Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) – Considered by some to be the greatest Batman movie ever made, it’s certainly a fantastic Batman film, but nowadays it’s impossible to put it beside The Dark Knight and assess which is better. But this film is outstanding, arguably the apex of the Golden Age of DC Animation, initiated by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series (from which this film is “spun off”) This film sets a retelling of Batman’s first year as a crimefighter against his ongoing battle against vigilante The Phantasm, who’s violently eliminating Gotham’s mobsters. Like every great Batman story, The Joker gets involved, and it’s here that one of the film’s greatest strengths comes into play: Mark Hamill, whose brilliant portrayal of The Joker is as iconic as it gets. As much as I loved Heath Ledger’s performance, Hamill’s is still the voice I hear when I read the comics. In fact, that’s true of the whole voice cast, including Kevin Conroy, who’s been turning in the best and most consistent Batman in any media (yes, even including comics) for the last twenty years. The visuals match the audio very well, giving us a pitch-perfect gothic Gotham in which the principals play out their action. But the film isn’t entirely perfect. While the Phantasm story is compelling, the resolution doesn’t quite hold up after repeat viewings. But the juggling of moods and eras – from young Bruce Wayne to today, from mob assassinations to Joker’s tricked-out hide-out – works extremely well, guided by a Shirley Walker soundtrack which encapsulates the quintessential Batman mood. In fact, while the film isn’t perfect (The Dark Knight, I contend, is), it’s certainly quintessential – the film most accurate to the comic book source material.
Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998) – The second animated film in the Timm/Dini-verse doesn’t quite live up to the promise of Phantasm, nor is it the best Mr. Freeze story done by this particular creative team. It’s not that SubZero is a bad film, by any means; it’s a perfectly serviceable story, with Kevin Conroy and Michael Ansara reprising their spot-on voiceover roles as the eponymous hero and villain. But SubZero doesn’t quite work on a number of levels, suffering predominantly by following such a divinely authentic Batman film. The plot is a bit contrived, placing Barbara Gordon in peril where a) she’s not allowed to be Batgirl, her heroic alter ego, and b) we know Batman and his allies won’t allow her to be hurt, making the whole exercise a bit futile. The way Batman finds Mr. Freeze is clever, but much of the movie is decidedly less than stellar. What’s especially disappointing is that the makers of SubZero were also responsible for “Heart of Ice,” the luminous animated series episode which redefined Mr. Freeze’s origins and recast him as a tragic figure, all with wonderful visuals. The visuals here aren’t as appealing, with some very distracting CGI work detracting from the darkly gothic look the series had previously delivered. As the last entry in this iteration of Batman’s adventures before a redesign for The New Batman Adventures, it’s sad the show couldn’t go out with a Phantasm-sized bang, but at least my favorite episode – “Mad Love,” in which we learn that The Joker’s sidekick/lover Harley Quinn was once his psychiatrist – was yet to be. And at least this was better than the severed-head Freeze we got later.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) – While I was never as big a fan of Batman Beyond as I was of Batman proper, seeing the “PG-13” version of this film made more interested – though not a convert – in this rendition of the character. Wisely, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are still on hand providing the voices of the (now-retired) Caped Crusader and his Clown Prince of Crime, but the lead is Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis, the latest to wear the cowl (and Bruce Wayne’s secret son, according to one Justice League Unlimited episode). As Batman, Terry finds himself facing his predecessor’s greatest foe, The Joker – a man who’s supposed to be dead. This is probably a great Batman Beyond movie, but it’s not to my liking, mostly because I can’t attach myself to the futuristic atmosphere of the franchise. With one notable exception: the fifteen-minute sequence in the middle of the film in which we find out what happened during Batman’s last confrontation with The Joker and Harley Quinn, which taps into the essential differences between the two forces of good and evil. This scene returns to the original series vibe of a dark Gotham with blood-red skies and a sense that danger is lurking in every shadowy corridor. I still get chills during this scene, to which I’ve returned several times as the perfect coda to the DC Animated Universe that brought me to comics in the first place. While the Batman Beyond series went on for more episodes beyond this film, I’ll always look at this as the end of “my” Batman and Joker.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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