Movie Review: Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders [2016]

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BATMAN!

Okay, cards on the table. Despite being a huge, huge Batman fan, I've never watched the 60's Batman live-action show. I know the theme song, of course. Who doesn't? And I know enough from cultural osmosis and Batman: the Brave and the Bold episodes to know the cheese-filled charm that are equal parts 'old shame' and 'the good old days'. This was the days before things like the Tim Burton live action movie, or the Year One comics, or the animated series made Batman serious, and definitely way before Christopher Nolan and Zack's Snyder's darker take on everyone's favourite caped crusader.

It was a time where sound effects popped up in balloons, the villains each take turns to talk in long, hilariously campy and superfluous dialogue filled with adjectives, catchphrases, jokes where Batman and Robin point out how to properly cross the street as stand-up citizens, where villains run around carrying giant bombs, where the deduction of Riddler's clues are so insanely far-fetched... the movie as a whole, starring the return of three members of the original 60's cast (Adam West's Batman, Burt Ward's Robin and Julie Newmar's Catwoman) reprising their roles. It's the closest thing we'll ever get, and with Adam West's recent passing, probably one of the final reunions of the 60's Batman cast that we'll ever see.

The movie does skirt a bit too long, boasting a rather humongous 78-minute runtime for a movie more about comedy and campiness, but it certainly accomplished what it set out to do. To be a good homage to the old 60's Batman shows while still injecting a fair bit of self-aware humour. The plotline is divided between two plots -- a simple villain alliance between Joker, Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman; and Batman apparently turning more ruthless and evil, firing Alfred and Robin around the halfway mark in the movie and cloning himself to take over Gotham City in a huge ego-trip, forcing Catwoman and Robin to team together to take Batman down. It's that kind of a movie.

It's also a neat little critique on how darker the Batman franchise has gotten since the 60's... perhaps a bit too dark for its own good. I've always believed that the Batman franchise needs to tread a balance between seriousness and light-heartedness, with the latter being sorely under-represented in the media. And while Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders is definitely tilted extremely heavily in one favour of that axis, it is still relatively entertaining enough. Under the whole mass of hammy campiness, the main trio of Batman, Robin and Catwoman do manage to go through some neat character beats.

I did laugh out so hard when Catwoman describes The Dark Knight Rises's ending as a possible thing that she and Batman can abscond and do, and Robin's reply is a very well-deserved "holy unsatisfying endings, Batman!"

The animation is amazingly crisp, up to the standard that DC's other recent animated movies have, and they do replicate the appearances of most of the cast members and costumes of the 60's cast, as far as I can tell. Most of them -- Commissioner Gordon kind of looks like he walked out of a different, more conventional adaptation of Batman. 

And the best part of it all? The voice acting. I've not seen much of the 60's show to be considered an expert, but from what I've seen, the film manages to capture the great, hammy dialogue and sometimes-deadpan delivery of them amazingly well. ("You shameless Bathsheba!")

Of course, the movie isn't perfect. I feel that the first half of the movie, where they're churning out gags and having hilarious random PSA bits injected into the plot with the scenery-chewing performances of Batman, Robin and the four villains to be the best part of the movie, but around the halfway point the whole 'Evil Batman' stuff ended up dragging on and on and on (though the bat-gadget showdown is hilarious as all hell), and even after Evil Batman deal is done with we have to spend around ten minutes chasing down Joker, Penguin and Riddler, whose master plan... is to rob a couple of artwork pieces from a museum. Though the montage of all the 60's Batman villains (EGGHEAD! KING TUT!) and having them show up to help Catwoman and Robin fight the army of evil Batmen is definitely well appreciated.

I definitely enjoyed the movie, though, as much as it might've dragged at some parts. It's definitely more comedy than anything, and the nuance might be lost for those who don't quite know the long history of the Batman franchise and thinks it's just three or five grimdark live-action movies... not to say that those movies are without their merits, because I do love the darker parts of Batman's mythology, but it's also nice to acknowledge this sillier side of him.