Christopher Nolan and Matt Reeves Have Nothing on This 10/10 Batman Movie Masterpiece

Batman is more of a crime-fighting observer of the world he inhabits, and less of someone who goes through a tremendous amount of character growth. And when he does go through growth, it’s often not the central focus of the story. That’s probably why the best entries are the ones that are more story-focused, rather than character-focused, and the villains are the ones that steal the spotlight, like in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight and Matt Reeves‘ The Batman.

With that in mind, there is one exception where Batman’s personal drama is the driving force of the story, and it elevates him from just a dark wish-fulfillment character to showing the complexity of his inner turmoil and making his badassery a source of tragedy. It’s also the one that often gets the most forgotten, and that’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.

What Is ‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’ About?

The story follows the continuing adventures of Batman (Kevin Conroy) as he goes after a new mysterious villain called The Phantasm (Stacy Keach) who’s murdering members of the mob in Gotham City. Murders that witnesses misattribute to Batman being responsible for. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne’s ex-girlfriend Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delaney) comes back to town, and it forces him to come to grips with the failed relationship that brought him to become Batman in the first place.

The romantic subplots of Batman films are often where they try to give the character personal conflict, and it’s also usually the most underwhelming. Mask of the Phantasm is different because the relationship with Andrea isn’t just there because it’s a ’90s movie and he needs a love interest. It’s there because the movie is actually a tragic love story, and the failure of their relationship is partially what made Bruce Wayne so detached, and led him to become Batman.

‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’ Brilliantly Weaves in Flashbacks to Its Story

Bruce Wayne is rarely visibly happy, and in every film, he never seems to illicit any joy from being Batman, and is doing so more out of a sense of obligation. In Mask of the Phantasm, through flashbacks, you see a younger Bruce Wayne fall in love with Andrea, and it’s one of the few times when you see him being hopeful about his future. Which actually leads to personal conflict when he comes to realize that he can either fight crime, or be with Andrea. He can’t do both. To quote Malcolm McDowell in Heroes, “There comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness, or a life of meaning.” This leads to one of the more iconic moments of the film, with Bruce pleading to his parents’ grave to absolve him of his promise, with his reasoning being, “I didn’t count on being happy.” It’s a surprisingly deep moment, and it makes his current position as Batman tragic when you know he eventually went down a darker path. It’s the more righteous path, but also one that’s devoid of human connection or personal fulfillment.

The film intertwines the flashbacks with the current predicament of Batman trying to uncover the identity of The Phantasm, which makes it work as a pseudo-origin story as well as build the mystique around whom the villain could be. The Phantasm’s alter ego isn’t terribly hard to figure out, but it still adds an extra layer of intrigue and gives Batman detective things to do, which, up until Batman v Superman and especially The Batman, really isn’t something that we’ve seen him do in the movies. When it’s revealed that Batman has ties to the villain, it gives him an incentive to stop the threat through other means besides violence. Batman rarely has personal ties to his villains in the movies, but if Spider-Man movies have taught us anything, it’s that a personal connection between the hero and villain can add complexity to the drama, as it does here. It all builds to the climax, which, besides the fist fight with The Joker (Mark Hamill), is like a battle for The Phantasm’s soul.

Batman Is at His Most Vulnerable in ‘Mask of the Phantasm’

Mask of the Phantasm also has one of the most intense action scenes in any Batman movie (animated, or otherwise) with the police going after him after everyone believes that he’s responsible for the murders. It’s a tense scene that shows Batman in the rare position of being in danger and having no control of the situation. We actually see Batman beng completely vulnerable, bleeding, and completely out of options by the end. If it’s a foregone conclusion that a character is always going to win, the action loses its tension, so seeing Batman completely at the end of his rope makes him more flawed and relatable and gives the story more drama when it’s established that he can actually lose.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a cult classic among Batman movies that still hasn’t garnered the love it deserves. What people risk missing out on is a story that’s efficient with its 75-minute runtime that gives the character more depth and characterization than some of the live-action movies with nearly double the runtime. It’s an exciting, dramatically heavy, and occasionally creepy film that reaffirms why everyone loves the character, and it all leads to an epic but bleak finale.

Release Date

December 25, 1993

Runtime

76 minutes

Director

eric radomski, Bruce W. Timm