turn of the century take on the man-who-is-also-a-bat.Gotham by Gaslight pitches Batman against the mysterious Jack the Ripper. It's an idea ripped straight from the pages of some kind an unofficial Sherlock Holmes spin-off novel, but how does it work overall?
Gaslight gets on my bad side within the very first minute. It opens with Poison Ivy doing a sexy burlesque dance, moments before being chased down a side alley and knifed to death by the Ripper. Ivy has always been an odd villain in the canon, in that she doesn't so much as evolve as a character, as violently change gears from one characterisation to the next. Through various incarnations she went from murderous femme fatale, to misanthrope eco-terrorist, to a radical feminist, to queer icon. She kind of gets lumped with some villain version of whatever leftist politics are in vogue. Gaslight does away with all that by re-imagining her as a powerless waif who gets stuffed into the fridge and stabbed repeatedly. It's a literal character assassination.
Most of the other characters get a better transposition into Victorian era Gotham. Harvey Dent is a rakish attorney, Hugo Strange is an alienist, and Cat Woman becomes a vaudeville star. Characters are reinterpreted in interesting ways, transformed by the radically different circumstances they've grown up in. Batman Ninja never really bothered with any of that, changing the setting to suit the needs of the characters, rather than the other way around. As a result Gaslight comes way out in front in terms of quality of adaptation. In terms of animation, it isn't anything special. Its art style is reminiscent of that from the 90s TV series, and it feels appropriately Batman.
Despite its shaky start and its borderline tasteless, monumentally misogynistic villain, I was left wanting to see more in this setting. I think one of the things that helps it is the emphasis on Catwoman as a character, who has far greater emotional stakes in the plot, being both showrunner for female troupe and a regular target of the Ripper. It's also good that we have a nice mystery built around who the Ripper secretly is, and I'm glad we have a relatively new character to build the story off of, rather than the Joker yet again. Batman is all well and fine, but this really isn't really his story. I came away liking Gaslight and will recommend it any day over the utter mess that was Batman Ninja.