This is the first animated film of a planned trilogy adapting the classic Batman comic story Knightfall, which sees the debut of Bane, a dramatic and violent addition to the Batman Rogue’s Gallery.

The Knightfall storyline has been adapted several times, including the Dark Knight Rises film by Christopher Nolan.

According to IMDB, “When the mysterious behemoth known only as Bane frees Batman’s entire rogue’s gallery from Arkham Asylum, the Caped Crusader is pushed to his mental and physical breaking point.”

The mindset of Batman was extremely challenged during this time as he had just experienced the death of Jason Todd’s Robin and he was still shaken at the idea of a Robin. So when Tim Drake took the mantel of the sidekick, Batman was very overprotective, leading to his own struggles both physically and emotionally.

The look of the film was great. The animation does an amazing job of helping the tone of the film and of the state of Batman as a character.

Batman was voiced by Anson Mount and Bane was voiced by Michael Mando. Other voice actors in the cast included Pablo Schreiber, Jack Griffo, Bruce Boxleitner, David Dastmalchian, Simon Templeman, Toks Olagundoye, Jason Flemyng, and Jessica Camacho.

This is the first film of a trilogy adapting this comic story arc into animation. The first film does a great job of setting up Bane as an unstoppable monster and showing us how Batman pushing himself to the brink aided in his ultimate fall from grace. The iconic moment of the film (which I will keep under spoilers) was absolutely brutal.

The second part of the trilogy is supposed to come out in the later part of 2026 and the final one in 2027.

4 stars