“Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One” Blu-ray Review and Digital Code Giveaway!

Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One pleasantly surprised me with its storytelling and certain action beats. Read on to know what I thought about the Blu-ray release. We’re also doing a Digital Code giveaway!

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free Blu-ray copy of Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One for review. The opinions I have shared are my own. 

In my opinion, the recent animated DC films have been hit and miss. However, upon hearing about the big names joining the voice cast of Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One, I was intrigued. We have Jensen Ackles, who is no stranger to animated The Batman franchise, as Bruce Wayne, the late Naya Rivera as Catwoman, Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent, and the ever-so-talented, Troy Baker as the Joker.

While everyone performed impressively well in their respective roles, I have to say Rivera as Selina Kyle didn’t do it for me. Selina has a seductive, sultry, mysterious, femme fatale confidence behind her every word. In my opinion, Rivera didn’t deliver on that. Ackles, on the other hand, made for a very good Bruce Wayne and Batman. David Dastmalchian as the Calendar Man is another standout.

Part One did a great job interweaving characters like the heavy-handed Falcone, the sewer-dwelling Grundy, and the Arkham Asylum inhabitant Calendar Man (to name a few) in one huge story. It really felt as if you’re on a guided tour of Gotham City getting to learn more about the city’s politics, the mob, and the impact of having a colorful roster of personalities running around.

Bruce Wayne associates himself with Carmine Falcone; their parents knew each other. All the while Falcone is dealing with his unruly antisocial son, Alberto Falcone, who is presumably the next in line to lead the Falcone family, but doesn’t have the stomach for the ugly side of commanding the underground armada he controls and definitely steps on the toes of his father numerous times. Meanwhile, someone lurks in the shadow eliminating Falcone’s competition and potential usurpers.

Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One offers an exciting mystery, during a mob war between Falcone and Sal Maroni, that fans will appreciate. Based on the iconic comic book story by Jeph Loeb, I’m glad to share this animated feature did justice to the source material. This is a young Batman who focuses more on detective work as other characters in Gotham City also try and find the mysterious serial killer their own way. It also ties into Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face. Fans of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship will also have a lot to enjoy.

Coming to the Blu-ray release, the visuals are presented in 1080p and the quality is what you would expect from WBHE offerings. The textures and overall animation style are appealing. You will be able to see and appreciate quite a lot of detail put into environments our characters find themselves in with some very good use of shadows and light sources in certain scenes.

Having said that, I can see people with high-level setups expecting better visual quality, which they can definitely get through the 4K UHD Combo Pack version (containing both parts) said to be released in 2022. 

As for the audio, it’s a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track. I experienced no trouble understanding what was being said.

Extra Content:

• DC Showcase Animated Short – The Losers: This is an approximately 16-minutes long animated short based on characters by Robert Kanigher. We have a legendary rag-tag team of World War II outcasts – Captain Storm, Johnny Cloud, “Mile-a Minute” Jones, rookie Gunner, and Sarge – marooned on an uncharted island in the South Pacific that is completely overrun with dinosaurs! Their would-be ally on this deadly mission, the mysterious and beautiful Fan Long of the Chinese Security Agency, tells them their job is to rescue the scientists that have been sent to study the time/space anomaly. Perhaps… but what is her mission?
• Sneak Peek of Batman – The Long Halloween, Part Two: You get an advance look at Part Two of Batman: The Long Halloween, complete with the cast and crew offering insights into what to expect.
• You get previews for Batman – The Dark Knight Returns and Batman – Gotham by Gaslight.
• From the DC Vault – Batman: The Animated Series – “Christmas With The Joker”
• From the DC Vault – Batman: The Animated Series – “It’s Never Too Late”

After watching Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One, I’m thoroughly excited for Part II and can’t wait to see this story conclude. From the looks of it, more villains will be making their way into the sequel.

While you might want to wait for both parts to be released (Part Two has a July 27 Digital and August 10, 2021, Blu-ray debut date), I still recommend you consider watching Part One right now and join the conversation over on social media.

This animated film was made available on Blu-ray and Digital on June 22, 2021. It has a running time of 85 minutes and has been rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, language, and some smoking. 

As for the Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One Digital Code giveaway, here’s the video from our The Geekiary YouTube channel.

The giveaway will end on June 26, 2021, at 11:59 PM PST. So, good luck!

Have you watched Batman: The Long Halloween – Part One?

Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

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(This review has been written in collaboration with Farid-ul-Haq.)

Author: Micah Carrillo

Micah is studying English and Digital Design. His love of geek culture spans across diverse mediums and genres. Comics, anime, films, you name it! He enjoys video games on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox.

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