Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) [15500]

The way Batman was meant to be on screen.

This is the big one-shot for the Animated Series team, their first direct to video major release that at the last minute got bumped up to theatrical issue. This gave them a much expanded budget but also enlarged some of the flaws of the small runtime compressing the story to minimization. It also forced the application of a spherical matte that is at times far too tight on the original Academy animated frame.

But otherwise this is easily the best Batman film ever made. (I constantly flip between this and RETUNS as the best Batfilm.) Dark, honest, perfectly dramatized, adult, brooding, inspired, reverential to all the decades of source material, and yet still human enough to maintain that spark of vibrancy that made Batman a fun and exciting character to kids int he first place. This is a nuanced and wonderful comic book drama.

Still the definitive Batman adaptation. The best shot Batfilm as well. You could hang frames from this film on your wall it's so damn gorgeous.

The direction and performances are completely perfect, as they were on the entire series run. The expanded budget really shows off throughout the feature, especially in the beefed up Dolby Stereo mix which has far more surround usage than the limited work tried on some of the series episodes. It is a joy to hear in PCM as it has all of the detail and low end lost by the DVD's punier ac3. This recalls my theatrical experience in a massive THX auditorium that was dark and cold-much like the Batcave.

The picture is the theatrical matte of 1.85 which is admittedly bit tight in places. The animators did a fine job in having to retrofit the entire picture for this crop, though it aesthetically looks better in the original uncropped Academy framing on VHS/DVD. The color is far different to the series and other features because the film was processed by Technicolor, bringing in many deep tones of yellow, orange, red, blue and even deeper blacks to a cartoon that was so dark it's style was known as "dark deco".

Split onto three sides, the WB disc is wonderfully presented in full CAV allowing for intricate frame study. The image quality is right up there almost with the DVD which uses this same master. It's a bit noisy in places and I may have noticed a few very very tiny instances of aliasing but overall this is on par with the DVD.

Beautiful film that needs more recognition, a BD special edition and a sequel. The audio makes this worth the purchase, even if you have the DVD.

Film: 5/5
PQ: 4/5
AQ: 4.5/5