Batman: The Movie (1966)

 

The Batman series of the 1960's is great fun. It's silly, campy, colourful and over the top, yet so irresistible, it's almost endearing. The great thing about that show is that the leads play it with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and the villains all are obviously enjoying themselves. So it stands to reason that a full length film would be another step. 

If it was a good step though, is debatable. 

This film starts off when a yacht seemingly disappears, with an inventor called Commodore Schmidtlapp as most important person. It seems four of the biggest Batman antagonists have joined forces, which makes it all terribly tricky for Batman and Robin to defeat them. 

Remember: in the series, they often tussle with one with great difficulty, here there are four!

Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler and Joker play out their new found bond in order to obtain the invention/doohicky, which is a device that instantly dehydrates people to a pile of dust. They plan to use it on important members of the United World Alliance (yes, it's basically the UN, only called differently). So naturally, the Dynamic Duo have to stop them. Will they succeed or suck eggs?

Well, what do you think?

This has all the camp and colour of the series and even goes further in offering the most absurd explanations for quick escapes. When Batman and Robin can't deflect a torpedo, they suddenly appear to be fine and this is explained away because a random porpoise threw itself in the torpedo's path. 

Yes, it's that silly all the time.

Adam West and Burt Ward are great as always. Probably the best scene by far is the one where Batman is running around a crowded pier with a massive cartoony bomb in his hands and he can't throw it anywhere for fear of injuring bystanders. This leads to the classic line: "Some days you just can't get rid off a bomb." The same goes for the tense shark attack in the beginning. Trust me, it's enormously memorable. 

The villains are great as well, because they know their characters in and out. I do wonder why they couldn't get Julie Newmar as Catwoman, as Lee Meriweather doesn't feel right, even though she does look a little like Newmar. I'll always prefer Newmar in the role, but that's just me. Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin and Cesar Romero reprise their roles with gusto. 

Yet, here is where the nagging begins. It's pretty much the Penguin and Catwoman who are front and centre, as Joker and Riddler are delegated to sidekicks and hardly get anything noteworthy to do, which is a shame. That is why the roster feels bloated, as these classic villains pretty much deserved a film of their own anyway. Especially Romero suffers from this setup. 

The most glaring shortcoming though, is the fact that this film is too long. See, the silliness of the series works wonders as episodes that are barely 30 minutes long. But for a full length, the jokes and puns and campy acting starts to grate on the nerves. It's a real shame. You can also tell they had enough plot to fill two episodes (as they usually did), but not enough to keep you invested for 90 minutes and it shows after a while. By the time you reach the halfway point, chances are you lost interest completely. 

For fans of the series, this will be fun to watch on occasion, but it doesn't feel as much fun as the series. Maybe something for a lazy Sunday afternoon?