{"id":79567,"date":"2015-10-05T01:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T00:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=79567"},"modified":"2015-09-11T13:16:56","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T12:16:56","slug":"gotham-season-1-blu-ray-review-batman-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/gotham-season-1-blu-ray-review-batman-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Gotham Season 1 Blu-ray review: Batman begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aside from the casting and the coolness, it\u2019s usually the grey areas that make Batman so fantastic. It\u2019s what sets him, and his story, apart from many of America\u2019s superheroes: Batman isn\u2019t red, white and blue, but a shade of grey, and it\u2019s the grey areas he revels in. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the surface, Bruce Wayne is just a billionaire fighting street-level thuggery. At its core, it\u2019s obviously a tale of what turmoil can drive you to become.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the Keaton\/DeVito dynamic in Batman Returns<\/strong><\/em> to the Greek tragedy of The Dark Knight<\/strong><\/em>, the good things in Batman adaptations have historically been nuances, irony and detail. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s both fitting and obvious to pen a prequel of Wayne\u2019s world, but again, the idea of Gotham<\/strong><\/em> is one that treads fine lines indeed. It feels halfway between a guaranteed tune-in and a huge artistic gamble.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gotham<\/strong><\/em> aims to mine deeper than a blockbuster can. It looks like a noir cop show, with James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) cleaning up the streets of the city, and the show dives further into the shadows of the hero\u2019s city than a Batman movie ever could. <\/span><\/p>\n

It takes Nolan\u2019s ambition to create character arcs that only a TV show can, and casts the hugely underrated Sean Pertwee (Elementary<\/strong><\/em>) as an edgier Alfred, David Mazouz (Touch<\/strong><\/em>) as a young Bruce and Robin Lord Taylor (The Walking Dead<\/strong><\/em>) as a mercurial Penguin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The show glistens often. McKenzie holds Gotham<\/strong><\/em> together as moral compass Gordon, and mazy plots weave at healthy paces. It\u2019s less bombastic than you may expect, and there are intriguing parallels when you relate Gotham to modern-day American cities, crying out for heroes in times of crime. <\/span><\/p>\n

Superhero stories should always have one eye on the present-day\u2019s world, but Gotham\u2019s downfall is that it gazes too much at its own universe\u2019s past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gotham<\/strong><\/em> has its flaws, but perhaps none more so than the fact that it doesn\u2019t feel unique enough. The stars are famous Batman villains, who recur maybe too much. It doesn\u2019t deviate too far from canon, and Gotham<\/strong><\/em> can\u2019t settle on a tone: gritty, adult drama, or tongue-in-cheek, comic-heavy telly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gotham<\/strong><\/em> excels when it seeks new layers of the city\u2019s story, but it\u2019s perhaps fitting that often, it can\u2019t escape from its own shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben McKenzie is the young Jim Gordon in Gotham Season 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":79569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[3432],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Gotham-Season-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}