In Review: Batman: Knightfall – Part 1: Knightfall

Synopsis: In Knightfall, a mysterious behemoth known only as Bane frees Batman’s entire rogues’ gallery from Arkham Asylum, pushing the Caped Crusader to his mental and physical breaking point.

The Story

In part one of Knightfall, we see Bruce Wayne having to visit a therapist at the insistence of Alfred, who feels that he is pushing himself far too hard. The session explores the recent losses Bruce has struggled with, such as the death of Jason Todd and his falling-out with Dick Grayson. However, it is soon interrupted when Batman is called upon to battle Azrael, who is on a rampage taking out local hoods. Batman arrives just in time and eventually manages to subdue Azrael and reach Jean-Paul Valley. He decides to take Jean-Paul into his care and, with Alfred’s help, attempts to rehabilitate him and break his connection to the Azrael persona that possesses him.

At this point in the movie, we are taken to Peña Duro prison, which translates as “Hard Rock.” We see a female inmate chained up while giving birth. After the child is born, the warden tells her that she and her newborn son must remain in the prison and pay for her husband’s crimes. We then watch events unfold as she raises the boy within the prison and is incredibly hard on him, teaching him everything he needs to survive. Eventually, his mother dies, and the young Bane, as he is called by the warden, must learn to fend for himself.

When a child molester tries it on with the young Bane, Bane kills him. The guards attempt to subdue the boy, but he puts up such a fight that he manages to reach the warden and bite off part of his ear. As punishment, the warden confines Bane to a deep hole beneath the prison that fills with water each day as the prison’s waste is flushed through it. Bane survives down there for years by eating rats and doing countless push-ups.

Eventually, the warden releases Bane from the hole so that he can be used as a guinea pig for a new drug called Venom, which is designed to enhance a person’s strength. Giving Bane the drug proves to be a fatal mistake, as the added strength it provides allows him to escape from the prison and head to Gotham City. Once there, he releases virtually all the inmates from Arkham Asylum in order to lure Batman into a trap.

After Batman has recaptured most of the escaped inmates at great physical cost to himself, he finds Bane waiting for him at Wayne Manor. Bane incapacitates Tim Drake, aka Robin, and Alfred before confronting an exhausted Batman. Batman fights Bane but comes out of the encounter with a broken back. Having defeated Gotham’s protector, Bane lets the entire city know that he is now the main man.

Voice Acting

Anson Mount does a solid job of voicing Batman and Bruce Wayne throughout the film. Jack Giffin lends his voice to the Tim Drake version of Robin and manages to capture the character’s youthful energy, especially when Batman orders him to stay in the car.

Michael Mando brings just the right level of menace to his performance as Bane. Thankfully, he doesn’t adopt an overly thick Eastern European accent, instead opting for something that sits between Eastern European and someone speaking English as a second language.

Bruce Boxleitner is great as Commissioner Gordon but doesn’t really get a great deal to do in this first chapter. Hopefully, he will be given more to work with in the second movie.

Overall

This gets off to a strong start by picking up at a point in Bruce Wayne’s life when he is dealing with several personal losses and broken relationships. This adds an interesting emotional theme to the movie, which is nicely juxtaposed with Bane’s story. The animation is strong and consistently on point, and I like the edgier look given to Batman.

Overall, this was a fun first instalment in the movie series, which is based on one of Batman’s most famous comic-book storylines from the 1990s. I look forward to seeing how they handle the second part of the story.