Batman on Film Part 5: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

This was only supposed to be a four part look at the live action Batman films, but while at a recent dinner celebrating my birthday my friends and I discussed the Batman films, and we joked how I was a fanboy for Mask of the Phantasm, the movie based on Bruce Timm's Batman: The Animated Series. This has always been my favorite Batman movie, and as I was writing up drafts of the Batman on Film chapters, between my notes of admiration and complaints, the question became: What Batman movie, if any, deserves a 5 out of 5?

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is the perfect Batman movie. From the perfect dark, brooding and gothic mood set by Bruce Timm, the perfect casting and voice acting from Andrea Romano, to the epic music by Shirley Walker, to the cast led by Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Dana Delany, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Bob Hastings, Robert Costanzo, Stacy Keach and Abe Vigoda, to the brilliant story by Alan Burnett and written by Alan Burnett, Martin Pasko, Paul Dini and Michael Reaves.

The story takes place in two different time frames, telling a story in the present of a masked killer called the Phantasm killing off mobsters and a story taking place ten years prior that tells us of Bruce's days leading up to becoming Batman and the loss of his true love, with both stories meeting at the climax. It sounds trite and clichéd but it couldn't be further from that.

A love story never really seems to work within a Batman story for a couple of reasons. At the end of the day the reader/viewer always knows he'll choose his mission, his devotion to Gotham, his vow to his parents over Silver St. Cloud, Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, Nocturna, Selina Kyle, Talia Al Ghul, Wonder Woman, Shondra Kinsolving, Vesper Fairchild, and Zatanna. That story's been done to death so who really cares, right? Then there's the fact that these love interests have become little more than Bond girls: they'll be the damsel in distress, tempt Bats into giving up the life, but there's really nothing to them. The writers know a steady girl will never work so they just string the character along for a few issues and kill her off so we can have another two page spread of Batman brooding in the rain next to some gargoyles. As always, however, it's how you tell the story.

In Phantasm we're told from the beginning that the relationship didn't work out. We're given the story anyway because it's necessary to the plot, but also because the relationship crumples not because of Bruce Wayne's obsession and insanity. We learn in the past time frame that Bruce scrapped the idea of becoming Batman because he wanted to be with Andrea Beaumont, and when she comes back into the present timeline, while we are given the usual "I'll give up being Batman for you!" shtick, it once again ends in an unexpected way: Andrea Beaumont is the Phantasm.

The Batman of this movie doesn't kill. Ever. What a concept. He does manage to have a bit of a sense of humor--he makes a joke or two during the movie, but doesn't even come close to being campy, and still manages not to become the humourless neglectful father bordering psychotic "Dick Knight" we've seen in All Star Batman or the mainstream continuity from about 2000 until now. When he does get to the point of severe douchiness, Alfred brings him back down to earth. That's a subtle moment that doesn't get much attention. Bruce is always this close to losing his goddamn mind and with all the awful stuff he's lived through as Batman he gets a bit frayed. It was nice to actually see him become emotional and flustered. 

Like most Batman movies, this one is heavy on theme. Here it's parallels. The journey of the revenge seeker--Bruce Wayne and Andrea Beaumont--is explored here. Bruce becomes Batman and in doing so devotes his life to being a masked vigilante and rejects the idea love; Andrea does the same. Near of middle of film Joker makes a joke (like he's supposed to, Nolan) to the effect that the Phantasm makes Batman look cute. And it's the truth. The costume is scarier, the weapons are stranger, and the methodology is different: the Phantasm is willing to kill. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Throughout Phantasm there is a gold locket that Andrea keeps with her. It's in shape of a heart and inside there is a picture of her and Bruce. It's also a thematic point in the movie. In the flashbacks she wears it around her neck, in the present she has it on her nightstand, and at the end of the movie it's hanging in the batcave for Bruce to find. This goes back on Andrea's rejection of love. From keeping Bruce and their time together close to her heart when they were together, it's no longer on her when she decides to become a revenger, but still on the periphery of her mind--in sight but not quite, it stands as a reminder of what she lost--and after her vengeance is casted and her mission complete, when they both realize that they can't be together because of everything they've done, the locket appears in the cave not only as a way for Bruce to know she's still alive, but also tells us that she's truly alone now; the memories are tainted by the revenge and the locket which keeps a picture of them in better times is now given to Bruce as Andrea's way of telling him that the best moments of her life were always with him; she had carried the love and when she discarded it she lost her way into the murderous side of revenge. It is a reminder, a love letter, a warning. 

  

As in all great love stories, protagonists Bruce and Andrea meet at a cemetery. Bruce was visiting his parents to make sure they are still there, and Andrea is visiting her mother who died of cancer. Each of these snapshots into their relationship are layered with a sense of foreboding, either through events (like her father becoming involved in the mafia or Bruce being unable to leave a group of thugs alone) or through good old fashioned foreshadowing where a group of bats literally come between them. Andrea's father is killed by the mafia and Andrea decides to avenge his death. Bruce and Andrea are orphans seeking revenge for their murdered parents. As the Phantasm Andrea's a killer and her passing resemblance to Batman leads them into conflict and makes the police think that Batman's gone crazy so they start to hunt him. Really? Now, he's gone crazy? Really?


Thematically speaking, the foreshadowing doesn't end there. One of the more subtle references is the World's Fair. Bruce and Andrea in their formative years go there and see the hopeful world of tomorrow. When we return to the fair in the present, it is dilapidated, abandoned and grimy. At once it shows the great change to Bruce and Andrea's relationship--the happiness of years' past, the grimness that's taken them now. The fair is also the sad truth of memory, when we look back we tend to romanticize the past as being far greater than it truly was. They loved each other simply and easily then, but there were darker edges surrounding them always: Carl Beaumont's dealings with the mafia, and Bruce attempting to (and failing) to stop a robbery just outside of the fair. Hindsight isn't always 20/20.

By the end of the movie, we see Andrea as bordering insanity and so obsessed with revenge that she's willing to die for it. She disappears, presumably killed, and Alfred stitches Batman up in the cave. He mentions how revenge blackens the soul and says that he's always afraid that Bruce was going to fall into that same pit. Alfred goes on to say that there was no saving her, that she had been dead for a long time. Andrea's last words: "I am alone" says more about her character than anything Rachel could do in two movies, and Alfred's speech has more weight and meaning to it than "It's not who I am underneath" and "You either die a hero or become a jerk-off" could ever hope.  

The parallels of the revenger are again realized more as the movie reaches its climax. Batman is furious at the Joker. You see, it was a pre-Joker Jack Napier who was working for the mafia and killed Beaumont's father and set this modern revenge tragedy up in the first place. Batman's level of violence is raised to eleven and he is reckless in his actions, pitting himself in as much danger of dying as the Joker. However, when push came to shove, Batman was the voice of reason trying to keep Andrea from going too far. And that's Batman. He's willful and vengeful, but he doesn't kill, and that keeps him from becoming evil. It's a character defining moment. And that was the difference between Bruce and Andrea in the end--as Alfred said, it was too late for her.

On a related note, I don't mind seeing the pre-Joker Jack Napier working for the mafia in this capacity similar to Batman because we're given very little about him in this life. He has no dialogue and shows only his callousness when Andrea goes into her house to find her death father she screams, Napier just picks up an apple from the groceries she dropped, bites it and walks away. The mystery remains. Speaking of the Joker: they got it right. He was funny, scary, and he wasn't over or underused. One of Batman's flaws was Burton's overuse of the Joker. As the film went on his scenes didn't seem as special because he was in almost all of them. And he went underutilized in The Dark Knight because as far as I'm concerned he never made an appearance in it. Phantasm managed to strike a balance between less is more and doing more with less.

For a movie given a PG rating and sold to children, this is an extremely bloody and sexually explicit movie. Batman is a bloody mess at the end of the movie, Joker gets teeth knocked out, Andrea is beaten like an Italian housewife, and Bruce gets laid. Twice. Under no uncertain terms. This was pretty mind-blowing at seven and equally mind-blowing when I rediscovered it as a teenager. The action of the movie is hyper and exciting. It's cartoony, but still incredibly violent. This goes back to my complaint on live action superhero movies: what looks awesome in the comics and in the cartoons won't translate onto a live action screen. Imagine the climactic battle between Batman, Joker, and the Phantasm being played out by real people on a real set (more likely a real green screen, actually) with the World's Fair items being used as weapons, the tiny airplanes, the miniature city, the robot wife, and imagine the Phantasm's costume and how he disappears into smoke. Now imagine how silly it would look in live action.

Naturally, Batman is still a bit of a psycho. Once Andrea Beaumont comes into the present story, rather than call her up or send flowers to the door, Bruce hangs outside her apartment in the rain looking through binoculars, bugs her phone, and breaks in to rummage through her panties. That last one was just a joke, but not by much. It shows how intermixed these personalities have become. Bruce Wayne and Batman exist as a toxic relationship to one another, not unlike Bruce Wayne and Andrea Beaumont. They always lead to trouble. Their relationship is one of Batman's most important--and one of the best--because of the complexity of it. They're so similar in their methods and style of dress, they both lost their parents, they both desire/need revenge, they're both obsessed with their mission and they both want to end up with each other. It's all highly tragic without being maudlin like Peter Parker and Mary Jane and without being whiny...like Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Whereas Bruce loved Selina and Talia because they're the forbidden fruit and Bruce loved Zatanna because, well, you never forget your first, Andrea understood Bruce's mindset. They were mirrors of each other, playing out the same game but with slight differences. There's a Shakespearean tragedy rolled up in there.

The two pivotal Batman moments come at the middle point of the movie. The first is Bruce's decision to scrap the idea of being Batman to lead a happy life with Andrea. He realizes that he's reneging on his vow and goes to his parents' grave in the rain and asks for their forgiveness, that he wants a sign that he could be allowed to leave them. Bruce actually begins to weep a little, and says that he never counted on being happy. It's a powerful scene to watch. The animation, the music, Kevin Conroy's emoting, it's all quite perfect. It's all capped wonderfully by Andrea coming to him and saying that maybe they were meant to find each other, that it was his parents' way of saying he could be happy if he wanted to.

The second comes right after Andrea flees with her father. Bruce decides he has nothing left and figures now would be a good time to start attacking strangers in alleyways. Captured only in silhouette, we see Bruce hesitate before he puts on the mask, looking at it, realizing what he's about to do. He turns around and faces Alfred who exclaims "My God" and we see only the vorpal eyes and the black silhouette. Alfred's exclamation isn't one of fear exactly, but in reaction to what he realizes Bruce was becoming since the death of his parents. Alfred always attempted to keep Bruce from falling too far, and now sees that he has failed. Batman is the physical manifestation of Bruce's pain and now Alfred sees just what Bruce has let out onto the world. He's mourning the death of the boy he raised. 

All around, Phantasm manages to hit all the major points of the Batman/Bruce Wayne character. We see Batman search for evidence, his detective skills unravel major pieces of the mystery, we see Bruce Wanye's playboy image--his promiscuity, how it affects the poor slut, how no woman seems to measure up to Andrea--we see him obsess over his failures and ignore his victories, and we see him hope. That's a trait of Batman's that often gets ignored. Of any superhero he's the one who has the most hope--hope that he'll succeed, that people can become better, that there's a better world out there. Dick Grayson (as written by Peter Tomasi said this of Bruce after he "died"): "Thinking of Bruce kneeling here alone in the blood of his mom and dad - the cordite of the fired gun still fresh in the air ... it takes everything I have to hold the tears back. So much loss. It's strange how in the end that cold, evil deed even dictated my own future. I see Bruce. I see me. And seeing those old wax spots on the cave floor a few weeks ago got me thinking about the oath I made to Bruce ... and what it really means. The light from the candle didn't just help us see the words better that night ... The light from this candle was a beacon for the wounded soul of a young boy ... it helped me see a path of selflessness and devotion. Devotion to the common good. And this light must always shine no matter what. In those single life-altering moments ... we both had to depend on the kindness of strangers. And lucky for us ... they were caring and loving people ... at the end of all that pain and horror. Thank you, Bruce. There will always be hope in Gotham City."

I usually don't care for flashbacks in books or movies; often I think it's a stalling measure, but here it strikes a perfect balance between character and plot, and it sets up the coming events in a tragic way: we want good things to continue happening, but as the past and present stories reach their climax and begin to collide, each scene becomes more depressing and leads to the greater tragedy: that Batman will always be Batman, and he'll always be alone.


As much as I love this movie, I do have some problems with it. The revelation of Andrea Beaumont (who should be blonde in my opinion) being the Phantasm is a neat one. Surprising as all hell, but it doesn't make sense. She's too small, too short, and how would she have been able to push over the mortuary statue? God bless her, but she doesn't have the physicality to do all those things. I'm not even trying to be sexist here (really!). She says to Bruce she took a self defense class. That's not good enough. Also, at 76 minutes, the movie isn't long enough. If Phantasm had been a few minutes longer we could have been given a look at what Andrea's life had been like in the ten years in between the death of her father and the beginning of her revenge plot. It would have been nice to see how she, you know, managed to do these physically impossible things. With a longer run time we could see more of Bruce and Andrea in the present and have their relationship slowly begin to move towards each other again. We also could have seen what was going on in Bruce's mind when he decided to stop being Batman, we could how he felt when he realized the Phantasm was Andrea, and we could have seen how Alfred felt about all of this. He has a stake in this too, Alfred raised Bruce, so we should see him struggle as the surrogate father, trying to lead Bruce to sanity, and react to his disappointment when it all falls apart. And most of all, with the added run time, we could have avoided the same plot hole from Batman Returns that involved Batman being cleared of the charges off screen.

Those are pretty minor complaints, and when you look in the scope of the entire Batman-film catalogue, this one always stands out.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: 5 out of 5.

New content on 1/8/11.