Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders
Rick Morales, director of TV and cinematic animated movies, made this film in 2016, a year before star Adam West (Bruce Wayne/Batman) died. Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, Catwoman, and the rest, exist in a seemingly pre-twenty-first century milieu. Batman's car, a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept vehicle, is seventy-one years old in our 2016 viewing eyes, but somehow it still looks futuristic, comic book style. Batman's power supplies run on nuclear energy. As a wealthy man, a billionaire probably, Bruce Wayne, unmarried with just one servant, a ward and the ward's aunt to support, has mega-money to spend on crime-fighting supplies. He also makes donations to charities, supporting Gotham City arts. A diva visiting from Italy is likely to be introduced to bachelor Wayne and his always present "youthful ward," read catamite, Dick Grayson.
In this animated feature, a super-villain team-up comprises the crime challenge Batman must battle, assisted by an ineffectual Gotham City police force led by still dumb Chief O'Hara. All the latter and Commissioner Gordon can do is observe that without Batman, the city would be lost, the police evidently unable to function as competent law enforcement professionals.
It's curious and somewhat funny to hear Adam West's eighty-eight year old voice coming from a Batman drawn to look at most middle-aged, about forty. Robin (Burt Ward, like West, from the original TV show) sounds young, still. First we see him practicing ballet moves while Wayne watches from a couch. Robin's antipathy towards Catwoman--apart from her criminality--stems from her attraction to Batman. Horrified, tied down, Robin watches, wide-eyed and groaning in despair, as Catwoman kisses Batman and scratches him with some vividly colored potion designed to make him docile, Catwoman's pet. The potion turns Batman into an amoral power-mad jerk equipped with a stolen device that makes clones of himself, the clones taking over Gotham City's government, entertainment sector, police department, and, no doubt, parks department.
Throughout the film, humor moves along from scene to scene successfully. A close shot of Batman and Robin climbing along the outer hull of a space station, conversing within their spacesuits, shows in the background another part of the station, where Catwoman is battling her partners, the Joker, Penguin, and the Riddler, for her life after they tire of her and decide to eject her into space. Rescued by the strong luckily placed arm of Batman, Catwoman joins forces with the caped man she'd most like to get a belly rub from.
Asshole Batman/Wayne fires his faithful servant Alfred over a minor mistake, kicks out Dick Grayson. Next we see Dick, he's back to doing ballet exercises in a small apartment. This touch indicates the humor throughout this enjoyable movie. The film has peppered throughout its length numerous references to the original TV show, including a drugged perspective moment when Batman sees three versions of Catwoman, all of those who played the role in the 1960s, Julie Newmar (voicing the 2016 Catwoman, too), Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt.
Good old school animation hints at the fun engendered by the 1960s live action TV version. This is not dark Batman, as in the Christian Bale trilogy. Unlike Michael Keaton's interpretation in Batman and Batman Returns, both Tim Burton films (thus, dark but whacked) feature a Caped Crusader ambivalent about his mission; a brooding Batman suitable to a late 1980s feeling of doubt about the stability of the world, what with Reagan's profit-making arms race, the decline of Soviet power, and an underlying unease about the shifting foundations underneath that decade's shiny surfaces.
2016 animated Batman, by contrast, is straight out fun. I recommend the film for a good time, some hard laughs, and for those who enjoyed the 1960s TV series. Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders will spark many funny and clever associations, bringing a viewer back, perhaps, to what I experienced as a schoolboy in the 1970s, watching reruns.
Vic Neptune
Rick Morales, director of TV and cinematic animated movies, made this film in 2016, a year before star Adam West (Bruce Wayne/Batman) died. Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, Catwoman, and the rest, exist in a seemingly pre-twenty-first century milieu. Batman's car, a 1955 Lincoln Futura concept vehicle, is seventy-one years old in our 2016 viewing eyes, but somehow it still looks futuristic, comic book style. Batman's power supplies run on nuclear energy. As a wealthy man, a billionaire probably, Bruce Wayne, unmarried with just one servant, a ward and the ward's aunt to support, has mega-money to spend on crime-fighting supplies. He also makes donations to charities, supporting Gotham City arts. A diva visiting from Italy is likely to be introduced to bachelor Wayne and his always present "youthful ward," read catamite, Dick Grayson.
In this animated feature, a super-villain team-up comprises the crime challenge Batman must battle, assisted by an ineffectual Gotham City police force led by still dumb Chief O'Hara. All the latter and Commissioner Gordon can do is observe that without Batman, the city would be lost, the police evidently unable to function as competent law enforcement professionals.
It's curious and somewhat funny to hear Adam West's eighty-eight year old voice coming from a Batman drawn to look at most middle-aged, about forty. Robin (Burt Ward, like West, from the original TV show) sounds young, still. First we see him practicing ballet moves while Wayne watches from a couch. Robin's antipathy towards Catwoman--apart from her criminality--stems from her attraction to Batman. Horrified, tied down, Robin watches, wide-eyed and groaning in despair, as Catwoman kisses Batman and scratches him with some vividly colored potion designed to make him docile, Catwoman's pet. The potion turns Batman into an amoral power-mad jerk equipped with a stolen device that makes clones of himself, the clones taking over Gotham City's government, entertainment sector, police department, and, no doubt, parks department.
Throughout the film, humor moves along from scene to scene successfully. A close shot of Batman and Robin climbing along the outer hull of a space station, conversing within their spacesuits, shows in the background another part of the station, where Catwoman is battling her partners, the Joker, Penguin, and the Riddler, for her life after they tire of her and decide to eject her into space. Rescued by the strong luckily placed arm of Batman, Catwoman joins forces with the caped man she'd most like to get a belly rub from.
Asshole Batman/Wayne fires his faithful servant Alfred over a minor mistake, kicks out Dick Grayson. Next we see Dick, he's back to doing ballet exercises in a small apartment. This touch indicates the humor throughout this enjoyable movie. The film has peppered throughout its length numerous references to the original TV show, including a drugged perspective moment when Batman sees three versions of Catwoman, all of those who played the role in the 1960s, Julie Newmar (voicing the 2016 Catwoman, too), Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt.
Good old school animation hints at the fun engendered by the 1960s live action TV version. This is not dark Batman, as in the Christian Bale trilogy. Unlike Michael Keaton's interpretation in Batman and Batman Returns, both Tim Burton films (thus, dark but whacked) feature a Caped Crusader ambivalent about his mission; a brooding Batman suitable to a late 1980s feeling of doubt about the stability of the world, what with Reagan's profit-making arms race, the decline of Soviet power, and an underlying unease about the shifting foundations underneath that decade's shiny surfaces.
2016 animated Batman, by contrast, is straight out fun. I recommend the film for a good time, some hard laughs, and for those who enjoyed the 1960s TV series. Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders will spark many funny and clever associations, bringing a viewer back, perhaps, to what I experienced as a schoolboy in the 1970s, watching reruns.
Vic Neptune
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