In Review: Batman: The Long Halloween, Part 2

Synopsis: In part two of ‘The Long Halloween’. The killer known as Holiday continues to stalk the Falcone crime family while a new class of costumed criminal rises in Gotham City. Batman suspects that a former ally might be the serial killer.

The Story

The second part of this Batman story picks up a couple of months after events seen in the first film. Falcone’s son has been killed and the killer known as Holiday is still at large. With Valentines Day approaching Bruce Wayne finds himself enthralled by Poison Ivy, which means The Batman is out of action.

Realizing that something is up as April Fools Day approaches. Catwoman stages a rescue op to bring Batman back into the investigation. Meanwhile, District Attorney Harvey Dent continues to struggle with the voice in his head. And soon finds himself a person of interest when Holiday tries to frame him.

The Voice Acting

Jensen Ackles continues to provide us with a fairly convincing Batman and Bruce Wayne. The scenes at the start of the film where Bruce Wayne succumbs to Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff) are pretty wild. Sackhoff is obviously enjoying getting into this role. The fight between Ivy and Catwoman (Naya Rivera) is pretty much the first big action beat. I particularly loved the exchange in dialogue between two of Gotham’s most famous female villains.

When Batman does get back into the actions. He finds himself on the wrong side of one of Scarecrows syringes. So Batman gets off to a pretty rough start.

Josh Duhamel once again puts in a strong performance as Harvey Dent and the gradual loss of sanity that leads him into becoming Two-Face is brilliantly done. In contrast, Titus Welliver continues to give us an assured and very in control take on Falcone.

Overall

Part 2 of ‘The Long Halloween’ pretty much succeeds at concluding this two-part movie in a satisfying way. We see the rise of a new class of criminals as Calendar Man pretty much gets some help from Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, Joker, Penguin, and Poison Ivy.

We also get to see some interesting backstory concerning The Wayne Family’s prior involvement with Carmine Falcone. It’s a bit of history that up until now. I’ve only seen referenced in the comics. So I was happy to see it played out in this film.

Ultimately, this film’s main job was to show us the transition that Harvey Dent undergoes to become Two-Face and show us the ascension of a new class of crook. The film does a nice job of that. Although the fate of Holiday is kept somewhat ambiguous in regards to whether she will see justice.

Overall. A really enjoyable second chapter in what has to be one of the biggest Batman stories to be given the animated treatment.