My Review of The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 (2013)

Written by Bob Goodman
Directed by Jay Oliva

Bruce: "I spent ten years looking for a good death. This will be a good life."

The second part of a film that also feels like a film of two parts. The first part of course involved the Joker (MIchael Emerson) awaking from his catatonic and fooling his gullible doctor into making a live appearance on television, resulting in a lot of death and a rather easy escape for the older Clown Prince of Crime.

Once the Joker is on the loose, it's up to Batman (Peter Weller) and Robin (Ariel Winter) to locate him and soon enough, they get a clue when an older Selina Kyle (Tress MacNeille), now an escort madam finds herself at the mercy of the Joker as one of her girls also gets a Senator to make a rather public announcement.

Now, I'm a big fan of Catwoman and Selina in general and this without a doubt is one of the worst depictions of the character I've seen of her. In fact it almost borders on character assassination and absolutely wastes her altogether. I almost would've rather Selina had sat this particular story out that the crap material she's given here.

That frustration to one side, at least the final battle scene with Batman and Joker is decent enough. Given the general mindset that Batman seems to be in here in his post retirement, it's not too shocking that he actually followed through and killed the Joker, even if that made him a criminal for an overzealous Yindel (Maria Canals-Barrera ) to put behind bars.

Then there was the second half of the movie where Batman and Superman (Mark Valley) came face to face and yeah, while it was better done in Batman V. Superman three years after this movie's release, again it led to some decent action sequences and the fake out for one of the heroes to continue their work under the guise of them being dead.

The end sequence with Bruce, Carrie, the Sons of Batman and an older Oliver Queen (Robin Atkin Downes) all working together was a nice way to end a two part movie that overall had a nihilistic feel to it. I also liked that Superman seemed to be aware of what was going on at the very end along with his confession to Gordon about not knowing what his relationship with Batman truly was.

- There's a DVD that combines both films together if you fancy watching this whole thing in one go. I was tempted to do that, review wise before deciding to split it.
- The President in this movie is clearly based on Ronald Reagan.
- I noticed The Killing Joke allusion there, during Batman and the Joker's final confrontation.
- Chronology: From where the first part of this movie left off. Definitely seems to be set in the 1980's though.

The Dark Knight Returns Part 2 is a solid enough conclusion to this whole saga, despite my hatred of the way Selina was treated in the movie. I did like the Joker and Superman bits and the ending saved it for me as well. The animated could've been a bit better but other than that, it's a decent adaptation of a much loved comic book.

Rating: 7 out of 10