“Please! I need it to be different now. I know I made a promise, but I didn't see this coming. I didn't count on being happy.”

It’s honestly pretty sad to see how far kids’ movies have fallen in recent years, at least for the most part. There are huge exceptions to this, of course, but it seems that most children nowadays are watching mindless television and movies designed strictly just to entertain and nothing else; no themes, no messages - nothing. I think that this film, and really just the entirety of Batman: The Animated Series, along with the rest of that DC continuity, is a huge example of children’s content done right, and the crazy thing is that it’s so good that it even appeals to adults as well!

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is pretty much the origin story of this universe’s version of Batman, albeit skipping the parts that we already know well and have seen done multiple times. It explores Bruce Wayne in an extremely interesting way that not a lot of adaptations have really done (at least that I’ve seen), by looking at not only the sense of responsibility he feels to don the Batman persona because of his parents, but also his desire for just a normal life. This aspect of the story is by far what sticks out to me the most with this film, and I genuinely love it.

It quickly introduces a female interest for Bruce by the name of Andrea, whom he falls in love with, which automatically sets the tone for the rest of the movie. As an audience, we already know where Batman is going to eventually end up in his career, so the emotional preparation that you start to feel while watching easily gets you invested in both the romance and the storyline as a whole. It’s probably one of the more emotionally deep animated kids’ movies that I’ve ever seen, which is why I think it, as well as the series that it’s tied to, holds up so well to this day.

I also just can’t even begin to describe how much I love this version of Batman as far as an adaptation goes. Sure, I’d definitely watch The Dark Knight trilogy and The Batman (one of my favorite movies by the way) before this one, but this characterization is easily my preference, and I really hope that James Gunn’s DC Universe really takes inspiration from it. We are already heading in the right direction with the upcoming Clayface movie seemingly drawing a lot of inspiration from the Clayface storyline in the show, just, you know, rated R instead of PG. I could also talk about how Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are absolutely perfect in their respective roles, but you’ve probably already heard that talked about to death at this point.

The last thing I’ll talk about here is the animation. There is just something so fascinating and appealing to me, almost in a nostalgic way, even though I was born far after this era, about hand-drawn animation that I really enjoy. I know we still get a small handful of different projects hand-drawn, but not nearly as frequently or even as charming as back in the day.

The only mixed I have is that it is definitely a pretty predictable story if you’re an older viewer. The reason that this isn’t a negative is that its target audience is obviously not adults. The romance works extremely well for the reasons I already explained, being the emotional connection with it, but for the villain storyline, you can definitely see where it’s going pretty much from the get-go. Phantasm is an extremely interesting new and original antagonist for this movie, but the whole mystery behind the character is extremely obvious.

The only thing I don’t like about this film, as odd as it sounds, is the inclusion of the Joker. The Joker is my favorite villain in fiction besides Darth Vader, so that probably sounds really weird, but I really don’t think he had much of a place in this story. The writers and producers obviously put him in there to appeal to kids more, but when we are strictly talking about the story, the connection to Mask of the Phantasm for both an entertainment and an emotional level was already working really well. I could totally see myself being on the other side compared to most people with this take, however, and it really isn’t even that big of a negative either.

Anyways, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is definitely one of the most underrated and underappreciated comic book films out there.