While it can be a pretty thankless job trying to follow some of the iconic Batman voices we’ve gotten in years past, the former Supernatural actor acquits himself well here playing a younger, greener Batman who’s learning that this job will require him to be a detective as much as as a figure of fear. Meanwhile, occupying the title role of Batman/Bruce Wayne is Jensen Ackles, who previously played ex-sidedick Jason Todd in 2010’s Under the Red Hood (another DC project that would have benefited from the two-part structure this one got). The late Naya Rivera is an empathetic Catwoman. Troy Baker stands out with an absolutely astonishing version of Mark Hamill’s iconic Joker voice, while John DiMaggio serves up an enjoyably cockney-infused take on the Mad Hatter that’s a far cry from Roddy McDowall’s soft-spoken take on The Animated Series. When it comes to the rest of the voice cast, Katee Sackhoff is a solid Poison Ivy, the late Naya Rivera is an empathetic Catwoman, and Titus Welliver is also effective as notorious gangster Carmine Falcone. As voiced by Josh Duhamel, bringing a gravely basso profundo to his Two-Face characterization that bears similarities to Richard Moll’s voicework in The Animated Series, Dent is a microcosm of Gotham City itself, making one compromise after another while convincing himself it’s for the greater good, until finally there’s nothing left but a moral void. That’s no such issue with The Long Halloween, however, which gives us a gratifying deep-dive into the madness that made Harvey a new man. While 2008’s The Dark Knight, heavily inspired by The Long Halloween, made Dent’s fall the fulcrum of its narrative, it had a lopsided (if understandable) focus on the Joker that made Dent’s Two-Face transformation feel almost like an afterthought. Even with that exciting checklist of villains, it’s really a showcase for crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent, the Man Who Will Be Two-Face. It’s well known that Batman has one of the best rogues galleries in all of superhero-dom, and The Long Halloween puts the baddest baddies to fun use, with the Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter, and Scarecrow all popping their heads up at one point or another. When both parts are taken together, it makes for an experience just as engrossing to watch as it was to read when it was being released in monthly intervals in 19. As adapted by Tim Sheridan, the screen version largely sticks to the graphic novel that inspired it, with the few divergences here and there that are relatively minor and mostly effective. did previously with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 2013 and The Death and Return of Superman in 2019), the story can breathe and the mood can build as we follow the threads of the holiday killer that were deftly laid in place last time. But by splitting it in two (as Warner Bros.
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