Almost too loyal to the source material. Not much has changed in the transition, and the little details that have are actually improvements. Sadly the voice acting is pretty flat all around. McKenzie is an awful Batman and a worse Bruce Wayne. I hate sounding like a Kevin Conroy fanboy, but come on, why even go to anyone else for Batman? Even more disappointing is Cranston, who is obviously phoning it in. More for people who are too lazy to read the original story than for fans of it.

Pretty good workup of the Frank Miller classic. Something to tide you over before the next full feature film.

Not the best animation, but great fun and tells the Year One story well.

Very enjoyable. The animation is great, the tone is dark and the voice acting is good. For what is only an hour long movie it really is very involving and actually quite intense. But therein lies the problem! At an hour long everything feels really rather rushed and cramped. It really could have done with being considerably longer, and no doubt the quality of the source material would have allowed for it.

I am a fan of the original comic book. This animation movie follows the comic book step by step and is very loyal for it. They almost capture the same feeling what comes to dark story and visual side. Too bad that the movie is too short. They should made more flesh around the bones of the comic book and there for make the story more deep that it would work in a movie.

This Year One plays like a little companion piece to fans of the brilliant comic (or an entry point for newbies) with solid animation and voicework. It covers most of the main plot points but does so too quickly without completely capturing the soul of the material. Recommended for those too lazy to read the comic.

Quite slick - but also rushed. It felt like it flashed past interesting plot points, missing a real chance to dig into the characters in a meaningful way, nor did it start going after the big humanist idealism - the only compelling thing about batman that isn't villains - that the Nolan material championed. Still, pretty cool and well put together.

The animation is decent, though no eye candy. The story is pretty much close to the original. The only tweaks were in the details, which did make this a little better movie, because I have seen so many versions of this story line. The voice acting is nothing great. I can only see real Batman fans to watch this. Anyone else can skip it.

One of the better offerings from the DC Animated Universe, which is actually pretty high praise.

Not a good transition from comic to movie at all. The voice acting for Bruce Wayne was especially grimacing.

A completely solid telling of a classic graphic novel. It has pretty much everything you want from a Batman animated movie. It's dark, it's got fun action. The only problem is -- as Langelund said -- the uneven storytelling. I feel like it's way too much crammed in. If you could make this another hour longer then I imagine that'd be fixed, but I guess we'll never know.

This might be the one animated DC movie that worked the best of those I've seen. It had a good balance of character and action, and the story flowed in just the pace you wanted it to. And telling the story of a yet-unproved Batman mostly through the eyes of Jim Gordon was a move that is more brilliant than it deserves to be. Definitely worth a watch if you are even remotely into Batman.

Not as bad as the comic it is based on. The Gordon stuff was entertaining, the rest was either boring or stupid.

The definitive tale regarding Commissioner Gordon that lacks a little bit in every other aspect.

it's more of Commissioner Gordon's story than Batman's but it's still surprisingly good... Voiced by Bryan Cranston, it can't get better than that

Dark, atmospheric aesthetics and uneven storytelling.

It's nice to see Gordon's side of the story, but ultimately it's an uneven tale that struggles to really provide much in the way of entertainment.

Bland design, poor animation, inconsistent voice acting, flat characters, no particular narrative drive. None of the style that made the animated series so great.

Huge disappointment. Batman: Year One is my favorite comic of all time and what we have here is a direct translation of the book to film but nothing is given the chance to develop and what were left with is something that feels very rushed. I hate when something is a word for word copy of the source material because its like whats the point? Just read the book.

A great animated adaptation of a great comic.

Pretty weak Batman/Bruce Wayne story, but an entertaining enough Jim Gordon story. Animation would be pretty good if this was a TV series, but is only just ok for a movie. Who knows, maybe in a world where Gary Oldman didn't exist Bryan Cranston could have been a good Gordon for Chris Nolan.

Can't seem to juggle all of its plot lines. Slick animation though.

Much better than Batman Begins due to better pacing and better acting. My only major complaint is the somewhat barren environments, empty streets during the daytime, and rather thin crowds. It's as if the producers tried to save money by only doing a 75% job of each scene, rather than hiring more animators to fill every shot with people/cars/crowds. The low numbers of people, and cars drawn into each shot detracts significantly from the sense of scale.

Very loyal to the coimc, which is both its greatest stength and weakness

No one goes into a Batman film hoping to see the story of Commissioner Gordon. We come for the Bat and this movie punishes you with focusing on Gordon throughout most of the film (spoiler alert: they made him boring as hell). Hardly any plot to speak off, barely any Batman, and just an obvious setup for future films. Plus I have Arkham City sitting right next to me and this just pails in comparison. Not hiring Kevin Conroy for Batman was stupid as well. Terrible all around.

This isn't some Hollywood fairy tale cooked up by Burton, Nolan or god forbid Schumacher. This is the real Batman. Only significant problem is the voice of Bruce Wayne; which unfortunately narrates the majority of the film. Well animated and Bryan Cranston gives the stand out performance as the hard nosed Gordon I know and love.

Possibly the best looking of the DCAU movies to date. McKenzie seems bored reading the role of Bruce Wayne, but everyone else is good. Bryan Cranston would make a perfect live action Gordon.