Batman: The Movie

Yay!! I finally get to do a DC movie! And, of course, I have to start at the beginning, with the 1966 masterpiece, Batman: The Movie, directed by Leslie Martinson and starring Adam West, Burt Ward and Lee Meriwether.

Although this is technically the first major superhero movie, I will treat this mostly as a comedy movie that happens to have Batman in it instead of a Batman movie that happens to have comedy in it. I have to do it this way because that is how this movie was intended to be viewed. It was funny the whole way through, every line was tongue-in-cheek and it never took itself seriously. If the movie ever strayed from this course, even if just for a minute, then it would have been a terrible superhero film. But as it stands, it is a wonderful comedy that is still enjoyable to watch more than 40 years later.

Almost every line made me laugh, as well as the sheer ridiculousness of everything. To try to simplify things, I'll focus on what I thought were the exceptionally funny moments.

The first point I'll add will be for the Shark Repellent Bat Spray. Batman not only had a can of that in his Batcopter, but also separate repellent sprays for manta rays, barracudas, and whales. Never go to sea without them!

The second point is for the reasoning used to figure out the four super villains were teaming up. Hmm, this all seems very fishy. Penguin! Wait, the crime happened at sea — C for Catwoman! Yes, but that shark was pulling my leg. The Joker! Oh, this is all a riddling mess. The Riddler!

Then they follow this up by figuring out what their goal is. Take over the city? No, any one of them would do that. The country? If it were just two or three of them, I would say yes, but with four of them, their minimum objective is the entire world!

The next point, bringing it up to an 8 is for Batman calling the Navy to see if they recently sold any war surplus submarines. The Navy officers have to put their tiddlywinks game on hold to look it up. Why, yes, Batman, we sold one to someone named P. N. Guin, but he didn't leave a return address. Say, Batman, you sound rather grave. We didn't do anything foolish, did we?

The next point I'll add is for Batman trying to get rid of the bomb. First there's two fat women refusing to leave their enormous piles of food. Then Batman runs outside where he only sees innocent people everywhere he'd want to throw the bomb, including the Salvation Army, some nuns, a woman with a baby carriage, some lovers in a boat and a bunch of little ducklings. Then the wonderful line: "Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

I won't add a point here, but I have to mention Batman crash-landing the Batcopter on a pile of rubber in its crude form outside the Foam Rubber Wholesalers Convention. Batman did admit he thought he saw the rubber out of the corner of his eye at the last second, but said the odds against it would make even the most reckless of gamblers cringe. Only a movie like this could get away with such absurdity.

The last point I'll add to make it a 10, is the test tubes full of the dehydrated world leaders shaking violently back and forth during the final climatic battle, but never falling until Commodore Schmidlapp comes in, trips, wrestles the tubes away from Batman, slams them on the table and then sneezes.

This was a wonderful film that keeps you laughing throughout the whole thing. My favorite villain was the Penguin, but the Riddler had some lubricous riddles, and Catwoman made an excellent reporter for the Moscow Bugle. Alfred was great, especially when he wore a mask under his glasses. Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara were also great as they stood in awe of Batman the whole time. The Joker didn't do much, but was fun, as was Commodore Schmidlapp.

Now I come to a great debate in my head. Should I knock a point off this movie for historical reasons? This was many people's first exposure to Batman and superheroes in general, and a lot of them didn't think the genre could ever be taken seriously. It took more than a decade for the next major superhero movie to come out (Superman: The Movie) and it took more than two decades before a serious Batman movie was ever made. That's a lot of damage.

On the other hand, I don't think we can blame this movie entirely for that. It had a small budget and knew it couldn't be serious, so it never tried. It also was making fun of the really cheesy Batman comics of the '50s and '60s were Batman and Robin periodically went into space and back in time to Camelot. However, I kind of think more people would have understood this movie was supposed to be a spoof if they did it like Space Balls and changed the names slightly, like have Ratman and his sidekick Sparrow fight Feline Female, the Puffin, the Questioner, etc.

So, should I take away a point for historically causing damage to the Batman franchise? Yes. But, I've found a loop hole. Remember when I said I wouldn't add a point for the crude rubber? Well, I've changed my mind. It's my blog and my rules. The score stays a 10. Long live Adam West!

Final score: 10 out of 10