Anthony Stokes reviews the pilot episode of FOX’s Batman prequel series Gotham….
When I heard about Gotham I was at first skeptical due to it being on the heels of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. being announced, but the more I heard about it the more excited I got. But, from the trailer, it seemed as if Fox had a cop show, then saw Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. getting announced and threw Batman characters and mythology in it. I was hoping for a dark and gritty show that would be good contrast for the silly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but this looked more like a generic procedural. I set a very low bar for the show to clear – if Gotham wasn’t set in the Batman universe would I continue to watch it after this first episode?
And the verdict is sadly no. If you renamed these characters something else and set this as a standalone show then I personally wouldn’t care about the show. And one of Gotham’s biggest flaws is how is forcibly ties itself into the Batman universe. We’re introduced to so many characters so fast that the story itself doesn’t have any room to breathe. It is moving so fast there’s not room for much development and there are way too many cameos that have nothing to do with anything at this point. This is something that will probably be ironed out in future episodes though.
The overall tone of the show is also pretty confused. It wants to be dark but also overly comedic and over the top. Jada Pinkett Smith reminded me of Rosario Dawson’s character from Sin City and the cinematography tries to get a similar feel as Se7en, with big sweeping shots of the city that feel copy and pasted from previous shots in the episode. And Sin City or Se7en could have been great influences to have for the show, but not both because they really don’t gel. There’s moments of comedy that aren’t as funny as the unintentional comedy in the episode. There are so many cliches I had to hold back laughter. We have a POV shot of a character getting knocked out by getting kicked in the face. We have a character getting knocked out from behind after beating up henchmen. We have a torture scene in a meat locker, amongst many others.
As far as acting goes, nobody in the cast is outright bad, given the mediocre dialogue and poor script writing. Jada Pinkett Smith was once again a little too cartoony for me but everybody else seems to enjoy her so that might just be me. Ben McKenzie is good as Gordon despite being pretty one note. The problem is that nobody exactly stands out as being a good actor, and this show really needed someone to come in and knock a role out of the park. It’s a shame too because it’s a pretty talented cast and a better director and screenwriter could have got some great performances out of them.
Our own Thomas Roach wrote an article titled “Can Gotham survive without Batman?” and honestly I think it’d be a much better show if it wasn’t tied down to its mythology. Most of the characters focused on are either characters made up for the show or lesser known Batman villains. Penguin is the only one of the major Batman villains to a significant role in the show. At this point I’m not sure the show would survive with Batman because the kid who plays Bruce Wayne, David Mazouz, was pretty weak. Not Anakin from Star Wars weak, but I don’t expect to be seeing him in anything else for a while.
Gotham has potential to be a good show, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. It should have been on FX with a 13 season order for a tight story that would gradually introduce Batman’s characters. There are a few season long story threads that might have been introduced but this seems like it’s going to be a “case of the week” deal and I just haven’t been into those since the 90s ended. Gotham has potential, only by the very nature of having a rich mythology to pull from, and that is it. Nothing in the pilot shows any significant promise outside of showing Batman’s villains before they became who they are. I’m not hooked and to be fair this is just the pilot, but I’m going to need a large number of people who are extremely convincing to get me to keep up with this show.
Anthony Stokes is a blogger and independent filmmaker.
Originally published September 23, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
