Batman The Movie

The Dark Knight Rises hit the cinemas to conclude Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and I thought that having a look back over the Batman movies of old would be a good way to start my reviewing.  So lets start with Batman  The Movie.

1966 saw the spin-off movie from 20th Century Fox's Batman TV show hit the screens and, well, the TV show had 45 minute long episodes with cliffhangers to bring the audience back the next time to see the conclusion of the story.  So in reality the TV show was producing full hour and half story lines.  They were basically making movies only showing them over a couple of weeks.  Batman The Movie is essentially two episodes back to back with no interruption and 'tune in next week' voice over.

But what about the film? Well being a Batman fan I loved seeing the Rogues Gallery of Villains.  Cesar Romero as The Joker is fun but not exactly the dark and unpredictable clown of Tim Burton and Chris Nolan, but then it was a kids show.  The Joker is probably the worst thing about the film as he's not the Joker of the comics but the other villains are, pretty much, especially when he was so much better in the TV show.  He is little more than one of the goons.  Lee Meriwether as Catwoman is brilliant, possibly my favourite Catwoman, sexy, seductive and silly, in a comic book type of way.  Burgess Meredith as Penguin is hilarious, he is totally the comic book penguin (I love Burgess he is class in anything and as the penguin with the walk and the laugh, top drawer).  And Frank Gorshin as the Riddler.  Well he is the riddler. Adam West just having a good time in tights, he's a good Bruce Wayne but he's just Adam West in tights when he is Bats.  Burt Ward plays Robin as Robin was in the comics so thats fine...  Both I think are just happy to have a few more dollars and having a good time making those notes.

The film is a comedy no doubt, so all the fans of the Nolan Batman call it camp and stupid, but thats what it was supposed to be, but some people just don't leave it be... ''Sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb".  But when everything is labelled, like the Bat Shark Repellant Spray, why would you think its going to be serious.

I like this film it does what a spin-off should, has all the good moments from the TV show, plays well as a stupid comedy and is just fun, and has all the characters you want in it.  The "POW", "SMASH", "BOFF" are hilarious (they are in the comics so we know it observed the source material).  It is a 3 star movie but it achieves what it means to so I don't have any complaints about that.

In a sentence... Dumb, but fun.

3 nana's outta 5