To me, this movie is perfection.

Redundant and unnecessary.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Did somebody pay someone something to make this p.o.s.? Even going by the low standards to which I hold animated features this is utter garbage. It feels like somebody gave their 7 year old a budget to make a Batman animated feature. I never read Batman Year One, but I had heard of it, and therefore assumed that it was a decent graphic novel. The fact that several reviewers here have claimed this animated feature's faithfulness to the graphic novel is severely alarming, as I've read other Frank Miller yarns and never seen him produce any storyline from which could be derived crap like this by anyone other than an infant playing with his Batman Lego. Batman has appeared all of once 10 minutes in, Gordon just joined the force and is in a car with Essen (or whatever her name is) and immediately, for no apparent reason, coming with a random conclusion fully out of the blue, she's like "Well, Bruce Wayne's parents died and he's the only one who can afford to be Batman"....Well then, case closed! Worst secret identity ever?!....A bat flies through the glass of his study window even destroying the wooden frame and lands up the head of his dad's statue? WTF? Superbat?! That freakin' bat shoulda been the hero!...Gordon opens fire on the goons who have his baby in hand threatening to kill it, and they just drive away, fleeing instead of carrying through with their threat? Did mommy call them home for dinner time?... And Bruce Wayne can fall faster than everyone else due to his mastery of gravity, a heretofore undisclosed power of Batman's, hence jumping down from the bridge, PAST Gordon and the thug who are already falling, and catching Gordon's child whom those two had dropped? Do physics or any amount of believability matter to any of you people? If this is storytelling then I just wrote the best script ever! Who wants to make a movie out of my review?! It's gonna make as much sense as Batman Year One at least! The ONLY thing I liked about this p.o.s. was how they made Batman look like he was making rookie mistakes. I gave it 1 extra star for that. R.I.P.

I am stunned by how faithful this is to the graphic novel. Although I shouldn't say "faithful", more "respectful". Even though adaptations are totally able to make things different (see Nolan's "Batman Begins") the people involved in this movie went with just a straight-forward "book-to-film" format. And it's awesome! I knew what was going to happen in each scene because I read the graphic novel before-hand, and it was still incredible. I knew 99% of what was going to happen, and it was still incredible. I was able to almost directly quote character's lines of dialogue, and it was awesome! I don't give this any flack at all for staying so close to the source material because the source material is so incredible on it's own. In fact, it took me about as long to read the graphic novel as it did to watch the movie. And in this case, I would both read the book and watch the film. It is that well done! Could you imagine if they did this same thing with stories like "The Long Halloween" or "A Death in the Family" or "Hush"? Seriously, how have they not made an animated movie out of "Hush"?Bottom line, if you are a Batman fan, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie. It is one of the best adaptations I've ever seen!

Animation grows up. Batman: Year Zero shows what the medium can do if you get the right talent behind the camera: It's a relentlessly downbeat expose of the first year of the Caped Crusader's reign, but it's not just him punching bad guys and smashing drug rings. Sharing just as much screen time is Police Commissioner Gordon, who arrives in Gotham City at round about the same time, and Catwoman (also known as Selina Kyle) with her lowly beginnings as a sleazy prostitute. With extramarital affairs, graphic violence and even a BABY being threatened at knifepoint this certainly is a long way from the camp 60's icon your mum and dad grew up with... And THANK GOD for that.There's no padding here, no monotonous voice-over to set the scene... Just BAM straight into the action. We're given a date, we're shown what happened on that day... And then, the plot moves swiftly on. Some of these diary entries only last for a second... Others, like a fight in a burnt-out warehouse (there's ALWAYS a big battle in one of them) take much longer. And all the time, the movie never loses touch with it's human side... The morose, often tragic figures here are just as a pleasure to follow as the slick, brutal beatdowns Batman often finds himself in the middle of. It's tense, gripping, compulsive viewing from start to bloody finish. 7/10

I'm a huge fan of the Frank Miller graphic novel, and this film did follow the source material almost word for word. The animation was very well executed, presenting some really good action sequences. My main problem with this much anticipated DC Animation project was Ben McKenzie's miserable performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman. His pathetic attempt at voice acting was one of the worst things I've ever listened to. Nevertheless, Bryan Cranston was perfect for the role of Jim Gordon, and I hope to see him portray the character again in a live action film. As far as the construction of Gotham, I did feel they could've done a better job of emphasizing the noir aspect presented by David Mazzuchelli's art. The lighting was much too vibrant for the bleak and eery atmosphere of this dismal society. All in all, this one is worth watching, but has its flaws nonetheless.