Before there was Batman: Gothan
Dipping into the past of iconic characters has often led to disaster. Remember before there was Darth Vader, there was Padawan Milky Bar Kid? It was awful, like a prequel to the Terminator franchise that followed the adventures of a calculator that aspires to kill people. Take Batman out of Gotham, and aren’t we just left with a crime drama in a particularly rainy New York City? I was intrigued to find out.
Naturally, this being set during Bruce Wayne’s childhood, we are once again witness to his parents’ deaths. I suppose this can’t be avoided, but I feel like I’ve seen about 27 sets of Wayne parents die by now. The circumstances that set the young Wayne on his path as a vigilante are beginning to feel less of a dramatic springboard.
You see him crying in shock and think “Why are you so upset? Yesterday alone I saw your parents die six times.” If multiple directors remade Star Wars Episode V, the whole “I am your father” thing would get a bit old too.
So, with another pair of jobbing actors joining the Dead Wayne Society, the show introduces us to Gotham’s characters, who are mostly younger versions of the villains we all know and love. Hopefully these characters will grow with the series – I’m not really sold on them yet. Edward Nygma (the Riddler) comes across as Bill Gates infused with the soul of a frustrating crossword, while the Penguin is more troubled emo than gothic villain. There’s a jarring feeling: do youthful villains automatically have to appeal to today’s youth. Again, the problem here: “Before the villains were iconic, they weren’t.”
One scene did petrify me with what I hoped wasn’t a young glimpse of one of Batman’s most revered characters. Crime boss Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) is auditioning a stand-up comedian for her club. He’s all awkward nerves and jittery delivery, much like the glut of self-deprecating “Ooh, who even am I?” comics flooding the stand-up scene. “I like you. You’re funny,” Mooney says as I begin opening my heart to Satan and all his terrible progeny, offering myself as a flesh-gift in return for the promise this is not a foreshadowing of the Joker.
He probably isn’t. A bizarre camera angle had Mooney chatting to the Penguin while the comedian’s legs were still in shot, so unless we were meant to get a Joker vibe from his limb-acting, I think we’re safe.
Then there’s the young Cat Woman. Perhaps it’s Christopher Nolan’s fault for giving us a version of the cat burglar more grounded in reality, but this just felt too … catty. It’s as if Gotham has to constantly remind us of Cat Woman’s feline status by making sure she’s always shot in a cat-like pose: perching against a variety of statues and fire-escapes on all fours at all times. Stealing milk. I was worried if I kept looking I might see her spray against a lamppost.
I want to like Gotham, I really do, and I guess I’ll just have to give it time, but so far it seems just a little too keen to reinvent for the sake of a new demographic. The aesthetic is impressive, with a nice reimagining of Gotham: all rain and dirty brown filters. But by dragging the villains back to their early 20s, it makes them seem like the sort of people who’d annoy me in a cafe by being ahead in the queue and ordering an unnecessarily complicated coffee.
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