Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Release Date - 1993
Country of Origin - United States
Directed by Eric Rodmski and Bruce Timm
Starring - Kevin Conroy, Dana Delany, Mark Hamill, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Hart Bochner, and Stacy Keach

Ask many of us comic book fans and we’ll openly tell you that Batman: The Animated Series is the greatest animated comic book show ever, and to some, even the greatest animated show ever. When looking at the show it’s easy to see why. The show treated its audience with respect and like adults, it keeping everything simple for the young viewers but never to where it was dumb. BTAS was always a show with a brain. Throw in great animation, fantastic stories and depictions of the worlds’ characters, and the first Batman show to handle the material in the dark, brooding, and serious manner of the comics of the 1980s and Tim Burton films. The show single handedly created the DCU animated TV show verse (at the time) and kept it going with spawn of shows like Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Static Shock, and my personal favorite Batman Beyond.

Warner Bros. were rather pleased with the success of their new show by the time 1993 came around. The program was still in its first season, but the stench of success emanated strongly from it. So the decision was made to let the creators of the show make a feature film. Originally intended for a direct to video release, Batman: Mask of Phantasm soon found itself in the theaters when Warner Bros. decided the show was successful enough to warrant such a release. Since the movie’s release many fans of Batman have cited it as being not only the best animated Batman movie, but one of if not THE best Batman movies of all time. Not to mention it has also been considered to be one of the greatest superhero films of all time. It has a very large pedigree that both fans and critics have praised.

Of course now I’ll ask the clichéd question all of us reviewers do for any film with positive or negative praise: does it live up to the hype? Well obviously I’m going to tell you if it does or not. So let’s just cut the small talk and get to work.

On any old night in Gotham City a criminal known as Chuckie Sol is killed by a masked vigilante with a ghostly presence, Chuckie meeting this ghost after escaping a confrontation with Batman. Soon more mobsters end up dead, the mysterious man responsible for all of their deaths, he making it seem like Batman is behind them.

While Bruce tries to figure out the mystery of these killings an old flame named Andrea returns to Gotham, the two soon reconnecting. Not only has she returned though, but so has one of Gotham’s worst: The Joker who is starting to feel scared that he could be next. Bruce soon begins to fear that Andrea as well could become a target of this dark killer.

With the police and a councilman hunting him down, a killer on the loose, an old love stirring up old emotions, and a remerging of the Joker, it’s up to Bruce to clear his name, put a stop to all of the madness, and try and figure out what to do with himself. Will he unravel the mystery behind the ghostly murderer? Can he figure out how he truly wants to live his life? Only Bruce can answer these questions, and one way or another he WILL get answers.

The show is respected by many for how its material is handled as well as for how good the productions are. When the product made the jump to the big screen (though originally the small screen, but more high end) the same respect for the material, audience, and nice production carried over, thus still keeping the praise of the show, but elevating it to a new level. With that pointless speech out of the way let us now dissect our latest subject.

Beginning with the story we’ll find that it is stronger than the stories in the show. That isn’t a knock against the show though, as its stories are always strong. Simply put, the movie’s is stronger, helped by the fact that it has a longer length. But that shouldn’t dictate if it’s good. Regardless of length the movie’s plot is great. It does a great job of being based off of a show in that it brings in characters from the show and develops them more and thus progresses their stories. True this is mostly for Bruce, Alfred, and surprisingly Joker, but it doesn’t just throw them into the movie and leave them as they were in the show, the film actually adds to their stories (more on this in the character discussion). The main driving point of the story is the mystery surrounding Phantasm, and the mystery is pretty good. As the film rolls on you slowly are given a few clues, not a whole lot though as they are sparse. This means that the flick does a pretty good job at keeping the secret, well, secret…until the end though. Right before Phantasm is unmasked the secret is blatantly given away, and it’s a fault for me. A mystery should never spoil its twist before it needs to be done, and the movie breaks that rule in such an obvious manner. It doesn’t ruin the plot, but it’s a shame that the writers couldn’t wait just about a minute later to fully reveal the man behind the mask. The mystery isn’t the only plot though, as there’s the romance between Bruce and Andrea, it mostly being told in flashbacks. The romance is done rather nicely throughout the flashbacks and once they reunite, they showing a side of Bruce the audience is never really privy to (meaning we actually see him happy for a change), though things do eventually sour. Overall it’s a very good plot point that is part of an already great story. True that the early reveal of Phantasm’s identity ruins the mystery aspect some, but the rest of the story is grade A stuff.

Moving along to characters and we have really, really nice ones. Beginning with those carried over from the show, they are, as I stated, handled as well as they are in the show, and grow more. The major one being Bruce (duh). It’s here in the film that we see the beginning of his war on crime, the push that made him finally decide to fight it full hog, and the first time he ever suits up which is one of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever seen in a film animated or not. The main theme of Bruce’s character here is choice and living with them, and those themes are represented well. This is pushed home even more with Alfred who helps Bruce come to terms with his choice to take up fighting crime, we learning some of his (Alfred)’ fears about Bruce’s job. The most surprising of everything though comes with the Joker who we see get a bit of an origin for. That’s right, we learn about Joker’s past, and the less said the better. Finally we’ll discuss Andrea’s character. Again we are given a nicely done character. Andrea is a fun partner for Bruce, she being very smart alecy and humorous compared to the seriousness of Bruce, she bringing out the brighter side of him. The voice acting is superb here and is up to the DCAU standards. All of the actors do a great job as they do in the show and to this day are many a fans favorite versions of the characters (Mark Hamill will forever be my favorite Joker). Once again this is another department of the film worthy of the praise it receives, the characters and their respective voice actors are AMAZING.


Finally we come to the more technical side of the film. Instead of cinematography we’ll have to focus on the animation, which is no problem to review and definitely not look at. The animation here is great. It’s pretty much the same animation you see in the show, which to some may be a bad thing since everything does look like a typical episode and doesn’t bring a cinematic feel to it. I personally don’t mind, but I’m sure somebody out there does. Everything has a warm and timeless quality to it and while it can look dated and a little smudgy on today’s TV’s it never looks outright terrible. It’s rather hilarious that this 22 year old film looks cleaner than some of the more recent DC animated movies that come off as jagged and almost pixilated at times. The music is simply perfect and I do mean that from the bottom of my heart. Everything has a very choir and operatic sound to it which makes the film have an epic and at times somber feel to it. A rather short evaluation of the technical side of the movie, but there isn’t a whole to discuss with this one. To put it simply the technical aspects are just damn right fantastic with great animation and perfect music.

I think it’s rather clear if Mask of the Phantasm lives up to the hype. The answer being a triumphant hell yes. This mother is definitely one of the best films as far as Batman, superheroes, and animation goes. It has a great story that while featuring one let down makes up for it with lots of other goodness, nicely executed characters, amazing acting, great animation, and perfect music. It’s simply a melting pot of greatness. But is it the best out of the categories I listed? I’d personally say no on superhero and animated and a strong maybe for Batman. From a critical standpoint I can’t really say to be perfectly honest.

Regardless of that Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a damn good film and is very, very, very close to hitting the perfect mark. It’s definitely one of the best films to ever be created and is quite possibly the best movie based off of a television show. If you have a chance I urge you to watch the movie.

A+