Movie Review : Batman - Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
Batman: The Animated Series originally ran on Fox Kids from 1992 to 1995 and was fucking beloved by kids, comic book nerds, stoners, bored middle-aged dads and critics alike. Seriously, it’s one of the most beloved shows ever made. Given its resounding success and the milquetoast reception of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, a film adaptation was inevitable. Not making it another resounding success would also prove difficult because of the show’s built-in fan base and low financial stakes. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was the most predictably good movie ever.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm operates on two different timelines, ten years apart. A young Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) first meets Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany) in Gotham City’s cemetary when visiting his parents. The two fall in love and she almost derails his plans of turning his life over to vigilantism before mysteriously skipping town with her dad (the immortal Stacy Keach). Ten years later, a mysterious grim reaper-like figure is picking Gotham City mobsters apart and Andrea mysteriously reappears in town, looking to pick up where she left off with Bruce.
It’s not hard to understand why Batman: Mask of the Phantasm among the caped crusader’s fan base. It’s an intelligent movie with accessible symbolism that doesn’t rely too heavily on Gotham City’s pop culture lore. There’s basically two dueling vigilantes fighting for the heart of the capitalist shithole Bruce Wayne loves for some reason: Batman (who represents justice) and The Phantasm (who represents death) and they’re fighting over the fate of local mobsters, which is interesting because who gives a shit whether mobsters die or go to jail?
Batman does. But only him and that’s what makes him interesting.
Mobsters themselves don’t want Batman’s help. Old timer Salvatore Vestra (Abe fuckin’ Vigoda) believes he is The Phantasm and contract the Joker (Mark fuckin’ Hamill) to wipe him out, foolishly believing a simple payout will buy clarity between them. This is so ideological. Vestra believes financial wealth is going to help him cheat death, although it achieves exactly the opposite. Batman (who is perhaps even richer than Vestra) believes in order and institutions. He thinks very much like the son of an industrial mogul. He believes in a world he more or less controls.
I guess that’s why the Joker is such a powerful counter-cultural icon nowadays. He’s an avatar of chaos who’s against any form of order whatsoever and people feeling cheated by capitalism see themselves in a guy who lost his shit so hard, he decided to own it. Perhaps that’s why I cannot get myself to hate Mark Hamill’s Joker despite the fact that he’s utterly terrifying in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. He seems angry and vengeful towards people that somewhat deserve anger and vengeance. He’s to anarchists what Donald Trump is to conservatives.
One thing I want to add about Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is that Gotham City’s trademark gothic aesthetic’s been replaced by cool art deco architecture, which really fucked with my perception. It gives the city a byzantine atmosphere of unchecked capitalism that I feel suit the purpose of the characters perhaps even better than the run down, industrial look. Buildings are growing in such random directions like kudzu vines, it gives the impression that the city is growing out of control, prey to whoever has the most money to invest. That was really cool.
I quite enjoyed Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. It is (so far) the best Batman adaptation I’ve seen in my retrospective. What it perhaps lack in storytelling and sophistication, it makes for in intellectual honesty and accessibility. It’s a movie that will make anyone feel at least mildly smart for watching it. It,s also insanely rewatchable, clocking at a mere 76 minutes. I’m sure no one’s surprised that it turned out as good as it did (creative freedom is greater if the financial stakes are lower), but it’s nonetheless great that a Batman adaptation got it right like this.
7.8/10
