skip to main |
skip to sidebar
“I need it to be different now. I know I made a promise, but I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t count on being happy.”
When I reviewed Batman: Mask of the Phantasm back in 2012, I said that it was “impossible” to compare it to The Dark Knight, finding Phantasm to be “quintessential.” Four years later, in my first expansion of my Personal Canon, Mask of the Phantasm made the cut – and yet I had said it was “imperfect... the resolution doesn’t quite hold up after repeat viewings.”
Reader, I was wrong. This review could have been so many things – an edition of “Take Two Tuesdays,” a continuation of my 2017-2019 reviews of Batman: The Animated Series, or part of my heretofore undeclared attempt to review every movie on the Personal Canon. Even before rereading my original review, I wanted to revisit Mask of the Phantasm because it deserved so much more than just 250 words in that “Monday at the Movies” format – especially on the occasion of its 30th anniversary this year. Whatever I was thinking in 2012, Phantasm has never truly let me down.
The Batman (Kevin Conroy) is a wanted man, wrongly accused of the murders of some of Gotham’s most notorious mobsters. Batman is hot on the trail of the real killer, The Phantasm (Stacy Keach), when an old flame returns to town – Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), whose past relationship with Bruce Wayne is explored in heartbreaking flashbacks, even as the plot marches inexorably toward a final confrontation with The Joker (Mark Hamill).
I always forget that Phantasm is as brief as it is. In the neighborhood of 75 minutes, it’s hard to find a film that hits all the bases like this one does: suspense, romance, comedy, heartbreak. Between dynamite action sequences and deeply human character work, Mask of the Phantasm includes no fewer than three origin stories across two timelines, telling an indelible and original story about Batman. It’s a tale that has cast its own shadow over Batman in the past thirty years, with fans constantly asking, “When will the Phantasm show up?” (The Phantasm appeared in Batman Beyond comics circa 2015 and in 2020’s Batman/Catwoman; over on film, we got a name-only tease in Batman v Superman, while the Phantasm is frequently name-checked in wishlists for the inevitable sequel to The Batman.)
Yet the reason I’ve never quite sounded the call for more Phantasm stories is because this one is perfect. The comics did a semi-sequel to the film in Batman & Robin Adventures, in an issue that could only be called “Shadow of the Phantasm.” While it’s a fun romp, it’s not indispensable, and it essentially leaves the characters in the same place where the film did: separated, exiled, and presumed dead. I’m being cagey about spoilers, even though the film is thirty years old and the action figure infamously unmasked the Phantasm just in time to disappoint kids on Christmas. My spoiler-phobia is largely due to my quasi-religious devotion to stories and the art of storytelling, but it’s also because the mystery isn’t entirely the point; if you know how tragedies work, you’ll plot this one out in short order.
Because the key to Phantasm isn’t that it’s a mystery; it’s a film noir about brooding avengers and the dark shadowy antiheroes who love them. It’s a tragedy about what happens when people let their pasts define them, but it’s also about the inescapability of the past, of chickens coming home to roost when it’s least convenient. Indeed, the past looms as large as the heavy tombstone on which the WAYNE family name is inscribed, and the real pain of the film is Bruce Wayne’s inability to escape that destiny he pledged for himself. “The way I see it,” Andrea snipes in one incisive moment, “the only one in this room controlled by his parents is you.”
Phantasm is somewhat unique for a Batman origin story in that we never see the murder of the Waynes, that random act of devastating violence that set Bruce Wayne on a course of dark vengeance. Instead, the film takes their loss as a given and sets the real origin story as a choice – Bruce Wayne chooses his vow over his own selfhood, and when he dons the cape and cowl for the first time, it’s not a moment of triumph. Alfred intones, “My God!” and recoils. The music swells, but even that refrain is sobered and pained. From that moment on, Bruce Wayne is the performance, a careless playboy charade who has to hide himself away from others lest they see through his façade.
The Phantasm, too, is a performance, reciting the ominous refrain, “Your angel of death awaits,” like some grim prophecy that explains everything. Outfitted with a theatrical costume and an insistence on dramatic violence, the Phantasm is wrestling with demons that have nothing to do with framing Batman for murder. Meanwhile, the mobsters – most notably Sal Valestra, voiced by Abe Vigoda – are stuck in their roles, playing out cheap imitations of The Godfather while their past catches up to them. The casting of Vigoda is inspired, mired in the genre’s past while playing on the arrested timelessness of Vigoda’s permanent old age.
Paradoxically, only The Joker is perfectly liberated. If you didn’t know he was in the movie, his first appearance reads like something out of a nightmare; the film takes a hard pivot and bends around his manic gravity. At first, the mobsters try to recruit Joker to protect them from Batman, but the incorrigible Joker can’t help but take over the plot for his own purposes, bumping off as many gangsters as The Phantasm does. He even seems to grasp the cruel irony of the film’s finale, laughing with gleeful abandon as he, Batman, and The Phantasm stare down certain death. Indeed, throughout Joker plays the Shakespearean fool, commenting on the coincidences of the plot, calling out red herrings about Phantasm’s identity, and cracking wise with a sense of humor best suited to the gallows of Gotham.
I haven’t said anything about the voice cast because the scripting is so impressive, but suffice it to say that Kevin Conroy remains the definitive Batman, giving us no fewer than three takes on the character (costumed vigilante, fresh-faced bachelor, and jaded philanthropist). He can plumb the depths of grief or crack a wry one-liner, and he’s the voice I’ll always hear in my head for any comic book. Ditto for Mark Hamill, whose Joker is so good that you forget he was ever a farmboy from Tatooine. Hamill has a knack for uncomfortable punchlines like “That’s what I want to see, a nice big smile.” Then there’s Dana Delany, who has to be the emotional heart of the story while keeping her own feelings clenched beneath a cool exterior. She can keep pace with both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and using nothing but her voice, she convinces us that she’s Bruce’s true star-crossed lover.
Ultimately, the reason people want more Phantasm isn’t because there’s more to say. It’s because this film is so good, so perfect, that 75 minutes feels criminally brief. We want to hear Conroy and Hamill riffing on each other until the end of time. We want to chase happiness just like Bruce Wayne does, and we want to revel in the bittersweet fatefulness that finds Bruce pursuing a darker calling. Or maybe we just want to live in that glorious art deco Gotham, painted on black with red skies, with a breathtaking Shirley Walker score to make sense of it all. (I know I do.) It’s an agonizingly human story, heightened by the presence of elaborate costumes and a certain Clown Prince, and as in the best films no one wants to see it end.
I don’t know what I meant in 2012 by “doesn’t quite hold up,” because Phantasm is a movie that has held up – and it has held me up when I’ve felt down about storytelling, disappointed by my favorite genre, or just grim about life itself. It’s almost like a calculated distillation of a superhero narrative, sweeping from start to finish, from origin story to never-ending battle. It’s not a movie that necessarily makes one feel good about humanity, but it does make one feel good about being alive. What life is worth living if you don’t have Conroy and Hamill narrating it?
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is rated PG for “animated violence.” Directed by Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm. Written by Alan Burnett, Paul Dini, Martin Pasko, and Michael Reaves. Based on the DC Comics. Starring Kevin Conroy, Dana Delaney, Hart Bochner, Stacy Keach, Abe Vigoda, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., and Mark Hamill.
Welcome to Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a phrase that might not mean much of anything to the mainstream critics, who are starting to sniff at Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Truth be told, this is the 31st film in the MCU, and fatigue may be setting in, especially considering that three of the last seven Marvel flicks were duds. In actuality, Quantumania is proof positive that we’ve been spoiled over the last fifteen years – Marvel spent so much time upping its own game that it can’t keep competing at that level. Quantumania is fine, but that used to be a much lower bar.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is riding high after helping to save the universe in Avengers: Endgame. While Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) is saving the world with her humanitarian foundation, Scott’s daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) has begun her own explorations of the Quantum Realm, which will drag Scott, Hope, and her parents (Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer) into a conflict with one of the Quantum Realm’s most feared inhabitants – Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors).
As we’re entering Phase Five, firmly entrenched in what the marketing boys are calling “The Multiverse Saga,” Quantumania feels a bit like a cross between table setting and the first course. It’s got to introduce Kang, our new big bad, while following up on at least the appearance of He Who Remains in the first season of Loki. For those who didn’t see it, He Who Remains was also played by Jonathan Majors, who teed up the notion that we’d be seeing lots of versions of him, traversing the multiverse and causing all sorts of Avengers-level havoc. Meanwhile, No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness have been hinting at all the bad things that might happen when parallel universes collide (in short, multiversal incursions, the deaths of whole universes, and plots glued together by fan service).
It’s heady stuff, and if you’re not already bought into the MCU project, you’ll probably have checked out long ago. If you’re a tried-and-true Marvel Zombie, you might be bored by all this in light of recent middling fare. And if you’re only in it for Ant-Man (I have to believe there are some of you out there), this movie might not be as zany as its subtitle promises. All of which is to say that Quantumania is a weird movie, and it may not be transcendent or titanically significant, but it is good clean fun, a worthy diversion for two hours. And I liked it well enough to say that if you’ve come this far with Marvel, Quantumania isn’t worth bidding the franchise farewell.
For starters, Quantumania is a very good time. Paul Rudd is effortlessly charming as Ant-Man, having lost none of his aw-shucks charm or good-natured wonderment. When something amazing happens, he breathlessly fires off one-liners like, “Boy, a lot’s happened today,” which is more my speed compared to the scatological or postmodern humor that’s pervaded much of the superhero genre lately (looking at you, Gunn and Waititi). The key is that the joke is never on the material or on the audience, but rather on the situation or on the characters – and it helps that Rudd is a genuinely funny individual (and just a genuine mensch all around).
Ant-Man’s usual gang (including Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian, and T.I.) are nowhere to be seen, but Douglas and Pfeiffer are stellar as Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne; Douglas is bemusingly charming, while Pfeiffer never buckles under the weight of the expositional retcons her character is used to deploy. It’s only too bad that they don’t have much to do in the film’s climax, because we’ve never gotten to see the original Ant-Man and Wasp in full action. We’re also introduced to Kathryn Newton, plucky and precocious; she’s going to make a fine addition to the Young Avengers, once we get around to them, but for now she plays very well against Rudd as his “peanut.”
And then there’s Kang. In much of the critical reviews I’ve read for Quantumania, I’ve seen critics praising Jonathan Majors as the one piece of Quantumania that actually works. I’m not quite sure I’d fall over myself just yet – I thought his performance as He Who Remains did more to convince me of Kang’s fearsomeness than actually seeing The Conqueror himself, which is maybe a greater testament to Majors then it sounds. I do wish the film had shown us a little more of Kang rather than simply tell us how evil he is, but then we have a ways to go before The Kang Dynasty in May 2025. Suffice it to say, though, that Majors is right in the pocket with what the film needs him to be, and he’s in a unique and promising position as far as the future of the MCU is concerned. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more of him.
The key to Quantumania is, I think, that it’s not a terrific Marvel movie. It’s a fairly middle-of-the-road outing in a franchise with some exceptional highs and some dismal lows. It might not even be the best Ant-Man movie, which is as an incredible sentence to type as it is to read, but that fact is still better than things like Morbius or 80 For Brady, God save us. Quantumania is, however, a pretty good Star Wars film that just happens to have Ant-Man in it; it’s chock full of bizarre creatures and garish special effects, and if you surrender yourself to the bonkers frivolity and go along for the ride, Quantumania is not going to disappoint.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is rated PG-13 for “violence/action and language.” Directed by Peyton Reed. Written by Jeff Loveness. Based on the Marvel Comics. Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Bill Murray, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas.
