Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

The Premise

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is an animated film spun off from Batman: The Animated Series, and in risk of letting you assume that there's not a lot to what I'm saying, I won't disguise my opinion of this film for longer than the next sentence. I really like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm too, it's a pretty good animated film, and as a Batman film, second only to The Dark Knight.

The reason for this comparison is because while The Dark Knight has very interesting themes, characters and stories, I never really felt any concern or empathy for any of them. In that film, Batman is attacked several times, has a good friend die and another turn away from the side of good, and generally has a load of bad stuff happen. but I was never really bothered, I was disconnected from the characters and just looked at the events rather than the characters causing them, with the exception of the Joker (Who admittedly is my favourite Joker.), because as Batman says in 'Begins, "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that refines me." which apparently extends to include Christopher Nolan's views on screenwriting.

But in Mask of the Phantasm, I was sad every time Batman was, and Batman's melancholy in this film, everything that happens to him as a character I felt too. It even makes me think back to the "Cat and the Claw." episode of Batman: The Animated Series in which Batman falls in love with Catwoman's alter ego, discovers her identity and then realises he has to arrest her anyway, knowing he can't let his emotions get in the way of his duties as The Bat.

The reason this episode comes to mind is because the story, besides being an origin story for the Animated Batman, is also a love story between a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne, and a character called Andrea Beaumont. The story is about Bruce's struggle between wanting a normal life with Andrea, and wanting to begin his war on crime as Batman, he doesn't initially want to make the choice, but later has the choice made for him. The rest of the film is about Batman tracking down the killings of a new vigilante in Gotham City called 'The Phantasm', whilst Andrea returns to Gotham City. The whole plot is a very character driven story for Batman in particular.

The Art

Moving on from the magnificently told story, my opinion on the art, animation and character design is less warm. Oh, it's all still as good as the series this film's based on, but I expected the film, being a theatrical release in the Cinemas, would have smoother animation, sharper art and less grainy colour cels. But it looks exactly the same as the main series, and the main series isn't bad, the animation is always good, just hindered by the frame-rate being around 12 FPS, and the actual art is always really interesting to look at, just hindered by the fact that the people who capture the frames on camera are notorious for having lots of low quality shots and lots of dust motes on camera that apparently they didn't notice when editing the film, due in no small part to the Animators being in the more unique position of drawing the backgrounds onto black paper to ensure the series is visually very dark.

The above problem tends to fluctuate though, some shots are much better quality, and the animation on the opening credits is the best iteration of Gotham City I've seen in a good long while.

In summation of the animation, it's at the level of a well animated TV series, I can excuse the framerate because lots of Disney features are the same speed, but the overall quality of the captures of the frames kind of drag the film down and make it look much older than it actually is.

Summation

Overall though, despite my 'meh' opinion on the art side of things, I would definitely consider Mask of the Phantasm to be a film to watch, whether you're a Batman fan, an animated film fan, or even a fan of Drama-ish dramas, it's one of the few films that can claim to have had an impact on me.

So if you haven't seen this film but want to challenge your opinion of The Dark Knight, watch this film, see if you agree with me.