Batman is Nucking Futs
A brief synopsis here will suffice for both Part 1 and 2 of the Dark Knight Returns.
Our story begins with Bruce Wayne (Peter Weller) ten years into his retirement as the caped crusader, and doing whatever he can to feel alive or forget the life ever happened. We find him racing in Formula 1, drinking, and walking down deserted alley ways in the hopes that someone might give him a reason to revert. While in his retirement a new group of thugs called The Mutants have declared themselves the rightful law of Gotham City and form into quite the impressive army to boot. Eventually, Bruce can not stand it anymore and once again takes to the streets as Batman. While on a bender of vigilantism he saves two young girls from members of The Mutants' gang, and one of them, Carrie Kelly takes it upon herself to buy a Robin costume and put her own crime fighting skills to the test. It is up to Batman and the new Robin to stop The Mutants and anyone else from Batman's rogues gallery that happens to come up.
So this story is a work of pure unadulterated mastery in the Batman universe. I'm not saying that because I am a Frank Miller fanboy or anything (in fact quite the opposite in a few cases), I just give credit where it is do. The futuristic setting of an 80's theme noir piece is clever. The induction of new words (slang really) in the American language kind of hits the societal nail on the head if you think about it. The roles of primarily male oriented positions being filled by females is a bold and correct move. There are moments where you feel that Batman actually is crazed and wonder if he really should be retired. The news feed and writing tries to paint the Batman followers as the all knowing good guys and the Batman nay-sayers as bad; but, I still have to wonder if the nay-sayers are right in some fashion. That is really the heart of this material, it can bring back the endless debates friends have on their couch about things of this nature. What if Batman was a real person, crime was as bad as it is in Gotham, whose side would you be on? I personally feel that Batman does actually create most of his villains (sometimes literally), but he does too much good work for it to really matter. You may disagree and that is the great thing about a comic/movie of this nature. It brings us back to when we first saw "The Boondock Saints" and the end of it was filled with testimonials from average people on either side of the fence.
One of my other favorite parts of this movie (and the comic book) is that it gives us one of the first Robin's with a little more depth than "my parents died too." Don't get me wrong I love Dick Grayson, he is still the best Robin; but, he was the start of the generic train of Robins to come. The Robin in this movie had no real tragic backstory, but might have been a little more relate-able then any other Robin. She basically just picked up a costume after seeing Batman do what he does, and wanted to fight crime. It is heavily implied that she comes from a neglectful household of people that like to sit around and talk as opposed to do (no matter what rallies they marched in when they were younger). A great amount of kids can relate to this on a personal level, and ultimately the character registers on a bigger level. I think I said once that Damien Wayne was my number two Robin pick; but Carry Kelly has always been neck and neck with him. 
Some parts of this movie that really stood out to me were the music and art style. The music put you in just the right mood for whatever you were watching. Batman fighting a bunch of thugs? Throw on some techno/80s/orchestral style music and things of that nature. It does exactly what music in movies is supposed to do, enhance the experience. I can't necessarily tell what kind of art style they were going for, but it really popped off the screen. It was a very retro mixed with what we once thought the future was going to become. A perfect blend of old and new. It is almost reminiscent of a comic book in some areas to the point where you can practically see the largely displayed panels during the action scenes.
Final Verdict: 5 out of 5 This movie is definitely a book mark on DC's already impressive animated career. I suggest you see it as soon as you can (if you haven't already), because you are missing out on some of the best story telling in Batman's history.
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Superman sucks and here is the proof
Above, we talk about the Art/Music, as well as Robin and the storyline for that movie. Everything except the storyline can carry over to this movie review; but to talk about this movie's storyline in it's entirety I do have to say one little thing.
*SPOILER WARNING*
Yes, yes, there is way to much in this movie for me to get my teeth into, so I will have to talk about it. The first thing I have to talk about in the realm of storyline is this version of The Joker. This version of the Joker acts like he was taken straight out of a Grand Theft Auto video game. When he is going down the tunnel of love and basically treating people like those ducks you shoot with B.B. guns at the carnival games (except here the B.B.s are bullets and the ducks are people) you get an unnatural knot in your stomach. I like to think of it from the perspective of those people. You go out on a date (maybe even your first date) with someone then all of a sudden some kill crazy maniac comes across you and ends your life for being near him. Maybe it is because The Joker's rampage was ten years in the making, maybe it is because the writer didn't want us to automatically turn on Batman when he killed The Joker; whatever the case, it is brutality at it's finest when he finally gets back into the game. This version of The Joker may not be the manically laughing villain, strapping Robin to a set of train tracks, while evilly twisting his mustache that we had grown accustomed to in the days before; but, he is dark and fits perfectly with the theme of the film. 
Now let's talk about our boy in blue. The one, the only Superman. Superman steps in at the beginning of the film as a lackey of the United States Government, (seemingly) only answering to the President. This is an interesting take on the Man of Steel and probably the closest thing I could have predicted for Superman's future. He is still a begrudgingly boring character, and what's worse he seems to like raising even more questions about his physiology. The reason I say that is because there is a point in the movie where Superman is caught in a nuclear explosion trying to save the U.S. from impending doom. After he drops to the ground he is basically a skeleton, and drains sunflowers to get his power back. Is there anything he can't do? I feel like the writer was saying to himself "We wouldn't want Superman to appear too weak, let's give him the ability to soak the sun's energy from Sunflowers and other plants." Like he is some sort of fucking grim reaper to the flora of the world. Superman may be the least interesting part of this, and the fight at the end may have just been complete fan service; but, luckily it didn't drag the story down as far as one might thing. It drug it down for sure, but it wasn't detrimental to the integrity of the film.
Since I put a disclaimer up about spoilers, let's go ahead and talk about the ending of this movie. At the end, we find that Batman faked his death to keep Superman in the dark about his activities. He is now finally accepting that he is too old and builds himself an army. The army is to be taught by the man himself so now the world will have many Batman's to come. I don't mind the ending, I guess if Bruce were to end up retiring this is the only way he would stay off the street; but, it just seems a little narcissistic. I'm fully accustomed to Batman being narcissistic so it doesn't bother me, but it does kind of stand out here.
Two more topics before I wrap this little review up and the first one is death.... or more importantly murder. There are two guaranteed kills in this movie, One is The Joker killed by Batman, and the other is Toyman (I'm assuming) killed by Robin. The main thing that jumps out at me is that it doesn't seem to have any legitimate, long-lasting mental damage. I'm not going to go on a Batman-purist rant like "Batman should never be allowed to kill," but I would have at least expected some remorse. If not from Batman at least from the little ginger girl covered in another man's blood. Some sort of trauma or remorse. Nope. Batman seems effected more by the Joker's presence then his death. Like when he tells his corpse to stop laughing, it doesn't seem to convey remorse just annoyance from the years of back and forth they went through.
Final Verdict: 4 out of 5 A soft final act was really the only thing holding this movie back from perfection. I love seeing a Batman/Superman fight as much as the next guy, but the lead up was a nightmare.
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The Best of the Worst
We start with Batman (Bruce Greenwood) racing to save the newest incarnation of Robin, Jason Todd (Jensen Ackles) from certain doom at the hands of the Joker (John DiMaggio). He arrives too late to save his partner and Jason ends up dead. Fast forward some years and we arrive at Batman working alone with the first Robin dawning the tights of Nightwing. A new crime boss has taken Gotham in an awkward direction, seemingly bringing order to the crime underworld, and giving Batman a major migraine by being able to predict his every move. Can you guess who the mysterious Red Hood is? Spoiler, it's Jason. Basically evident from the first scene of the movie.
Wow, this is awkward. The first time I have to premise my review with a comic book history lesson; but, the more you know about this particular story the better it makes the experience. So, when DC first introduced the new boy wonder Jason Todd in the comic books, fans of the series absolutely hated him. So much so that DC started a poll. They included a number at the end of an issue of Batman that fans could call to vote on whether Jason Todd should live or die. The result ended up in a land slide victory for Jason Todd's death (yeah, comic book readers either really didn't like this guy or just wanted to see it). So DC killed him and followed up his death with a statement basically saying that if they ever brought Jason Todd back it would be the worst thing DC comics has done. Ever. If my math is correct on this TWENTY YEARS LATER they introduce this new villain calling himself the Red Hood. A couple of issues in we find out it is Jason Todd and fans are pissed. To put this in perspective there used to be a saying in comic books: There are only three people that stay dead in comic books Gwen Stacy, Uncle Ben, and Jason Todd. Obviously after this happened that had to be reworked. How did Jason make it back? Strap yourselves in folks things are about to get really weird? Everyone here is familiar with Superboy, right? Well it turns out in an issue of a comic book featuring the Boy of Steel, Superboy punched time so hard that he shattered reality, a good amount of things changed, low and behold one of those things happened to be Jason's death. There we are guys, your comic book history lesson for the day. Now on with the festivities.
So the story here is actually really good if you take out the fact that this was based off of one of the largest disservices to fans in comic book history. You have to realize that Batman was going with almost the exact opposite to Dick Grayson in every way when he picked Jason as the successor. Jason was kind of a dick, and I feel that Batman blaming himself for not only Jason's death; but, his life as well adds so much more weight to a storyline like this. It isn't only the storyline that drives the core experience in this feature. The dialogue is brilliant for Jason and The Joker. Jason goes on this tirade while trying to convince Batman of why Joker deserves to die, and it is quite possibly the most insult filled and convincing argument I have heard from a character. Everything else is good too, the dialogue just stands out. Batman being reminded of his two greatest failures in the same day, good. Nightwing, good. Blackmask being background noise, good. Right where he should be. The ultimate victory here is in the storyline, and that victory is just driven better by some amazing dialogue. Plus, the Ra's Al Ghul storyline replacing the Superboy time punching storyline is somehow a whole lot more believable.
Let's talk about the animation. Since I am not an artist this is going to be short. I can really appreciate this being the only animated movie I have seen where they show Batman's armor-mesh under his costume. It adds a layer to this movie, like they where actually concerned about realism in a Batman cartoon for once. Everything else seemed pretty cut and dry. Besides the Subzero clan trying to kill the Red Hood with weapons from "Tron," that was weird.
Final Verdict: 5 out of 5 There are a few pitfalls in this movie, but nothing that really drags the movie down far enough to notice. Highly recommended that you check this out, if for nothing else I suggest it for the Batman 101.
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