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Exclusive: Review of the World Premiere of ‘Gotham’!

By Skip Harvey

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Events like this are what make Comic-Con, Comic-Con. After a mind-numbing 4 hour wait in line at Hall H, fueled by far too many espressos,  I bore witness to the world premiere of Gotham.

Hall H is an expansive, 6,000 seat theater that is often host to the biggest screening events at the convention, and believe me when I tell you that they made the most of it. As the presentation (hosted by Arrow’s Steven Amell and Ben McKenzie) kicked off the traditonal projector screens were joined by enormous wrap-around screens at the front and sides of the auditorium which created a panoramic effect. During the screening the theater side walls showed each of the show’s main characters. As they would be introduced in the episode a spotlight would appear, highlighting their still image. It was spectacular.

Now, about the episode…

The tone and mood of the series is like nothing we’ve ever really seen in a Batman film or series. While I was hoping for a realistic grittiness like the Nolan era films or TV shows like The Wire/NYPD Blue, it was more like BBC’s Luther, though that shouldn’t be considered a negative. It was colorful and stylized, but still dark and somber. The players are laid out one by one, each a piece of a larger puzzle. Though the characters back stories often seemed to deviate from their comic roots, they all seemed interwoven, altered to create the tapestry of Gotham itself. For instance, there may be a bigger mystery behind the murder of the Waynes that takes us down a new and winding path. This made Gotham seem like a living, breathing entity of interdependent parts. Crime and Justice often appeared to mimic each other in a symbiotic and delicate ecosystem.

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Acting wise, no one chews up the scenery like one would fear from a genre show. In fact, some of the high points come from the actors settling in to their roles. Donal Logue wears Harvey Bullock like a second skin and as Ben McKenzie begins to ramp up is badass rebellion against the system, he slowly builds the Jim Gordon we know and love, brick by brick. Selina Kyle seems to exist more as a plot device to set up Gotham’s modern day Dickensian atmosphere, and Edward Nygma is tertiary at best, but these may ultimately play out over the course of the series.

Though the show lacks a certain edginess due to it being on network TV instead of a more…flexible venue, it shows a lot of promise. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it feels ambitious and has a big engine driving the train. I will be curious to see how it unfolds.

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