BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993) - ****

I'm pretty sure that I won't be the only one of my generation who'll say that BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES was not just their favorite cartoon as a kid, but probably their favorite television show, period. In retrospect in watching its reruns as an adult, I realize that besides still being a really great program in general, TAS was primarily successful because it never talked itself down to its target juvenile audience. Yeah it was animated and yes it aired on saturday mornings and weekday afternoons, but the production team of writer/producer Paul Dini and animator Bruce W. Timm apparently didn't get the memo.

They gave us a toon unheard of for its time, what with actual guns firing, a very moody atmosphere, blood splash, manga-inspired film noir-ish aesthetics, intelligent and mature storytelling, along with some pure good ole beat-em-up pulp joy. In terms of sophistication, it was to comic book adventurism as THE SIMPSONS was for the domestic Americana sitcom.

This carried over to their feature-length motion picture BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM, which started as a direct-to-video project until it was upgraded to a theatrical release, all two weeks of it. Out in the mean streets of Gotham City, a phantom stranger is killing aging mob bosses, and the Dark Knight gets blamed. As he tries to solve this mystery as the most wanted man in the city, the ex-fiancée of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne comes back to town after ten years....

A colleague of mine told me how that as much as he likes MASK, he would have given it higher marks if it had simply been a half hour longer, and I totally disagree. Clocking in at a miniscule 76 minutes, PHANTASM is packed tighter than a drug mule in MARIA FULL OF GRACE in terms of action, emotions, and plot turns, with every frame essential to the narrative punch. This movie doesn't bullshit around.

But what struck me in watching PHANTASM again as an adult is how the nostalgic flashbacks are rather most eerie and unsettling beneath the innocent surface, almost reminding me of James Stewart and Kim Novak's doomed eerie romance in Hitchcock's VERTIGO. The lives of Wayne and his lover were both shattered by death and tragedy, and its fitting that they meet for the first time at a graveyard.

With Timm's coloring scheme of these sequences reminiscent of the stark panels from 1930s comic books, there is something haunting about their date at the World's Fair in Gotham, representing the hopes and dreams of the future for not just the city, but this couple as well. Then again, seeing that City in the daytime is always weird to me.

Wayne struggles to find happiness for himself while trying to honor his vow to his deceased parents, which in a memorable Frank Miller YEAR ONE-esque scene, includes going out on a night patrol in a pre-Batman costume, and the crooks not exactly frightened by him. But when it comes to a point when he may be forced to make a choice between these two life paths, how that decision is reached plays against not just your expectations, but as well against the cliché of recent superhero blockbusters...and that's probably what makes it heartbreaking. Credit must be given to Batman voice-actor Kevin Conroy, who's subtle vocal range credibly shifts from square-jawed ass-kicker you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, to an aloft playboy, and finally a wounded soul.

But if we are to talk about the voice performances, then we must mention Mark Hamill as The Joker. People are already Oscar buzzing about the late Heath Ledger in the upcoming THE DARK KNIGHT, and he may deserve the hype, but it'll be tough for him to beat Hamill's take on the Clown Prince of Crime. Unlike Jack Nicholson's face-mugging in Tim Burton's BATMAN, Hamill is both disarmingly hilarious and psychotically violent at the same time. Consider the fate of a desperate criminal, a fatal lesson that we comic fans learn at a very young age:

Never trust the Joker!

What I like is how the movie assumes the audience knows Batman's origin and don't bother to rehash it, while also connecting a character to the murdered mobsters that that doesn't explain what happened to him in-between the past and present, which is nice. Some mysteries should be left unexplored. I even enjoyed how another character discovers Wayne's nighttime job without the abused clichés of willing or accidental unmasking that we got more than once in something like SPIDER-MAN 2...and PHANTASM beat that blockbuster by what, 9 years?

If I have to choose my favorite sight from this visually juicy film, it would have to be sequence director Kevin Altieri's grand brawl between Batman and the Joker in a miniaturized model of Gotham City, as these two "Gods" duke it out for its future. Another is the decrepit, rusting, and rotting abandoned remains of the World's Fair...a fine metaphor for American urban decay. Or how about during a hearty scene, we can't tell the difference between the tears and the rain?

I do have a question regarding the finale, and it would have made total sense if only PHANTASM was the finale for the TAS program (as was the original plan apparently), but alas its a major glaring plot hole. But if you glance over it, you do get a nice good tale about how people can make similar and completely different reactions to the same event.... and the consequences of them.

I still remember in my youth being peeved that my parents wouldn't let me go see PHANTASM at the local cinema, why I don't know. I do recollect though how it was ignored in theatres, but was re-discovered on home video. Hell, I became a lifelong fan of critics Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel when they actually reviewed MASK OF THE PHANTASM on their TV show a good two years after its release, and both gave it a huge thumbs up, which just blew my mind as a kid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_KcFFqLggY

Even in the dark days of the mid-1990s, when Joel Schumacher's idiotic blockbuster toy commercials openly mocked anyone who's ever cared or enjoyed reading about the Batman's exploits in some time in their lives, PHANTASM proved that a serious cinematic Batman story could be told without being any less fun.

Hell, it was better than all of the live-action BATMAN movies until BATMAN BEGINS, but that's another review for another time.