Director: Rick Morales
Cast: Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Steven Weber
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, man. I was there with bells on when the movie had a limited run with Fathom. I was 100% the audience for this film.
Did I Like It: And it mostly meets expectations. The animation style is by and large fine, but I do think there was some unnecessary liberties taken with some of the locations. It would have been far more enjoyable to have the backgrounds look exactly like Bruce Wayne’s den, the Batcave, and Commissioner Gordon’s office, than the slightly more expansive environments we’re treated to here. I also didn’t need even an oblique exploration of just what occurs to get Bruce Wayne (West) and Dick Grayson (Ward) into costume as they slide down the bat-poles.
I’d hate to get entirely nitpicky about the whole affair, but the voicework is occasionally great, an occasionally not-so-great. West certainly sounds much older than he did in the 60s, but as I am currently older now than Bruce Wayne is traditionally depicted, there was a certain simple pleasure in being able to look upon the Dark Knight as a grown-up again. Julie Newmar doesn’t sound as if she’s aged a day since she last meow-ed her way through an episode of the TV show, which is worth the price of viewing the film itself. Burt Ward is… well, he’s playing a 16-year-old boy, and there’s never a moment where I wasn’t aware he was a man in his 70s. To have a man in his 70s play a 16-year-old boy is probably an unfair expectation for someone. Then again, it wasn’t like we bought him as a teenager in the 60s, either…
Filling in for deceased cast members, things get a bit brighter. Jeff Bergman channels both Cesar Romero’s Joker and narrator William Dozier nearly perfectly, although the narrator is tragically underused. Steven Weber and Lynne Marie Stewart are so perfect as Alfred and Aunt Harriet that it’s downright spooky. Wally Wingert intermittently imitates Frank Gorshin quite well, but unfortunately only illuminates just what a simmering explosion of crazy Gorshin was.
But why no Batgirl? Yes, Yvonne Craig had passed away, but everybody else is here? Why does Barbara Gordon always get the short shrift in DC movies? I just don’t get it.
The plot is epic enough to justify the runtime, but isn’t quite the comic scenario they cooked up for Batman (1966).
I might have some minor quibbles with the film, but any time spent with the Bright Knight is time well spent, especially because we aren’t going to get any more.