Batman (1966)

What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Ed Grant

The stars of the 1960s TV series jumped onto the big screen for this Dynamic Duo adventure in which an inventor and his "dehydration machine" are abducted by a quartet of super-villains: Catwoman (Lee Meriwether), The Joker (Cesar Romero), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), and The Riddler (Frank Gorshin). The quartet plots to hold for ransom the United Nations security council. The foreign dignitaries will be dehydrated (reducing them to powder), and re-hydrated if the ransom is met. In pursuit, Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) engage the villains in goofy fight scenes, though physical contact between the brawlers is often covered by the movies famous onscreen exclamations ("POW!). Viewers are briefly led to believe that Batman has been blown up. He is quickly shown to have survived.

Is It Any Good?

Fans of the old TV show will welcome the opportunity to experience once again all of the series' hallmarks: the unforgettable Neal Hefti theme music, the spinning batsign, the pop-art exclamations, and Robin's "Holy!" hyperbole. Viewers unfamiliar with the TV series will have to judge the movie on its own merits, which are few. Batman contains none of the mock tension and suspense that was such a major component of the original TV series. The sparse usage of the TV show's silly narration also undercuts the comedy. The talents of the zany villains from the TV series are wasted, as they are seen merely scheming instead of showing their bizarre quirks.

At some points, Batman becomes an out-and-out comedy (as when our hero combats a rubber shark), further ensuring that kids used to the tightly-scripted and intelligently plotted animated series, animated movies like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and the grimly heroic live-action Batman Returns will have little use for this quaint, ironic fossil from another era.