A few weekends ago, our state moved into Phase 3 of their COVID-19 reopening plan. This enabled non-essential retailers to open with recommendations for mask-wearing, disinfecting, and social distancing for staff and customers.

What did this mean for Fiancé and I? A trip to our favorite used media store.

I didn’t buy anything. I was just happy to be there and browse: doing something somewhat normal. While Fiancé was looking for something specific, he couldn’t find it. He did find this movie and bought it for us. We already own the first season of the ’60s TV show, which we enjoy, and he wanted this film for his collection.

Batman and Robin, along with their friend District Attorney Harvey Dent, attend a secret demonstration of a new machine built by Dr. Hugo Strange. He calls it an “Evil Extractor,” and it’s designed to suck out evil in a person. At first, it works! The evil in the villains Strange selects to demonstrate the machine is extracted and deposited in a vat. Things go awry when the villains start to laugh, overloading the machine and causing the containment vat to explode. Harvey is splashed with the pure evil extract and transforms into Two-Face, despite Batman’s attempts to save him.

After six months of Two-Face’s villainy, Harvey Dent has had reconstructive surgery and is fully rehabilitated. Eccentric millionaire Bruce Wayne is ecstatic to have his friend back, but his ward Dick Grayson isn’t so sure. Batman and Robin have had to deal with multiple stings by different villains, all of which leave behind clues of duality, or the number two. Surely this points to Two-Face being behind everything? When the Dynamic Duo come face-to-face with the Cleft Criminal, they are forced to admit that Two-Face is back – with a vengeance!

As mentioned above, this animated feature is done in the style of the 1960’s Batman TV show. And boy, did they knock it out of the park! There are action stunts, sound effect speech bubbles, and visual gags and Easter eggs galore. Character designs stay true to their source material. One change I really liked was that the eyebrows on Batman’s cowl were animated: they didn’t change shape much, but moved up and down to indicate emotion or tone. This was a nice touch that’s been done in other animated iterations of Batman (BTAS comes to mind). It may have been difficult to determine emotion from voice alone, without any other body language cues we get from Adam West while watching the live action show.

Speaking of Adam West, this was the last project he worked on before his death in 2017. All his lines were already recorded before he passed. There is a lovely tribute to him at the end of the film. Burt Ward and Julie Newmar reprised their roles as Robin and Catwoman, respectively. William Shatner was brilliant as Two-Face. It was clear that everyone had fun lending their voices for the film, whether they were an original cast member or a newcomer.

I felt the story was a little too convenient and predictable. I also thought the visuals could have been better served by animating more in the style of the times, not the ultra-clean, modern imitation of traditional animation we get today. In spite of this, there were a whole lot of laughs to be had through written or visual jokes, over-the-top camp, excessive but impressive alliteration, and so on. This is where the real joy of the movie comes in: perfectly capturing the spirit of the beloved classic in a new, modern package.

-Kathleen

Morales, Rick. Batman vs. Two-Face. 2017.