Batman: The Animated Series - "Paging the Crime Doctor"

“I brought you some more equipment, the latest in medical technology. After all, nothing’s too good for my brother, the crime doctor.”

Crime lord Rupert Thorne (John Vernon) has taken ill and needs the help of his brother Matthew Thorne (Joseph Campanella), a physician who lost his medical license after failing to report a bullet he removed from his felonious brother. In order to help his unlawful medical practice, Matthew Thorne pressgangs an old friend, Dr. Leslie Thompkins (Diana Muldaur), into operating on the crime boss. Her disappearance, however, naturally attracts the attention of the Batman.

I mentioned last week that I barely remembered this episode, a remarkable moment of aphasia for someone who prides himself on a photographic memory of all things Gotham. It’s even more noteworthy, then, that I’ve said this once before, of the lamentably forgettable “It’s Never Too Late,” with which this episode has a number of affinities. Both are family tragedies about the toll taken by a life of crime, pitting brother against brother while one pursues control of the underworld. Both see Batman take a backseat to the geriatric crowd, standing by in witness like some grim Greek chorus. Most significantly, though, both episodes are exceedingly dull, competent in a way that prevents them from being “bad” episodes, but inexplicably forgettable and difficult to imagine on any “must-watch” list.

Let’s be very clear – we’re not dealing with another “Underdwellers” (thank heaven) or even a case of a weird one-off like “The Forgotten” (even if that title would apply quite well here). What is peculiar about “Paging the Crime Doctor” is how little it feels like an episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Indeed, Batman’s brief appearances are entirely incidental; this story doesn’t have anything intrinsically Gotham about it until the very end, at which point Batman catches up with the Thorne mob and has a few words with the eponymous doctor. Even Leslie Thompkins, genuinely touching in her intimate caretaker role from “Appointment in Crime Alley,” treats Batman like just another patient, such that he could conceivably be replaced by a nameless police officer.

Two weeks ago, we saw “The Man Who Killed Batman,” which is indisputably one of the show’s finest episodes, and while I doubt very many people have compared these two episodes, I find it difficult to escape. (Maybe it’s just nostalgia looking back at the most recent perfect episode.) This episode might seem to resist comparison, beginning as it does with Rupert Thorne refusing to believe that one of his goons killed Batman (“Not on your best day, Jake!”), but it’s worth seeing how two different episodes grapple with the omission of Batman. Where Batman’s absence was acutely felt in “The Man Who Killed Batman,” the episode nevertheless lived in the Dark Knight’s shadow and inexorably belonged to his world, a world permeated by sinister gangsters and eccentric clowns. Here, though, Batman’s just not present. His detective work is a little thin – identifying “Rose Commercial Laundry” as a Thorne front because rose, thorn, get it? – to the point where even Alfred comments on it: “How clever, in a prosaic sort of way.” So it’s not just that Batman isn’t around for much of the episode (though he isn’t); it’s that he is entirely incidental to the plot’s proceedings.

When he’s on-screen, though, Batman is far and away the best thing in an otherwise negligible episode. The episode is scripted by a number of notable Bat-scribes, including Mike W. Barr, whose contributions to the Batman comics have included the underrated Year Two and the creation of the Outsiders (think an alt-Justice League led by Batman). There’s a scene in which Batman is cornered at an elevator by Thorne’s thugs – from the moment he steps out of the elevator to the beat where he’s cornered by gunfire, that all reads as classic Barr and even better Batman. I’ve commended this series for its plotting and its dialogue, but sequences like the elevator fight show just how well-directed, how cinematic, the show can be in its visuals.

If the rest of the episode had been as good as that scene, which leaps to my memory without hesitation, I’d say “Paging the Crime Doctor” is a worthy sequel to “Appointment in Crime Alley.” But I can’t say many good things about “Paging” because I’ve already forgotten most of it. In its attempt to load pathos onto the rather one-note comic book figure of The Crime Doctor, it ends up telling a story as competent as any other on the show, but it’s nevertheless a story that doesn’t quite fit with the tenor of the rest of the show. Most tragically, it’s an episode that is a bit of a snooze, a one-and-done that’ll never come up again, and an episode without much worth remembering – a lethal trifecta. “Paging the Crime Doctor” is DOA.

Original Air Date: September 17, 1993

Writers: Mike W. Barr, Laren Bright, Randy Rogel, and Martin Pasko

Director: Frank Paur

Villain: Rupert Thorne (John Vernon)

Next episode: “Zatanna,” ni hcihw a lleps si tsac, dna cigam si degats.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Coco (2017)

Over the last seven years, more than half of Pixar’s output has taken the form of sequels to their preexisting properties (disclosure: I’ve still not seen Finding Dory or Cars 3), and of their original fare only Inside Out has distinguished itself as belonging to that higher stratosphere of storytelling for which Pixar became known long ago. No slight to Brave or The Good Dinosaur, but I’ll claim Inside Out as standing quite apart from those fine but familiar endeavors. Coco is, however, a return to form for Pixar, taking us to a new world with a fresh narrative that ends up touching a few heart (and guitar) strings.

Against the wishes of his family, who believe that music has cursed their family, young Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) has a secret shrine in his attic where he practices guitar and idolizes the world’s greatest musician, Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). Miguel wants to play in a talent show on Día de los muertos, but a series of mishaps drops him into the land of the dead, where he’ll need the help of the nearly-forgotten Hector (Gael García Bernal) to reach Ernesto de la Cruz and rejoin his living family.

Director Lee Unkrich has been tied up with Coco since Toy Story 3 (2010), which was arguably Pixar’s finest film in the last ten years, so it’s a welcome relief to see finally what’s taken so long. On that count, Unkrich does not disappoint; Coco is the kind of film that reminds you what truly exceptional animated material looks like when it’s married to equally compelling storytelling. Yes, it’s a version of that same Pixar plot in which a character travels through a new place in order to return home while learning something about himself in the process, but the film feels so remarkably fresh that I didn’t notice this plot similarity until I went back to my review of The Good Dinosaur to remind myself why that film hadn’t worked as well.

One of Pixar’s remarkable strengths has always been its ability to create a world, and it’s that dexterity at world-building that has made Pixar sequels so appetizing to the general public – who wouldn’t want to rejoin The Incredibles or see what else is in the Toy Story toy box? As good as those sequels have been (or are expected to be), though, revisiting a world comes at the expense of building another one. Pixar’s always been quite deft at giving us a sideways glance at our own world, seeing what’s just out of sight and asking us to reimagine – to re-envision (emphasis on vision) – how we view our toys, our feelings, our fish. Here, surprisingly soberly, Coco takes us into the afterlife, through the particular lens of Mexican culture. In so doing, the film does a remarkable job at introducing this tradition to an audience who may not know an ofrenda from an alebrije. Coco is never directly didactic, but it strikes me as a fine primer on what another culture does on October 31.

Visually, Coco is a real delight. My screening of Coco was preceded by a little vignette about how many people participated in the film and how intricate their work was, so perhaps I was readied to appreciate the many details within the film’s animation. Individual illuminated buildings, the peculiar way each skeleton walks, the delicate ornamentation on each skull – to say nothing of the trademark Pixar bouncy ball and Pizza Planet truck – all are brought to startling life with what can only be described as “Pixar showing off” (as in the best it does). Like the famous pencil adjustment scene in The Incredibles, there’s no story relevance to Miguel having only one dimple when he smiles, but it’s a moment when Pixar can flex its animation muscles and play magician with a peek behind the digital curtain and a wink at its own prowess.

At the heart of the film is a smooth, effortless narrative which feels unique and takes the audience to surprising places, both geographically and emotionally. The film’s emphasis on music, so pivotal to Miguel’s self-discovery, also feels like a revelation from Pixar; though composer Michael Giacchino (who himself makes a small cameo) always serves as a worthwhile hand on deck, Coco approaches becoming a musical in a way that most Pixar fare has not, echoing WALL·E’s use of Hello, Dolly! as Miguel makes his way closer to his idol. If you don’t leave the theater humming at least one of the tracks from the film, consult an audiologist, because the songs are so inextricable from the core narrative, so vitally integrated, that the film might not succeed without them.

Coco does succeed, though, and it’s a blessing to have films like this in the world. Without the benefit or burden of extended universes, with a runtime healthily shy of two hours, and with a style that identifies it as uniquely itself, Coco is a fine reminder of what Lee Unkrich and Pixar can accomplish when they do what they do best. And hey, if there’s a Coco 2 in the distant future, I’m all for it; they will have earned it.

Coco is rated PG for “thematic elements.” Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. Written by Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina, Jason Katz, and Matthew Aldrich. Starring Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Alanna Ubach, and Benjamin Bratt.

Bonus review! Coco is preceded by Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, in which magical snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) travels throughout Arendelle in search of a holiday tradition for Elsa and Anna (Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell). At twenty-one minutes, it’s evident that the short began life as a television holiday special in the vein of Toy Story of Terror! and Toy Story That Time Forgot, and perhaps the short would have fared better there than before a feature film, where it seems to overstay its welcome (conditioned as we are to expect an original short in the neighborhood of eight minutes). Audiences in Mexico have notably revolted, such that the short has been largely pulled from theaters there, and I do have to say that the short isn’t that bad. It’s possessing of the same charm extended from Frozen, though its songs are not quite as memorable and its story holds a little fat around the edges. But I certainly felt impatient around halfway through, so its length and placement would seem to have worked against the short. Frozen fans will love it, but the general audience might not be ready for a "short" of this magnitude.

Batman: The Animated Series - "Mudslide"

“I don’t know if I can stand this much longer. Trapped in this suit, surviving on chemicals – it’s a nightmare.”

Clayface is back, but he’s falling to pieces, his structural integrity compromised by the Renuyu chemicals that turned him into a man of mud. With a string of robberies to hold himself together, Clayface limps his way into the arms of Dr. Stella Bates (Pat Musick), whose medical experiments have caught the eye of Batman, as well.

A few weeks ago, we saw an operatic take on The Penguin’s villainy with “Birds of a Feather,” and with “Mudslide” it’s Clayface’s turn to get a dose of high tragedy. “Feat of Clay,” to which this episode is a sequel in all but name only, introduced Clayface in all his unmistakable villainy, but it layered in that particularly BtAS brand of pathos by metaphorizing his condition as a drug addiction in an image-conscious industry. Here, Clayface is a kind of Jean Valjean with a degenerative neurological disorder, resorting to robbery to stave off his own cellular decay. It’s Clayface’s own inability to ask for help that ends up his tragic flaw; Batman is only ever interested in helping Clayface, who can’t see the hero as anything but a punitive force of misapplied justice.

This episode’s Clayface is a perfect example of the voice and the animation working in alchemical tandem. Ron Perlman returns with a throat full of gravel, where the pain is all too evident and the rage isn’t concealed one whit. Joining the voice of a six-foot mountain of a man to a stubby mud-man oddly fits this character, especially as his physical form is deteriorating but his mind is all too aware of what’s happening. The animation on Clayface was slick in “Feat of Clay,” but here it’s really admirable, capturing every melting glob and roiling putrescence. (The sound design, too, with a sick squish at every melty step, helps this characterization land.) I have wondered at the possibility of a live-action Clayface, but it’s difficult to imagine a CGI version of the character working as well as this conventionally-animated one does.

We know this isn’t the last we’ll see of Clayface – even if we weren’t reassured by knowledge of his subsequent appearance, nobody stays dead in comics except Uncle Ben – but I appreciated the way this episode wraps Clayface’s decline with a whole host of movie references. I recently read an issue of Secret Origins which introduced no fewer than four versions of the character, somewhat muddying the waters (no pun intended). This sort of immersion in the language of film would help cement Clayface (pun intended) as a singular character without these murky alternate versions. In one scene, he playacts at being menacing to scare away a crowd; in another, he throws every showbiz cliché at Batman to posture at being indestructible. “You’ve upstaged me for the last time, Batman. Time to bring down the curtain! [. . .] Time for your final bow, Batman!”

Pairing Clayface with Dr. Stella Bates – herself named for two significant film characters (hint, shout her first name while recalling she once owned a motel) – gives the show yet another examination of the way we’re molded by the media we consume. It’s not as on-the-nose as “Beware the Gray Ghost,” but it is radiantly successful in helping us understand why this doctor would willingly collaborate with a known super-criminal. The moments where she watches the DC equivalent of Dark Passage are darkly touching, and Clayface’s perversion of that film’s dialogue to manipulate Stella is equally chilling. (At least, I take it to be manipulation; the episode is surprisingly vague on that count.)

“Mudslide” is maybe not the best remembered of Batman: The Animated Series, solely by dint of not being remembered, period (and doubtless overshadowed by “Feat of Clay”). While the plot is brisk and moves quickly through its straightforward through-line, there’s enough nuance bubbling beneath the surface to make this one a winner and a heck of a note on which its villain can go out. Episodes like this always leave you wanting more – and the consummate showman Clayface would doubtless appreciate that.

Original Air Date: September 15, 1993

Writers: Alan Burnett and Steve Perry

Director: Eric Radomski

Villain: Clayface (Ron Perlman)

Next episode: “Paging the Crime Doctor,” in which I think Leslie Thompkins shows up? I honestly don’t remember this episode at all.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Justice League (2017)

I haven’t seen Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express yet, but I had a real Hercule Poirot moment as the credits rolled on Justice League, because I was of two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, I’d had a great time with the film and felt a charge of excitement as I tried to calculate when I could see it next. On the other hand, I felt a distinct note of sadness for the Justice League I hadn’t seen, the one Zack Snyder had been unable to finish (Joss Whedon famously stepped in during post-production, and it shows). But as I looked around the theater, I heard people clapping (I can’t remember the last time that happened), saw them turning in their seats to talk to complete strangers about this or that aspect of the film – Justice League had brought us all together just as its protagonists are united. In these times, that alone is a superheroic feat.

The death of Superman (Henry Cavill) has opened the world to new threats, and Batman (Ben Affleck) knows that something wicked this way comes. With the help of his sardonic butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons), Batman brings together Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to honor the legacy of Superman and repel the invading apocalyptic forces of Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds), who’s come to earth to finish the job of conquest he began millennia ago.

Having just spent the last eighteen weeks poring over Batman v Superman in exhaustive detail, it was difficult not to hope that Justice League had been a little more like its predecessor. The overall good feeling engendered by the film puts much of that yearning to bed, but a part of me will always wonder (at least, unless we get yet another “extended cut”) what Snyder had up his sleeve. Given the gratifying points of contact between Man of Steel and BvS, how much more might Snyder have pulled his trilogy together? We get glimpses of that Justice League, to be sure – as when Batman clings hopefully to “a fragment of a chance,” having previously feared “even a one-percent chance” – but the sheer volume of unused footage from the trailers makes me hope that one day, somehow, we’ll see an unfettered version of Snyder’s vision (perhaps, dare I say it, as a comic book?).

Indeed, it’s difficult to overstate the influence of Joss Whedon. There are many scenes reminiscent of his Avengers duology, up to and including the presence of two post-credits sequences. (I know, I didn’t think DC was doing those, either.) There are several scenes of the League bickering, recalling the internecine quarrels aboard the helicarrier in Avengers, and there’s a pretty striking reprise from Age of Ultron that seems airlifted from Sokovia. Moreover, Whedon’s penchant for quippy dialogue is abundant in Justice League, and it fits characters like The Flash and Alfred quite perfectly. Batman benefits from this brighter side, something foreshadowed in his evolution in BvS’s third act, though Whedon builds a bridge perhaps too far, with only one false note where a Batman one-liner might have better suited Aquaman or The Flash (a second gag flops when it verges crassly anatomical but is rescued by the appearance of the Lasso of Truth). Even Danny Elfman, who replaced Junkie XL at the eleventh hour and performed similarly for Whedon on Age of Ultron, gets in on the riffing game with a score that seems to have a few notes from the Marvel side of the street.

Setting aside the might-have-beens and the what-ifs for the version we did get, though, it’s a real crowd-pleaser. Tightly edited at just this side of two hours, Justice League clips along with barely any perceptible dead weight; though teasing multiple films to come (and with less interruption than in BvS), many of those teases are in service to introducing Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg to the DC filmic universe. Cyborg in particular acquits himself quite well by fitting into the larger narrative tapestry, though it’s Ezra Miller’s Flash who ought to become a fan favorite, quickly distinguishing himself from television’s Grant Gustin as an alternate but no less recognizable Barry Allen. Of course, I’m quite fond of Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot, who continue to develop their respective heroes through the cauldron of BvS into real team players, and I do hope to see more of them in standalone franchises.

Without losing the broad appeal of a crowd-pleaser, Justice League manages to pack in a number of surprises, many of them in the category of “Wow, they went there!” Batman v Superman wasn’t long on courage, you’ll recall, taking the exact opposite of the easy path, where Justice League plays it a little safer – a villain whose plan is quite simple, team dynamics that proceed without complication, and in-universe references that should seem quite familiar to audiences, like J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon, whom everyone ought to recognize by his mustache alone if not by his ignition of the Bat-signal. There are some risks taken in the film, as when Aquaman’s backstory is given brief allusion in a conversation with the merwoman who would be queen (Amber Heard as Mera) – and while I don’t want to play “Snyder or Whedon?” too much, this scene’s dense mythology is precisely the sort of thing of which I wanted to see considerably more, for I loved BvS’s profoundly immersive sense of depth.

But I can’t overstate how good Justice League felt. I had a big grin on my face for most of the movie, partly because I loved all the small references that the general audience might have missed but also because Justice League reminded me very much of the 2001 cartoon of the same name. Like the eponymous cartoon, Justice League does a solid job distilling its characters to their cores, bouncing them off each other, and uniting them against a threat that merits their collective attention. It is just jolly good fun to see these mythic archetypes bouncing off each other, and I do wish there could have been more of it because this is a movie that accesses the hopefulness of superheroes and the inherent wish-fulfillment of how awesome (in multiple senses of the words) these characters are. It’s a film that clips by so briskly that you’re ready to queue it up as soon as the credits have rolled. I don’t think too many people will be surprised to hear I enjoyed the film – I did go in with a clear head and am willing to admit when things didn’t work – but I do think audiences will be surprised at how grievously the critical majority have misjudged this film.

Justice League is rated PG-13 for “sequences of sci-fi violence and action.” Directed by Zack Snyder (and Joss Whedon). Written by Chris Terrio, Zack Snyder, and Joss Whedon. Based on the DC Comics. Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, and Ciarán Hinds.

10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 18

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Eighteen: The Postmortem

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Over the past seventeen weeks, we’ve been on a roller coaster of film criticism, close-reading the film in deep dives of analysis, commentary, and review. That’s more than four months devoted to a film that proved one of the most contentious flashpoints in a particularly divisive 2016, and the fact that we’re still talking about it speaks to the film’s depth. Those of us who loved the film don’t want to let go of it, and those who didn’t like it nevertheless can’t stop talking about it.

Four months is a long time, and with Justice League making its debut this weekend (see how we synced that up?), we should mark the occasion with some sort of postmortem on the “10 @ a Time” project. For those playing the home game, we are and have been looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; the preceding installments in this series can be accessed below:

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six || Part Seven || Part Eight || Part Nine || Part Ten || Part Eleven || Part Twelve || Part Thirteen || Part Fourteen || Part Fifteen || Part Sixteen || Part Seventeen

I was watching the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman when I conceived of this project. I realized that, even without the benefit of the Ultimate Edition, there were things in the theatrical cut that were lining up for me, things that made more sense the more I watched the film. The goal of the “10 @ a Time” project, then, became the explication of these connections, the revelation of the clockwork mechanism operating behind the film. Boy howdy, I didn’t think it’d take as much effort as it did, but I’d say the results were well worth it. In recognition of what I take to be the twin remarkable achievements of Batman v Superman and my laborious analysis of the same, I present The Postmortem, in the form of ten takeaways (in no particular order) from my hermetic immersion in the film.

"When people ask you who's your number one bad guy, you say--?" "Superman!"

Batman: The Animated Series - "The Man Who Killed Batman"

“Dear friends, today is the day that the clown cried. And he cries not for the passing of one man, but for the death of a dream.”

The word is out in the Gotham underworld: Batman is dead at the hands of Sidney Debris (Matt Frewer), a bumbling putz in the employ of Rupert Thorne. Dubbed “Sid the Squid,” Sidney tells Thorne what really happened the night Batman died, how he became the toast of the underworld, and how The Joker (Mark Hamill) reacted when he learned that his greatest adversary had perished.

Even though Batman is almost entirely absent from the episode, “The Man Who Killed Batman” is one of the greatest episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, hands down. It’s another Paul Dini/Bruce Timm collaboration, which is an automatic win for the audience as these two masters bring their expertise to bear on this deep dive into Gotham’s underbelly, a place both comically caricatured and surprisingly terrifying. In its focus not on its hero but on how the world looks from the vantage point of someone so close to the ground, “The Man Who Killed Batman” recalls the work of Will Eisner, who in his comic The Spirit would often devote whole episodes to this sort of story.

Sidney Debris would have fit right into the world of The Spirit; Sidney’s a lovable shrimp who somehow fell into a heist job with Thorne’s gangsters, only to find himself the center of Gotham City for a night. As ever, the character design on Sidney is first-rate; visually, he’s a small and doughy man, far from threatening, and Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) gives him a spot-on stammer to match his status as a fish far, far out of water. Sidney is the kind of guy you’d love to see crop up again in the Gotham universe, but at the same time he’s designed like a nutshell to allow this story to play out, and I struggle to see a use for him in other stories beyond the charm of a reprise.

As usually happens with a Paul Dini episode, The Joker steals the show with his note-perfect blend of lamentation and jubilation at the news that Batman has died. His first instinct is to stage a robbery to see if Batman turns up, but his dismal sense of defeat at Batman’s absence is peculiarly haunting as he instructs Harley Quinn to put back the stolen gems because “Without Batman, crime has no punchline” – a note that sums up Dini’s Joker precisely. The episode reaches a crescendo with Joker’s ersatz funeral for the dearly departed Dark Knight, a two-minute tour de force through all the power of Dini’s alliterative prose wedded to Hamill’s wild oscillation between blind fury and dark comedy. (It’s no wonder Mark Hamill continues to perform this monologue in character at conventions – it’s a gasser!) Arleen Sorkin tries to steal the show back with a rendition of “Amazing Grace” on the kazoo, but Hamill elopes with it wholesale. This mad notion, that The Joker would sincerely mourn the death of Batman, speaks to the playful core of this interpretation of their relationship and why some of the earlier Joker episodes didn’t work as well – it’s never about the schemes, but rather it’s about the punchline, that bizarre sense of obligation Joker has to Batman for creating him and giving him a vast criminal playground.

Dini and Timm, too, are at play in the wondrous carnival of their own creation. Their version of Gotham City holds these kind of stories exceptionally well. I won’t spoil the ending of the episode (though the fact that we’re not even halfway through the full run should give you a hint), but it’s remarkable how little Batman needs to be involved for this story to succeed. One almost imagines that Paul Dini could man an anthology series about Gotham City with Batman solely on the periphery, his Gotham Central pervaded with the freaks and 1930s mobsters he deployed with aplomb in his episodes. (We almost got that in the late 2000s with Streets of Gotham, but that comic series quickly integrated Batman into the bulk of the stories.) Batman’s shadow looms over the story, but the real stars are the tight script, the cinematic directing, and that ineffable Joker voice.

“Well, that was fun – who’s for Chinese?”

Original Air Date: February 1, 1993

Writer: Paul Dini

Director: Bruce Timm

Villains: The Joker (Mark Hamill), Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin), and Rupert Thorne (John Vernon)

Next episode: “Mudslide,” in which the feet of clay melt away.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Monday at the Movies - November 13, 2017

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” Last week saw the debut of Taika Waititi on this blog, so today we flash back a few years for his vampire mockumentary.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – It’s no surprise that this film, written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, is a laugh-out-loud riot; one need only look at their recent comedic pedigrees (Flight of the Conchords and Thor: Ragnarok) to know we’re in for a good time. Waititi, Clement, and Jonathan Brugh star as a trio of vampiric flatmates in New Zealand, the subject of a documentary in the months leading up to their annual Unholy Masquerade ball, during which time they make human friends and consider adding one more to their nocturnal number. The bulk of the film’s humor comes from the vampires’ rapid-fire delivery and gift with one-liners (describing a bloodstained couch as “Well, it’s red now”) and the distinctly unique blend of supernatural horror with the utterly banal, like seeing a vampire do the dishes or learn how to use Skype. There’s a divine subplot involving Rhys Darby as the leader of a gang of well-mannered werewolves (“We’re werewolves, not swear-wolves”) and the delightful presence of a fourth roommate, an 8,000-year-old dead ringer for Nosferatu’s Count Orlok. The film’s comedic timing is impeccable, perfecting the art of the mockumentary with the awkward way its characters continually break the fourth-wall with a self-aware smile, but there are also those moments that engross you so much that you forget about the mockumentary conceit – until a character hilariously mentions the fact that there are cameras in the room. At a tight eighty-five minutes, What We Do ends up doing the opposite of overstaying their welcome; I’d have been happy with much, much more of this irreverent and singularly inimitable vision of the vampire myth wedded to the quotidian.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 17

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Seventeen: Men Are Still Good

Welcome to the seventeenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we bore witness to the death of Superman. Today, we fall so that we learn to pick ourselves up.

[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 2:43:20 to 2:54:40.]

At the end of the road, we can probably agree – whether you liked the film or not – that Zack Snyder is a pretty bold filmmaker. Batman v Superman is unconventional in a number of ways, difficult and obscure in places, but it’s his film. Hatchet-job theatrical version aside, there’s little question that this was the film he wanted to make; like its first protagonist (and the accidental hero of Watchmen, Rorschach), Snyder has not compromised, has not made easy and safe choices. There were many roads to Justice League, and I can’t say that very many filmmakers would have taken this one.

Does anyone else get a Godfather, Part II vibe from this shot?

Batman: The Animated Series - "Off Balance"

“My name is Talia, and I too have business with the Society of Shadows.”

Batman is on the hunt for the Society of Shadows, a secret organization whose operations have brought them to Gotham in search of an ultrasonic drill made by Wayne Enterprises. After the drill is stolen by the Society’s leader, Vertigo (Michael York), Batman finds himself in an uneasy partnership with the mysterious Talia (Helen Slater), who wants to stop Vertigo on her father’s behalf.

There’s so much about this episode I ought to discuss in this review: the recent passing of its scripter Len Wein, the one-and-done appearance of Michael York as (Count) Vertigo, the link to Batman Begins through a weaponized sonic Wayne Enterprises product. The fact of the matter is, though, that all these elements are overshadowed in “Off Balance” by the introduction of Ra’s al Ghul and his daughter Talia into Batman’s animated universe – and indeed into the realm of all Batman adaptations, for this is the first screen appearance of the now ubiquitous Ra’s al Ghul, who’s appeared in the aforementioned Batman Begins, in the Arkham City video game, and on television in Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and Gotham (to say nothing of subsequent cartoons). There’s so much I want to say about Ra’s and his importance in the Bat-canon, but I’ll hold off another ten weeks; suffice it to say, though, that “Off Balance” may as well be “The Demon’s Quest, Part 0,” proving once more the show’s great strength in seeding its own continuity for a significant whopper of a payoff.

As for what’s actually in this episode rather than just in its last-minute coda, “Off Balance” is something of a mixed bag, dwarfed by its status as an ostensible prequel to the Ra’s al Ghul two-parter to come. It’s a competent episode, ably told and certainly better than Wein’s last episode, “Moon of the Wolf,” but it’s not as distinguished an episode as one might expect. It’s an episode of solid stock that doesn’t misstep (but does defeat itself with its own bang-up ending) and leans into superhero clichés with such gusto that one doesn’t even notice the villain is monologuing until he’s done.

I’m wondering how much this episode factored into Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy – I’m inclined to guess “not at all,” but the correlations are intriguing. We have a sonic drill built by Wayne Enterprises, which becomes the focal point for the terrorist villain’s infiltration of Gotham. Of course, this is precisely the plot of Batman Begins, with Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Shadows subbing in for Vertigo’s Society of Shadows (both, strikingly, are “shadow” updates from the comic’s League of Assassins), and with Ra’s popping up at episode’s end, there’s a mental alarm bell that shouts, “Holy coincidence, Batman!”

While the premise of the episode is engaging and the storytelling effective, the animation is a little disappointing. Vertigo’s monocle creates the illusion of... well, vertigo, and initially this is animated in dizzying fashion as Bullock stumbles around a dock he believes is roiling and bending. When Batman and Talia are faced with Vertigo’s effect, however, it’s amid a solid yellow background with spiraling rings vibrating on the screen, accompanied by Vertigo’s disembodied head. The animators would have done well to reprise the Bullock gag or at least devise an equally inventive way to show the ways Vertigo distorts reality to disorient his victims. Batman’s method of escape from this death trap, though, is as ever audacious Bat-genius.

There’s a lot of good stuff in here that isn’t treated thickly. The episode features a number of subtle allusions to Hitchcock – mostly in echoing Hitchcockian shots of people falling off things – and one could imagine an episode that devotes itself wholly to that premise (featuring, perhaps, the underrated Film Freak?). There’s also a thing I don’t quite know how to interpret, so I’ll come right out and say it – visually speaking, Vertigo is essentially a Nazi sans swastika, and Michael York’s impeccable German accent isn’t helping things either. It’s purely on the level of subtext, I’m sure, designed perhaps to give Vertigo that subliminally off-putting “vaguely European villain” shorthand. Had he appeared again in the DCAU, one wonders what the storytellers would have made of him; as it stands, though, he’s a curious artifact.

All told, I’m of two minds about “Off Balance.” There are several truly great moments in the episode, but it’s by and large fairly boilerplate, a middle-of-the-road episode from a show that can do so much better (see, for example, next week’s episode, easily a Top Five) but has also done quite a bit worse. If only for its historical significance and the ever-classy presence of Michael “Basil Exposition” York, I’m inclined to say that “Off Balance” is worth the rewatch.

Original Air Date: November 23, 1992

Writer: Len Wein

Director: Kevin Altieri

Villains: Vertigo (Michael York) and Talia al Ghul (Helen Slater)

Next episode: “The Man Who Killed Batman,” in which crime has no punchline.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

A staggering seventeen films into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, audiences are still prompted to ask, “Is this the best Marvel movie yet?” It’s a question that reminds me that I haven’t updated my Marvel ranking since doing a Top 10 since 2014, but it’s amazing that we’re still given occasion to ask that question, that we haven’t tired of the Marvel method just yet because the films keep finding new angles on these classic characters. Thor: Ragnarok continues the Marvel tradition of pushing its characters out of their comfort zones, both narratively and tonally, with a film that exudes so much style and fun without losing sight of emotional substance.

After recovering a dangerous artifact during his quest for the Infinity Stones, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns home to Asgard to find that his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) has been supplanted by Loki (Tom Hiddleston). In claiming the throne for himself, however, Loki has upset the delicate balance of the Nine Realms, exposing Asgard to threats like Hela, goddess of death (Cate Blanchett). Cleaning up his brother’s mistakes will take Thor to the gladiatorial arena of The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) in combat with an old friend, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

I’m not going to make proclamations about whether or not this is the best Marvel movie or even whether it’s the best Thor movie (I’m still quite attached to the stodgy Shakespearian Thor from Kenneth Branagh), because the premise of the question overlooks the bounty of riches we have gotten from Marvel over the last decade. After all, I’m old enough to remember when a single Batman movie was a treat years in the making; in 2017 alone we’ve seen four Marvel movies, three DC movies, scads of animated direct-to-videos, and more superhero television than a human can watch. What I will say, however, is that Thor: Ragnarok is more crowd-pleasingly fun than I can recall having at a Thor movie, but strikingly it’s funny in a way that isn’t overpowering; unlike in Guardians, Vol. 2, where I felt worn down by the deflating humor, Ragnarok knows which moments to punctuate with a gag and which to let linger (a somber sequence on a cliffside, for one). It is the funniest of the Thor films, with Chris Hemsworth displaying a potent comedic sensibility; the film is virtually stolen by Goldblum’s hedonistic Grandmaster, all finger lilts and self-congratulation, though even Anthony Hopkins gets in a good laugh as Loki-Odin (his reaction to Thor’s arrival, subtle and perfect, might be a new favorite Odin moment).

While the Thor movies have always felt a little bit perfunctory, neither advancing the overarching narrative nor developing an arc for Thor beyond being an action hero, Thor: Ragnarok does attempt to tie the previous two films together into an impromptu arc for the god of thunder, collecting little bits from the previous Thor and Avengers films and uniting them into a story about warring brothers, imposing fathers, and those who cannot help but lead. It’s a real treat to hear composer Mark Mothersbaugh take the same approach to the film’s score, weaving in bits from Patrick Doyle and Brian Tyler before him (as well as a conspicuous harpsichord, to match a small cameo). Ragnarok does, then, finally tie Thor into the larger Marvel world and his own narrative arc, which both provides a satisfying rush to those of us who’ve been here from the beginning and lends a sense of cosmic importance to the film’s proceedings.

There’s much in Thor: Ragnarok I would have liked to see more, which is usually the mark of a good film, that it leaves you wanting more. Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, a kind of mirror-universe Lady Sif, is a fine answer to Thor, a hard-drinking survivalist who’d fit just as well on the deck of the Millennium Falcon. Hela and Skurge (Karl Urban) are compelling villains, particularly in light of Marvel’s notorious difficulty at crafting distinctive antagonists (though that does seem to be changing of late); the film does an astonishingly deft job at quickly characterizing them. I predict Korg (voiced by Taika Waititi) will become a Groot-level fan favorite, and the great thing about a shared universe like this is that we’ll surely see him crop up again soon. Then there’s the small cameos that could easily flesh out a film all their own, to say nothing of the surprising buddy chemistry between Thor and Hulk, which seems surprisingly obvious in hindsight; one wishes, though, that Bruce Banner had gotten as much screen time, because Ruffalo is really quite adept at Banner’s quick subvocal quips and perpetual disorientation.

Thor: Ragnarok might be the best Thor movie yet (and Waititi’s hints that he might be down for a Thor 4 are great news indeed), but its balance of bust-out humor and emotional weight stand as an example for Marvel going forward. Its score, too, distinctive in a way Marvel hasn’t approached since the “Awesome Mix” of Guardians of the Galaxy, reminds us how cinematically potent these adventures can be when they’re crafted carefully and thoughtfully. The film does a very good job breaking its characters down, taking them places they aren’t fully at home – Banner in space, Thor sans his hammer – to see what the characters really are. This one is worthy, and I’m quite excited to see it again.

Thor: Ragnarok is rated “PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive material.” Directed by Taika Waititi. Written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher L. Yost. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo, and Anthony Hopkins.

10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 16

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Sixteen: This Is My World

Welcome to the sixteenth installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we saw the second battle for Metropolis begin. Today, you’ll believe that a man can die.

[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 2:33:50 to 2:43:20.]

"Kneel before Zod."

As a comics collector of several decades now, it’s a little unusual to think that among my first comics were chapters of “The Death of Superman,” in which the Man of Steel met his end at the fists of Doomsday. Even at a young age, I knew he’d be back, of course, but it’s a bit striking that my introduction to Superman was as a man who could die, who could never be replaced, and who could return when the world needed him most. All of this is to say that I remember sitting in the movie theater the day I watched Superman die, and the only thing I could think was, “How did I not see this coming?!”

Batman: The Animated Series - "I Am the Night"

“A weary body can be dealt with, but a weary spirit... that’s something else. Sometimes, old friend, I wonder if I’m really doing any good out there.”

On the heels of The Penguin’s latest mistrial, Batman faces a dark night of the soul as he wonders whether his nightly quest for justice has actually accomplished anything. He takes his yearly pilgrimage to Crime Alley to lay flowers where his parents died, but an altercation forces him to miss a stakeout, where Commissioner Gordon is shot. Heartbroken, Batman grapples with his insecurities, bubbling to the surface, while Gordon’s shooter still roams the streets.

“I Am the Night” stands as one of those forgotten episodes for me, which surprised me on this rewatch because there’s a great deal of interconnectivity at work, tying this episode into the center of many of the distinguishing plot threads in Batman: The Animated Series. While this show never ran a season-long story arc, opting instead for the occasional two-parter amid a sea of one-and-dones that all took place in the same universe, “I Am the Night” picks up more than a few recognizable stories and develops them in powerful ways.

Chief among these is the reprise from “Appointment in Crime Alley,” in which we were first introduced to Batman’s annual tribute to his fallen parents. I had previously written that this moment exposes “the humanity and the tragedy of Batman laid bare in a moment of remembrance,” and the effect of the repetition in this episode is all the more astounding for how it expands the earlier “appointment” into a moment of doubt. This being the second time we’ve seen the “appointment,” we can now appreciate that sense of fatigue Batman must feel; we too have done this before, and we can wonder whether Batman has been the change he wanted to see in Gotham. To have this moment of recrimination in Crime Alley is downright chilling.

And speaking of chilling, this episode layers in the detail that Jim Gordon is precisely the same age that Thomas Wayne would have been had he not died in Crime Alley. We haven’t seen terribly much of Batman’s relationship with Gordon – a warm moment of reassurance here and there, the strictly-business meetings in Gordon’s office (usually abbreviated by Batman’s early exit) – but this notion that Gordon is a surrogate father to Batman might be one of the most moving things in the entire series. We touch base also with Gordon’s actual child, Barbara (late of “Heart of Steel”), who’s still about ten episodes away from her debut as Batgirl; unfortunately, she’s not given as much to do as in her first episode, but her bravery in staring down The Jazzman is certainly commendable.

This episode is ably carried by Kevin Conroy, who – and I’ll say something controversial here – doesn’t get enough accolades for his role as Batman. What I mean is that Conroy’s brilliance as a voiceover actor is so frequently taken for granted that we really ought to stop and listen every now and again to appreciate fully what he’s doing. Conroy introduces Batman’s emotional dilemma, walks him through his doubts and reassurances, and lands Batman in a place of moral confidence in a breezy twenty minutes, and not one step of it feels rushed or unbelievable. It’s a credit to Conroy’s vocal dexterity that a two-dimensional cartoon carries an emotional range that many physical actors fail to possess.

There’s a running subplot in this episode that sees Batman change the life of a wayward youth, but for me that plotline didn’t land in the way the main plot with Gordon affected me. It serves its purpose well, providing that last-minute boost of affirmation that Batman needs, but it reminds one of the way that this show has struggled to utilize children (cf. “I’ve Got Batman in My Basement”). It might seem that children fare better on BtAS when they’re tragic reminders of the fragility of young innocence, as in “Robin’s Reckoning,” and that interpretation might be a particularly grim and unforgiving assessment of a show which is, at the end of the day, a children’s cartoon, but this episode reminds us that the mantle of the bat is built on tragedy. “Beware the Gray Ghost” served as a much more potent measure of the place of childhood in the Batman mythos, and it moved me to tears, where this episode’s Wizard (voiced distractingly by Seth Green, of all people) merely irritated me.

I had usually remembered “I Am the Night” (or should I say misremembered?) as that episode where Batman does not say “I am vengeance, I am the night,” et cetera. (That’s “Nothing to Fear,” for those keeping score.) But on this latest rewatch it’s a companion piece to the masterful “Appointment in Crime Alley” in its evaluation of Batman’s core anguish, a perennial reminder that he is after all only human – but that he nevertheless has built himself into something so much greater. He may be the night, but he’s also the knight, that guardian against Gotham’s worst impulse and the beacon toward our best selves. While it’s not explicit in “Shadow of the Bat,” I do wonder how much of Barbara’s decision to don her own set of bat-ears stems from seeing Batman save her father’s life time and again, from wanting to be as good as he convinces her that mankind can be. Batman has certainly played that role in my life, and it’s powerful stuff to see him at his most human in what might be one of the most meaningful episodes of the series.

Original Air Date: November 9, 1992

Writer: Michael Reaves

Director: Boyd Kirkland

Villain: Jimmy “The Jazzman” Peake (Brian George)

Next episode: “Off Balance,” in which Batman comes down with a case of vertigo.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇