Batman: Mask of the Phantasm **** (1993, voices of Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Dana Delany, Hart Bochner, Abe Vigoda, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, Stacy Keach) – Classic Movie Review 5110

Director Bruce W Timm’s 1993 film is the top-rate first ever animated feature film version of Bob Kane’s DC Comics Caped Crusader characters. Striking animation, with stylised characters, shadowy and moody visuals (described by the producers as Dark Deco), mixes with a suitably dark and adult storyline in which Batman is framed for the murders of mob bosses.

Batman finds himself confronting a mysterious new vigilante killer called the Phantasm (voice of Stacy Keach) who holds the key to the Crusader’s past. Resuming his normal identity as millionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman is startled to encounter his former fiancée Andrea Beaumont, who vanished a decade ago.

The famous characters are realised in effective vocal performances by Kevin Conroy as Batman/ Bruce Wayne, Mark Hamill as the Joker, Dana Delany as Andrea Beaumont, Efrem Zimbalist Jr as Alfred the Butler and Abe Vigoda as the mob kingpin Salvatore Valestra, who have all got the measure of the noir tone and dark humour re-created from the original comics.

Other voices are of Hart Bochner as Arthur Reeves, Dick Miller as Chuckie Sol, Bob Hastings as Commissioner James Gordon and Robert Costanzo asDetective Harvey Bullock.

This spinoff from the TV series Batman: The Animated Series was made for cinema but went straight to video in GB and made its DVD debut in June 2005.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5110

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