Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two review

The second installment of one of Batman’s greatest murder mysteries cements it as one of the best animated comic book adaptations to date.

There are many possible reasons why DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation decided on releasing Batman: The Long Halloween into two parts. They did it before with their adaptation of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The scope of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s story needed an extra film to do the adaptation justice. It fits with the theme of duality, considering who the villain is on the cover of Part Two’s DVD cover. It certainly generates more DVD and digital sales having two films instead of one. Whatever the reasons, breaking the film into two parts did allow for a pretty effective cliffhanger.

When Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One ended, the prime suspect for the Holiday murders became one of Holiday’s victims. Then, in a post-credits scene, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Jensen Ackles) fell under the sway of Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff) at the behest of mob kingpin, Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver).

As Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two begins, the billionaire playboy-by-day, masked vigilante-by-night is signing away his fortune over to the Roman. That is until Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Naya Rivera) rescues him and Alfred (Alastair Duncan) from Ivy’s hypnotic clutches.

And just in time, too. For the past three months since Part One, Batman has been a no-show, leaving the Holiday killer free to commit even more murders. As all the victims are gangsters, this has erupted into an all-out war between the Falcone and Maroni crime families, each side blaming the other for the Holiday murders. Carmine’s daughter, Sofia (Laila Berzins) arrives in Gotham hoping she can help her poppa.

A desperate Carmine, however, has broken the Scarecrow (Robin Atkin Downes) out of Arkham Asylum for him to rob the Maronis. Meanwhile, the stress from his work and his marriage is pushing Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel) towards the edge of sanity, to the point he’s starting to hear voices in his head.

Is Batman: The Long Halloween worth watching?

[Batman: The Long Halloween] is a story about the legacies fathers pass onto their children; or for some characters, what they fail to pass on.

As you can imagine, this second animated installment, adapted from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s comic book miniseries, streamlines events from the original story considerably. Whereas Part One truncated the first issue prior to the first Holiday murder, Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two truncates the murders themselves. We see the aftermath of the killings on Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, skips April Fool’s Day (a shame as that also involved a hilarious cameo by the Riddler in the original comic), and heads right into Mother’s Day.

This works in Part 2’s favor, however. Compared to the comic, the plot is much tighter, allowing for more character building scenes. There’s also a greater attention paid towards the larger narrative that’s been percolating in the background all along — how Harvey Dent became the villainous Two-Face, and how this, in turn, resulted in Gotham’s underworld being taken over by Batman’s rogues’ gallery. Even the solution to the Holiday mystery had been simplified compared with the original but done in such a way that it doesn’t cheat. the audience. If anything, it comes across as even more tragic.

It also brings into focus what The Long Halloween is really about besides the Caped Crusader trying to solve a year-long murder mystery. This is a story about the legacies fathers pass onto their children; or for some characters, what they fail to pass on. We see this not just through a flashback to the murder of Bruce’s parents, but also when Dr. Thomas Wayne (Robin Atkin Downes) saves the life of a young Carmine Falcone the year before.

“That makes us family,” Carmine tells a then eight-year-old Bruce (Zach Callison). Years later, the adult Bruce questions if his parents really were the paragons of virtue they presented themselves to be, and whether he’s honoring them as Batman or trying to redeem them. In turn, for as much as Carmine talks about family, he fails to properly love his own children, or see them as they truly are. Likewise, Harvey’s own desire to start a family is crippled by his other desire to bring down Falcone and his growing psychosis.

If this sounds surprisingly mature for a superhero detective cartoon, it is. In fact, Part Two wades deep into the more adult waters Part One only hinted at. This isn’t to say it gets more explicit in its content, though the level of violence does increase. There’s a good reason Part Two has a different MPAA rating, and not just because there’s a greater amount of animated blood.

Speaking of the animation, it looks as though it faced some definite production problems. Apparently, Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One was supposed to come out before Superman: Man of Tomorrow and Justice Society: World War II,  but was shelved because the studio got the mistaken impression that Matt Reeves’ The Batman would be a live-action version of the same comic.

The delay clearly didn’t do them any favors. There are certain scenes in Part Two which look unpolished and even unfinished. Nevertheless, they spare no expense when it comes to Batman’s fear toxin-induced nightmare by the Scarecrow or the last twenty minutes in which Two-Face leads Gotham’s most notorious supervillains against Falcone’s penthouse.

Thus once again, it’s the excellent cast of voice actors who do the heavy lifting. Some have to pull double duty by voicing two different characters. The returning leads are as good, if not better, than they were in Part Two, with Duhamel being the clear standout.

Both his voices for Harvey and Two-Face are distinctive enough so they sound like different personalities with just the hint that they’re the same person. It’s very reminiscent of Richard Moll’s voice acting for the same character in Batman: The Animated Series.

As for the newcomers, Sackhoff’s Poison Ivy is equal parts sultry and petulant, Downes’ Scarecrow is delightfully sinister, Berzins’ husky faux-Sicilian accent perfectly matches Sofia’s large physique, and John Dimaggio has fun in giving the Mad Hatter a thick cocky accent to his Lewis Carrol rhymes.

While Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two is as faithful to the original comic, it does take some significant liberties. But in no way does this ruin the spirit of Loeb and Sale’s story. In some respects, the changes made to the film are an actual improvement. Together with Part One, both films which make up Batman: The Long Halloween result in one of the best comic book adaptations ever made. Still, it would’ve been nice to have seen the April Fool “murder” on screen.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two is Rated R (for some violence and bloody images) and is available now on digital, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 10, 2021. Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One is available now on Digital, DVD, and Blu-Ray.