DC Animated Superhero Movie Retrospective Series - Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003)

Written In January 2014

This movie got a PG rating in the US, I think even then it’s a bit of stretch. Let’s get to the plot.

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

A new heroine has arrived in Gotham whose identity is a mystery— even to Batman. During patrol, the Dynamic Duo spots her trying to stop one of Penguin’s shipments on Gotham’s interstate, using a plasma rifle to send the Penguin’s truck with its driver off the bridge. Batman and Robin saves the driver from falling to his death. Batman must figure out who Batwoman is and stop familiar enemies, the Penguin and Rupert Thorne, from selling illegal weapons to the fictional nation of Kasnia. The two employ Carlton Duquesne, a gangster, to provide protection.

Batwoman’s main focus is on illegal activity by the Penguin, Thorne, and Duquesne. Despite taking the symbol of the Bat as a sign of justice, Batwoman sullies the Bat prefix by taking out criminals with ruthless and dangerous techniques. She seems uninterested in sparing the lives of her adversaries.

Batman, with Robin, sets out to stop the Batwoman from making mistakes as she tries to take out the villains, and as he encounters numerous twists, setbacks, and apparent false leads in determining her true identity. The newest gadget on display is a wind glider used by Batwoman that utilizes some of the most advanced technology ever seen in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, also becomes involved with a new lady in his life: Kathy Duquesne, the crime boss’s daughter.

In addition to Kathy Duquesne, Bruce is introduced to two other women who, as his investigation into the Batwoman’s true identity continues, seem to fall well into suspicion: Dr. Roxanne “Rocky” Ballantine, a new employee of Wayne Tech whose technology development is used by the Batwoman against the Penguin; and Detective Bullock’s new partner Sonya Alcana, whose knowledge of the weapons being smuggled by the Penguin and Carlton Dunquesne is much greater than the detective should know. With Carlton Duquesne unable to stop Batwoman’s raids on the various facilities used to hold the various weapons, the Penguin calls Bane for additional support to ensure that there are no more losses as a result of the Batwoman.

Not long after Bane’s arrival in Gotham, it is revealed that there is not one but three Batwomen, all of whom were the women suspected by Batman; Kathy and Sonia met taking art classes at college and Sonia and Rocky were roommates. They had taken turns to remove suspicion on any one of the three, while using Roxanne’s technological genius and contempt for the Penguin (who had framed her long-time fiance Kevin), Kathy’s money and access to several key aspects of her father’s organization (Kathy wants to end her father’s criminal career as it led to her mother being killed), and Sonia’s physical and police skills to ensure that Thorne’s operation is thwarted (as the crime lord previously left her family in financial ruins after arsonists who worked for him burned down her parents’ shop and were not punished due to the lack of sufficient evidence). Alcana was also saved by Batman nine years prior, the event giving the detective the original inspiration for the costumed identity she now shares with her friends.

In the final confrontation, a ship taking the weapons into international waters for the exchange is destroyed by a bomb planted by Kathy. She and Batman narrowly escape the explosion despite the efforts of Bane, who falls into the Gotham River and vanishes. At the conclusion, the GCPD are left to assume that Sonia is the only Batwoman after she helps rescue Batman from the ship. Sonia resigns from the police due to the potential problems her presence could cause and decides to leave the city. Batman gives Sonia evidence he discovered which helps clear Rocky’s fiance. Carlton agrees to testify against Thorne and the Penguin after saving Kathy’s life during the ship’s destruction. After she reconciles with her father, Kathy drives off with Bruce.

Question: Has anyone ever fantasized about Kelly Ripa having a role in a Batman movie? What about Kyra Sedgwick? Well if you have, you got your wish.

Actually, Kelly feels like one of the most random things ever, but I could totally see Kyra as Commissioner Barbara if they ever do a live action version of Batman Beyond! That’d be great!

Uh… Okay, I’m gonna be honest with you guys now, I didn’t hate this movie, and I even feel sort of bad for disliking it at all, it’s just so… Meh. It feels like it was a really great story if it was a written by a high school english student, but it just feels so underwhelming as something done by a guy who writes for animation for a living.

I feel like if this movie either slimmed down it’s story it would’ve been fine, or if it lengthened it’s runtime to explore the three Batwomen more, possibly even made it darker. There’s a subplot in the movie where one of the ladies’s father is a neglectful parent because they’re so busy managing a criminal business so they rebel against him. There’s a scene where he finds out about this and is about to hit her, but he hesitates showing that he does really care about his daughter, he just doesn’t know how to show it. Maybe you could’ve darkened it by having her actually hit her? Fuck it, later in the movie the same girl sets up an explosive to device to blow up the cruise ship, and she sassily tells Batman that the code to disarm escapes her. He just growls at her and they move on. C'mon Bats, I know you’re a gentleman who doesn’t hit women but threaten her at least! Try to force the code out of her somehow! I get the feeling that this team is trying to tell a feminist story. If you want to be explicitly feminst, if you want to explicitly tell a story about women dealing with issues that are intrinsically linked to women’s rights issues, tell us that story!

Feminism is not about the treatment of women as superior or delicate or something, it’s about equality. And if you want to show equality, show female characters being punched just as hard as male ones. Show female characters being just as violent as male ones. Show female characters the same way you would show male characters. Show female characters being punished as severely as male characters do. To quote Batman himself in a later series

At one point in this movie one of the Batwomen (Sonya Alcana), who was working at the Gotham Police Department as a detective and a partner to fellow detective Harvey Bullock, is fired for being a vigilante. She remarks to Batman, while she's cleaning out her desk, that the commish may endorse a vigilante, but he draws the line at employing one. Why’re we being told this by her telling Batman about it? Why don’t we see Gordon giving her hell for it? Or him telling her “Look, you’re a good detective, and I get why you did what you did. But you know as well as I do, that I can’t keep a vigilante on the force. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to hand me your badge detective.” Or hell, Bullock is notorious for his disapproval of vigilantes, even going as far as to lead a manhunt against Batman back in Mask of the Phantasm, when everyone thought the guy had gone rogue and was killing people, why not show him talking to her as she’s cleaning out her desk, all the while just trying to piece together how the hell his partner could be a vigilante to?

But no, we have to have Batman find out for us instead of being told in an organic way. This whole Batwoman character feels written to be a discount Catwoman. Let’s just be thankful that in 2006 Greg Rucka decided to dust off this early Bob Kane character and give us a pretty interesting character. Enough ranting, let’s get to the Pros and Cons;

PROS:

• Bane and Penguin are well voiced and well used, and I would’ve liked to see more of them.
• Kevin Conroy is still Batman.
• Tim Drake is Robin this time, I like Tim. Not quite as much as Dick, but still.
• The film has two important relationships in the film and are both interracial. A white man with a black woman and a white woman with an Asian(?) man.
• The film draws no attention to having a Latina as one of the main characters.
• The film draws limited attention to having an African-American woman as one of the main characters.
• The action is entertaining.
• The Batwoman idea, while I think is sloppily handled, is a pretty interesting one.
• While her appearance in the film is random, Kelly Ripa does a pretty good job as her character Rocky Ballantine.
• The presence of actual mobsters in film is good.

CONS:

• None of the characters are developed at all.
• The romance between Bruce and Kathy Duquesne is very tacked on.
• This movie has the opposite problem as Sub-Zero.
• Kyra Sedgwick is wasted.
• At one point Rocky brings up that part of the reason Batman is after them, is because they called themselves Batwoman, thus using his brand and associating their actions with his. This is a good point! You know your actions are gonna garner his attention, why are you attracting more of his attention!
• Barbara has a nice cameo, where she tries to flirt with Bruce. She’s at least 18, and Bruce is at least 40, that’s fucking creepy!

When I reviewed Sub-Zero, I noted that there was a surprisingly small amount of Batman for a movie with his name in the title. This movie has the opposite problem. Now let me explain that with something else. In a lot of Punisher stories in the comics, the writer will often have Frank all but absent for multiple issues, just building up how much of a dickbag his target is and how much they deserve to be killed. And then in the final issue of the story, Frank shows up. Bullets fly. People die. This story needed to leave Batman far away in the background, just seeing this Batwoman character show up and slowly try to piece together who she is, while the woman herself is already known to the audience. The story should’ve been about the conflict between the Batwomen and the mob with Batman trying to solve the mystery as a subplot, and then he confronts all of the women at their lair and tells them all “I know who you are, I know what you want, but you’re going about it wrong. Back off or else… And quit using my symbol as your own!”

But, of the film’s own merit, I’ll say there’s more right with it than wrong with it, it’s just that it’s not a very good movie at the end of the day. I’ll be giving it a 5.5 out of 10.

DC Animated Superhero Movie Retrospective Series - Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

Many years back after Nightwing (Dick Grayson) moved to a new city to fight crime on his own, the Joker and Harley Quinn kidnapped Tim Drake, Dick’s successor as Robin, and disfigured him to look like the Joker, and tortured him to the point of insanity over a period of three weeks. In the process, Tim revealed Batman's secret identity—and the secret of what drives him to be Batman. When Batman and the Joker fought their final battle, the Joker got the upper hand and subdued him. The Joker then tried to persuade Tim to kill Batman. Instead, the boy, due to a trace of his former self still active, turned on the Joker and killed him, and suffered a mental breakdown in the process. Batman and Barbara buried the Joker’s body deep beneath Arkham Asylum, while Harley fell into a pit after she was fighting Batgirl and was presumed dead as her body was never found. The only other person who knew about what happened that night was Barbara’s father, Commissioner James Gordon, who promised to keep that night a secret. One year after the incident, Tim was rehabilitated, but Bruce forbade him from being Robin again, blaming himself for what happened and vowing to never again endanger another young partner. The event puts a strain on the relationship between Bruce and Barbara, leading the latter to retire as Batgirl to join Gotham City Police Department and in time follow her father’s footsteps as police commissioner. Tim eventually settled down with a wife and family, and a career as a communications engineer.

In Neo-Gotham City, the Joker resurfaces after having disappeared 40 years earlier. He has taken over a faction of the Jokerz, and on his orders, they steal high-tech communications equipment. One heist happens to coincide with Bruce Wayne’s formal announcement of his return to active leadership of Wayne Enterprises, as the Joker reveals himself to the world. Despite Terry McGinnis’ intervention, the Joker escapes. Bruce insists that the Joker must be an impostor, as he claims to have witnessed the real Joker’s death decades before, yet all evidence suggests otherwise. Bruce, unwilling to let Terry face the Joker, impostor or not, demands that he return the Batsuit, to which Terry reluctantly complies.

Later, Terry and his girlfriend Dana are attacked by the Jokerz at a nightclub. At the same time, the Joker ambushes and attacks Bruce in theBatcave, leaving him for dead. Terry defeats the Jokerz, and Dana is taken to the hospital for her injuries. Terry rushes to Wayne Manor, and finds Bruce near-dead from Joker venom. Terry quickly administers an antidote, and tends to Bruce with the help of Barbara Gordon.

After Terry insists on being let in on what really happened to the Joker, Barbara reluctantly tells him what happened. Terry decides to question Tim, who denies any involvement and bitterly says he had grown sick of his past life as Robin. Terry then suspects Jordan Pryce, who would have taken control of the company were it not for Bruce’s return. Jordan Pryce, thinking he will become CEO, plans to hold a private party on his yacht with his girlfriend Amy. However he finds Dee-Dee in her place, Amy having been tied to a pole and gagged at the port. Terry finds the Jokerz on Pryce’s yacht, who reveal that Pryce had hired them and given them access codes. However, the Joker has sent them to kill Pryce, as he is no longer needed. Terry rescues Pryce before a satellite laser destroys the boat, and then turns him in to the police with a recording of Pryce’s conversation with the Jokerz.

Back in the Batcave, Terry deduces that Tim must be working with the Joker when he discovers that the high-tech equipment the Jokerz have been stealing can be combined to form a machine that takes control of any satellite, even an orbiting military satellite with an automated defense system and fire it at will, thus explaining what happened on the yacht—and it can only be built by an engineer of Tim’s caliber. Bruce is skeptical about this claim, but nonetheless sends Terry to question Tim again. Terry tries to confront Tim, but is lured into a trap by the Joker, who confirms that he and Tim are indeed working together. Escaping in the Batmobile, he is then chased through Gotham by the laser-armed satellite.

Terry tracks the Joker to the abandoned Jolly Jack candy factory. After fighting off the Jokerz, he finds Tim, who transforms into the Joker before his eyes. The Joker explains that when he kidnapped Tim and during the three weeks of his torture, he secretly implanted a microchip (revealed later to have been stolen from Project Cadmus) into the boy’s brain that carries the Joker’s consciousness and genetic material, allowing him to physically and mentally transform Tim into a clone of himself at will, eventually becoming strong enough to permanently control his body. The Joker prepares to fire the satellite again to kill Dana, Terry’s family and Bruce, but before he can fire the laser, Terry sets Bruce’s dog, Ace, on him. Terry knocks the Joker's joy buzzer into the controls, destroying the beam’s guidance system, causing it to head to the factory.

The Joker attempts to escape, but Terry seals the factory. A fight ensues between the two, but the Joker is easily able to overcome Terry since he knows all of the original Batman’s moves and tricks. Terry then decides to improvise by using his expertise in dirty street fighting moves and mocking his obsession with Batman and his inability to make him laugh. An agitated Joker throws bombs at Terry, sending him crashing to the floor. The Joker then pins him to the ground and begins to strangle him. Terry, having covertly retrieved the Joker’s joy buzzer, delivers a shock to the Joker’s neck, destroying the chip, reverting Tim to his old self, and destroying the Joker forever. Terry escapes with Tim and Ace before the satellite destroys the factory and the satellite jamming device. The satellite gets deactivated and floats into outer space.

In the city jail, two of the female Jokerz, Deidre and Delia Dennis, are bailed out by their grandmother, an elderly Harley Quinn, who laments what disappointments they are. Meanwhile, Terry and Barbara meet Tim in the hospital. Bruce arrives just as Terry leaves, telling him that it is not being Batman that makes him a worthwhile person, but the other way around. Bruce then joins Barbara and Tim in the hospital room. The film ends with Terry donning the Batsuit and flying off into the heart of the city.

You know how my last review I got up on my soapbox about a controversial fandom issue? Well today I’m going to step back up to it to talk about a real life issue; censorship. This film prior it’s December release back was HEAVILY edited and recut, this was done so because of the Columbine High School shooting in April of 1999. In my humble opinion, these cuts and edits are fucking ridiculous. The film was meant to be rated PG-13, that means it was meant for kids who are old enough to understand the difference between reality and fiction and can understand that the kind of thing that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are wrong and sinister. This movie does feature teenagers/young adults doing depraved things as part of a gang that worships and names itself after a homicidal maniac, but they are quickly shown to only be doing there acts for thrills and cash. When exposed to the Joker’s ways of committing cold blooded murder and laughing his ass off about it, they all react in fear, and from then on are more following along out said fear. The film shows a boy the target audience’s age being horribly tortured and then to preserve the life of his true father figure kills his torturer. The film is clear to show that these actions are not okay, and alludes to an adult Tim Drake having many sleepless nights about his actions here. It also makes it clear, that the main character of Terry McGinnis was a gangbanger who busted shops and hurt people, who does what he does now out of a hope to redeem himself in his own eyes. The point of censorship is to show to prevent kids from getting the wrong idea about the world, to prevent them from knowing that crime doesn’t pay, but it does is decrease the impact of that message. So I beg of you, when purchasing this film on DVD (or Blu-Ray, I don’t if it’s available on that format) please buy the version that is it rated PG-13 by the MPAA, do not purchase the version labeled either “unrated” or just PG. By buying either of the other two versions, you are encouraging executives that it’s alright to undermine the message of the artists behind films. Of the MPAA, all I can say is this;

Now let’s get to the pros and cons of the actual PG-13 cut.

PROS:

• Mark Hamill kills it again as the one and only clown prince of crime! It’s a bit different than his usual take on the clown, but that actually serves the material.
• The Joker is probably his most manic and sadistic during the course of the DC Animated Universe.
• The scene where the Joker kills Bonk is a great example of the Joker’s dark comedy and also parallels with a lot of real life folks who associate themselves with symbols of hate and violence out rebellion without actually thinking of what they’re true meaning is.
• This is Will Friedle’s BEST performance as Terry McGinnis, possibly even the best performance of his career.
• Bruce’s initial refusal to let Terry fight the Joker is great for a couple of reasons. One, it makes sense because while Bruce has been more than happy to let Terry go head to head with plenty of rogues, Terry has never once been up against someone as sinister as the clown. Two, it builds the clown for people who only ever watched Batman Beyond. It doesn’t build up the Joker in general, because if you know Batman outside Beyond, you KNOW the Joker is a major threat and someone to be feared.
• How the Joker is back is actually rather brilliant and genuinely horrific.
• How Terry defeats the Joker is great, and I always enjoy seeing bad people mocked and shown to be as pathetic on the outside as they are on the inside.

CONS:

• While I think Kristopher Carter does a good job with the score, personally, I would’ve gone for a different musical cues at certain moments, and left the music out entirely for others. For example, the scene where the Joker explains what he did to Tim should’ve been left silent until he reveals that he knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne, at the moment we shoudl’ve gotten that sort of dramatic drum roll, then the music should’ve slowly risen from that point forward until Bruce crashes through the window and attacks the Joker.
• We don’t see enough of the Jokerz being afraid of the Joker, I think it would’ve been good if Terry caught one after a fight and managed to pry the info of the Joker’s location from them.
• Harley at one point is thought dead in this film but is then revealed to be the Dee Dee twins’ grandmother, personally, I think she should’ve been left dead in spite my love of her.

This film is very much the precursor to the type of movies we’re gonna get to later in this series, particularly Under The Red Hood. So what did I actually think of the movie, well how about a play by play from the doctor himself;

The first scene:

 

the Joker’s reveal:

 

the Joker’s second reveal: 

Bruce asking Terry for the suit back:

 

Barb’s flashback about Tim:

 

When Terry talks to Tim about the Joker: 

When Terry and Bruce find out that Tim IS the Joker: 

Me during Terry’s fight with the Joker:

 

At the ending when Tim is reunited with Barb and Bruce and Bruce and Tim both tell Terry he’s a good Batman:

 

So all in all, the movie entertained me, entranced me, broke me, and left me very happy, I’ll be giving Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker a 9.2 out of 10.

The DC Animated Superhero Movie Retrospective Series - Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

Written In December 2013

Plot Summary Taken From Wikipedia:

10 years before the events of the Batman: The Animated Series, Bruce Wayne meets a woman named Andrea Beaumont in a cemetery while visiting his parents’ grave. That night, Bruce foils an armored car robbery while disguised in a black ski-mask and leather jacket. He does succeed but is discouraged to find that the criminals did not fear him. Bruce starts a relationship with Andrea and decides to propose marriage to her rather than become a crime-fighting vigilante.

Unfortunately, Andrea finds out that her father, Carl, owes a large amount of money to crime lord Salvator Valestra. Carl and Andrea flee Gotham City to hide in Europe, with Andrea ending her engagement to Bruce. This rejection spurs him into training to become Batman. Seven years later, Carl is murdered by the assassin, Jack Napier, under orders from the Valestra gang.

Andrea returns to Gotham. During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, a Valestra enforcer, Sol, is killed by a mysterious cloaked figure - the Phantasm. Due to the Phantasm’s resemblance to Batman, the Dark Knight is blamed for Sol’s death. Councillor Arthur Reeves tells the media that Batman is a public menace (despite Commissioner Gordon’s protests), then attends a party at Wayne Manor.

The Phantasm finds and murders another Valestra enforcer, Bronski. Batman soon finds evidence linking Andrea’s father with Valestra. The Phantasm later targets Valestra, who turns to the Joker for help. The Phantasm arrives at Valestra’s house, and finds the gangster already dead at the Joker’s hands; the house then explodes, with the Phantasm barely escaping. Batman pursues the killer, but is interrupted by the police, who believe that Batman is responsible for the murders. Andrea rescues Batman in her car, and they spend the night together. Andrea explains to Bruce why she and her father left Gotham. Batman comes to suspect that Andrea’s father may be the Phantasm, but later gets Reeves (who has been poisoned by the Joker) to confess that he told the Valestra mob where Beaumont was hiding in return for campaign contributions, and that the mob ordered Beaumont’s death.

The Phantasm tracks the Joker to his hideout — an abandoned world’s fair amusement park — and removes its ominous costume: the Phantasm is Andrea, intent on avenging her father’s death at the hands of the Joker, who is revealed to be Jack Napier, who batman dropped into a vat of acid months earlier. Batman arrives and saves Andrea from the Joker, and begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge. She refuses, stating that the mob ruined her life by taking away her future with him; she then tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge before disappearing. Batman battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in stalemate. Moments later, Andrea returns and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the maniacally laughing clown in a cloud of smoke as the entire amusement park erupts in a series of rigged explosions. Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current.

Alfred later consoles a heartbroken Bruce, telling him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea left behind in the Batcave. Meanwhile, Andrea is shown standing alone on the deck of a departing ocean liner. In the final scene, Batman stands alone on the top of a Gotham building; when the Bat-Signal appears in the sky, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime.

There are three really great moments in this movie, that hit me right where I live:

1. The scene where Bruce goes to his parents’ grave and begs them to let him walk away from the promise he made, and he explains that he didn’t see himself ever becoming happy enough to not become Batman. Lightning roars as rain pours, you can see that he believes that his mother and father, whom he swore to avenge, are angry with him. And he’s pleading with them, “Can’t I just walk away now? Please I need it to be different now!” Did you hear that sound? It’s the sound of my heart exploding into a million pieces.
2. This scene right here:
   Andrea has left Bruce, it’s official now, he has to become the Batman. He dons the mask, and for the first time (chronologically) we see those intense white slits for eyes. Alfred reacts in shock and discomfort, proclaiming “My God!” And that moment, what he and I had the same realization. Bruce Wayne is dead.
3. And then there’s this scene
   Andrea has fled Gotham and is on a cruise, some guy stumbles out of the party and spots her. He attempts to start flirting with her, but quickly gets the idea, so he politely asks “Did you want to be alone?” Andrea replies with “I am.” Her entire identity was based in the Phantasm, now that she’s lost that and the love of her life, she’s empty inside. And ultimately, as she says, alone.

Now let’s get to the Pros and Cons:

PROS:

• This animation kicks ass, and I won’t hear from anyone who disagrees.
• Kevin Conroy is Batman and Mark  Hamill is The Joker, what more do you need?
• Stacy Keach and Abe Vigoda are in this movie, how does an animated Batman movie based on a kids show get fucking Stacy Keach and Abe Vigoda in it’s cast!?!??!
• Andrea Beaumont is a genuinely interesting character and Bruce Timm & Paul Dini were so impressed by Dana Delany as Andrea, that they cast her as Lois in Superman: TAS
• During the party at the begging of the film Arleen Sorkin (the voice of Harley Quinn) is briefly heard, this made me smile.
• The story has genuinely emotional moments that really made you feel bad for the characters.
• This. Fucking. Score! I’d argue it’s even better than Zimmer and Newton’s score for the Nolan films!

CONS:

• This is a nitpick, but when we first see the Phantasm, they’ve just killed Sol and Bronski, but when we first see Andrea she’s on the plane to Gotham. Those scenes don’t really match up.
• The crime boss in this movie’s name is Salvatore Valestra, wouldn’t just be so easy to just change his last name to Maroni?
• They hint at the Joker’s origin here, and to me, that’s never alright. I like Joker’s backstory to be a point blank mystery that no one can ever really solve.

My ultimate thoughts are… This is REALLY good, but not great. It’s missing something I think, it just feels too cold to me. I’m not sure why. But my overall ranking shall be, an 8.5 out of 10.