[5.7/10] I don’t have a ton more to say about part 2 than I did about [part 1](https://trakt.tv/movies/batman-the-long-halloween-part-one-2021). This one is a little worse since it fails to really pay off the story in a satisfying way, while some allowances can be made for a film table-setting its premise and characters in clunky ways.

The thing with part 1 is that, once it got into the meat of its story, things improved. There was momentum and direction to the whole thing that was lacking when trying to put all the pieces on the board. But once that's done, we’re suddenly back to episodic interludes with Poison Ivy and Scarecrow and Mad Hatter that feel like tangents at best and wastes of time at worst.

I understand that this is an adaptation of a series of comic books, and more episodic storytelling makes sense for that medium. And hell, if they did this as a 13-episode mini-series, I’d probably feel differently. But this isn’t a comic book or a television show; it’s presented as one big progression of events, and it doesn’t feel like the screenwriters did much to adapt it to that different framework and medium.

I’m also pretty meh on everything that goes down with Two-Face. Dent’s descent isn’t much to write home about, and when you’ve seen that tale told with more gusto both before and after the release of this film, it’s hard to get excited. (Granted, some of those works were influenced by the *Long Halloween* graphic novel, so credit where it’s due.) There is, once again, something to the idea of Dent struggling with the unfairness of the world and the elusiveness of true justice, respiting himself on the flip of a coin. It’s not particularly well done here but you can see why that idea captured multiple Batman storytellers’ attention.

But again, the voice acting here is pretty rough, with neither the performers behind Bats or Dent really able to sell the emotion or turmoil here, which pretty well hobbles the film. The measured pacing within scenes and the lack of a score could be a boon if you had better performers or more expressive animation. But *The Long Halloween Part Two* offers neither, so the “adult drama”-aping approach just exposes the movie’s shortcomings.

I’m also a little miffed by the reveal here. I had actually clocked Gilda as the likely culprit fairly early on. Between the amount of screentime she received and all the discussions between her and Harvey about having kids, the notion of a killer who used baby bottle nipples as a silencer added up. The problem is that the scenes where we see Holiday in action pretty clearly present the character as a man that doesn't match Gilda’s look or build. So while the answer doesn’t feel out of nowhere, it does feel like a cheat.

Her motives are also a mixed bag. I like Gilda’s vendetta against Carmine in principle, but I wish we got more time to explore it than just a last minute reveal. Not for nothing, *The Long Halloween* has shades of [*Mask of the Phantasm*](https://trakt.tv/comments/273759) which plays both the identity and the motivation for its culprit in a way that weaves into the story much better on both fronts. Plus, even for something with source material from the mid-1990s, *The Long Halloween*’s “My forced abortion turned me into a bitter and vengeful killer” feels uncomfortably like something out of a Chick tract.

The film does have a few high points. As random and unmotivated as it may be, Two-Face showing up with something approaching Batman’s complete rogues gallery has some juice to it. (Though why Solomon Grundy just follows Two-Face is beyond me.) The machinations between the different crime families is something, and adds some twisty intrigue. And once again, Calendar Man’s Hannibal Lecter routine is a treat.

But on the whole, this just isn’t a very compelling piece of media. Too many other works have taken pieces of this story and realized them in better ways. Too many Batman animated predecessors have tackled similar themes and done them with more convincing emotion and artistic glory. Maybe this might succeed as a slavish adaptation of the source material, but even then, the art style and the flat performances seem likely to doom it to the doldrums. There’s a base level competence here, but not much more than that.