Reviews

It's silly, really. This reminds me of when people hated sequels to the Monkey Island PC game because they recalled the second in the series as being some kind of serious epic, rather than a game that had spitting contests and dancing skeletons.

As an avid fan of Batman: The Animated Series -- who actually bothered to watch more than the first five episodes or a single movie -- I can recall plenty, PLENTY of Harley episodes that were tonally compatible with this film. Check out the first part of the "Holiday Knights" episode as just one example! People forget that the Animated Series Batman was by the Warner Bros animation crew responsible for Freakazoid, Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, and the likes. And as dark as it could sometimes be, it was still aimed at a younger audience.

There was ridiculousness involved like Riddler's giant television scene, the quirky maze with the flying robotic hand, the various deathtraps each villain could come up with, and absolutely anything involving the Mad Hatter. And people forget. For some reason, there's this cloudy, fogged, and absolutely incorrect view that the average spod on the street has that Batman: The Animated Series was the animated equivalent of The Dark Knight Returns. That's simply not the case. At all.

The Animated Series take was one of a softer Batman; a Batman who was able to sympathise with the plight of his villains; a more human Batman who had vulnerabilities and a sense of humour. There's actually a term amongst old comic book fans for what these people like, 'Batgod.' It's used derisively as it's something that fans, like myself, just don't enjoy. The hardcore, hyper-conservative Batman with a steel chin that could take on Doomsday after he'd beaten Superman into the ground. That's an incredibly boring, dull, one-dimensional take on the character if ever I saw one. Boring people love it, though.

And that's the thing, you love that take on Batman if you're a bit boring.

Batman of The Animated Series was always an amalgam. A very human Batman from the '70s/'80s before things got cloyingly dark; A silly, campy Batman who had to struggle against deathtraps, of the '60s; A Batmaan that could be silly and have a sense of humour, from the '60s; And a Batman that was very much the Warner Bros. Animation team's own creation.

So this one isn't for the boring 'Batgod' audience. This one is for those of us who're real, long time fans. Not the kind of 'fans' who watched a single movie or a few episodes of something here or there, but those of us who've been following Batman since the '60s through all of his transformations. This is a Bat-fan's Batman.

I've finally reached my fifties, but I still love this film as much as the first day I saw it in the cinema. It's a relevant thought, you see, because as I browsed the reviews I came face to face with an old acquaintance -- the realisation that childlike wonder and imagination are actually rare enough to be in short supply, enough to justifiably call those resources scarce.

I raised an eyebrow, vexed, as people complained about realism; I've heard complaints of the improbability of a dragon's ambulatory system without ever the self awareness to realise that with a few tweaks to physics to account for a different world -- one where magic exists as an institution and resource, no less -- along with some fixes to common misconceptions of dragons and animal biology that one could make anything probable. Clever people call this 'escapism,' a retreat into a fantasy, fictitious world unlike our own. Escapism goes so much further than daydreams of attractive sexual partners and fast cars.

Here I see in the 'goofs' section that the dragon's wings don't generate downdraft. Who says they need to? A man in Britain created a box that could generate quantum thrust by manipulating lasers. Who's to say that a dragon's lift doesn't work the same way? Cries off realism come only from dull, mundane, typical minds. Not anyone who's especially brilliant would even mistake fantasy for reality in the first place. Truly, if one is unable to discern that dragon's exist in the realm of the improbable, so far separated from our own, then they've bigger problems than 'unrealistic' dragons.

The pseudo-intellectual of below average intelligence complains of unrealism, thinking himself clever. The truly clever person possessed of a sharp mind and considerable wit finds the challenge of explaining other realities with their own physical laws fun!

So, to wit, this is a lovely film, heartwarming, ingenious, and with a fantabulous showing from Mr. Connery. You may like it, but you should probably only watch it if you're clever enough to understand the distinctions and boundaries between reality and fantasy. Though individuals quite clever enough for that are evidently few and far between.

Don't apply if you subscribe oxymoronically to 'I don't want fantasy in my fantasy, only reality with the rules of that even normalised and simplified into mundanity enough that I'm able to actually understand it;' Or if you're inclined to prefer bat-like dragon's over their six- limbed cousins because they're more realistic (without being erudite enough to realise why that statement makes no sense, because playing by those rules the ambulatory pressure problems created by such a large, flying creature would make bat-like dragons every bit as unrealistic). If either of the prior is true, you're not good enough for this film. It deserves a better audience.

If, however, that gave you a chuckle rather than fired your ire, you may just be good enough for it. In which case you really should watch it!

Or it should be, anyway.

This was a marvellous episode. I was worried that it would take an appreciation of both theatre and cheese to enjoy it, and having seen the minority of the critical reception, I was right. With most, though, I think this is a resounding success. It is so because it's so very self aware in such an undeniably fun and self aware way.

It's so clever that it's hard not to be swept along with it. I think younger audiences simply won't understand what they're doing not having been exposed to the sillier side of theatre (especially theatrical parody), and there are those who've such a compulsive obsession with seriousness that they won't give it the time of day. It's not meant for them.

This is the heart and soul of the gold and silver ages embraced in a way that's not at all patronising or misguided. It understands what it wants to be and embraces that identity with all of the modern lustre it can. And it's so very good.

It'll fly over some heads, but it'll result in a wry smile on the faces of many more. Give it a look. Definitely one for the older and wiser among us, this.