There have been a lot of different Batmans, ranging from the Adam Westverse
Batman to the Dark Knights of Christopher Nolan and Frank Miller. This Batman of
this 1930s looking cartoon-universe probably “knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men.” He is still very much the Dark Knight and Bruce Wayne fans know
and love, but several regular supporting characters have been altered for dramatic
and/or other purposes in creator Bruce Timm’s 10-part animated series Batman:
Caped Crusader, which premieres tomorrow on Prime.
For
a lot of fans, the absence of a Robin is maybe goods news. Regardless, the gist
of Batman’s backstory remains the same, but he is not yet working cooperatively
with Commissioner Gordon. He is still considered a vigilante, whom the
conspicuously corrupt mayor wants behind bars. However, crooked cops like Dets.
Flass and Bullock clearly are not up to the challenge.
Since
those two are on the take, new crime lord (or rather lady) Oswalda Cobblepot,
a.k.a. The Penguin, only has Batman to worry about. Rather colorfully, Timm and
co-writer Jase Ricci reconceive the supervillain as ribald torch-singer in the
Sophie Tucker tradition. Minnie Driver’s voice perfectly positions her as the
psychotic Auntie Mame of super-villainy. It is the rare case of gender-swapping
that comes across as clever rather than unnecessarily forced.
In
fact, Timm and Ricci nicely balance the usual suspects with some fresher
choices, like Oenomania and Clayface. The latter’s civilian alter-ego, horror
movie actor Basil Karlo, is appropriately given features reminiscent of Boris Karloff
and Peter Cushing.
However,
Greg Rucka’s script for “And Be a Villain,” directed by Matt Peters, does not
embrace the 1930’s Universal monster aesthetic to the extent Timm did in his
2014 short film, Batman: Strange Days, the unofficial, retroactive pilot
for Caped Crusader. In a mere three minutes, Timm stylishly created a “Batman
vs. Frankenstein,” using Hugo Strange and his “Monster Man” as surrogates for
the infamous mad scientist and his creation.
Arguably,
Strange Days, is more visually arresting than anything in the series,
but the Film Noir, vintage Warner Brother gangster movie world-building
hospitably suits this alternate Batman. Timm and company also deviate from
standard lore in unexpected but not disrespectful ways when they introduce Selina
Kyle in “Kiss of the Catwoman” and Harley Quinn in “The Stress of Her Regard.”
Again, Christina Ricci and Jamie Chung are shrewdly cast as the respective
super-femme fatales.
In
between, the fourth episode, “Night of the Hunters,” boldly ends on an
ironically pessimistic note. Even though Batman averts tragedy, some of the bad
guys are empowered. “Night Ride” also takes a risk breaking format to allow for
a supernatural storyline, without a Scooby-Doo explanation. Linton Midnite is a
cool and intriguingly morally ambiguous addition to the “Caped Crusader”
universe. Voice performer Cedric Yarbrough brings a lot to later episodes, both
as Midnite and Rupert Thorne, the mob boss trying to corrupt DA Arthur Dent,
who appropriately looks and sounds a lot like Norman Mailer.
Horror movies hate the 1950s. It was a time of stability and economic growth.
What a nightmare. Thank goodness the last few years have been nothing like
that. Unfortunately, that is the decade Laura Butler is living in, or at least a
stylized version of it. The going was already tough for her, after she left her
abusive husband, with their withdrawn son, Cody. Then she starts to suspect a
mysterious supernatural something is out to get her son in Chris Sivertson’s Monstrous,
which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.
It
is supposed to be the 1950s, but there is something too conspicuously off for
viewers to accept the world as it is presented. Butler’s sun dresses are a
little too perfect and her forced cheer is a little too desperate. In the
aftermath of her husband’s latest violent episode, Butler fled with Cody, starting
over in a vaguely Southern small town. Somehow, she lined up a new job, new
house, and a new school with remarkable efficiency. Their rental is even furnished,
but one of the books on the shelf looks like Inflation: A Worldwide Disaster,
by Irving Friedman, published in the early 1970s. Don’t blame the art
department for that. Blame Sivertson, who let my attention wander.
Initially,
Cody was terrified of lady-creature in the nearby lake, but soon he is talking
to her like an old imaginary friend. Logically,
that starts to terrify Butler. As Cody becomes even more anti-social, she
become increasingly distraught.
Honestly,
it gets tiresome to always be so far ahead of a film. Monstrous largely
feels like parts of Miss Meadows re-edited into Jacob’s Ladder
(and Miss Meadows wasn’t so great to begin with). These days it is
streaming series like Severance and Shining Girls that deliver genuine
surprises, while far too many films merely recycle elements.
Soccer teams and charter flights have a notorious history together—and so it
continues. Recently, most charter flights for teen women have flown straight
into disaster, at least in streaming series, like The Wilds. Twenty-five
years later, none of the survivors of this crash want to talk about their
harrowing ordeal, at all. That is fine by their mysterious blackmailer, who
starts sending them cryptic postcards in creator-writers Ashley Lyle & Bart
Nickerson’s Yellowjackets, which premieres tomorrow on Showtime.
The
New Jersey girls’ high school state champions were on their way to nationals when
their plane crashed somewhere in the remote Pacific Northwest mountains. It is
a shame to miss the national championship, but it still might be better than
Jersey, at least until their food starts to run out. There is also some
distinctly bad mojo surrounding the cabin they discover. One of them is
starting to freak out, maybe because she has a touch of the “shine.”
Regardless, we know they will end up in some kind of bloody conflict from
the fleeting fragments we are shown.
So,
what happened exactly? Obviously, it deeply scarred Shauna Sheridan, who carries
a heavy burden of remorse in the contemporary scenes. She also feels guilty for
marrying her late bestie’s boyfriend, with whom she was secretly hooking up.
Taissa Turner is maybe even more determined to keep the past buried, since she
is running for the New Jersey State Senate (supposedly to bring in great
changes as a crusading liberal, but since Dems have controlled the Jersey legislature
since 2002, she’s really just offering more of the same).
Natalie
is the wildcard, fresh out of rehab, but she does not want anyone shining a
light on their time in the woods either and she is willing to wave around a
shotgun to make her point. Initially, she suspects Misty Quigley, who back in
the day was the geeky team trainer nobody liked. However, she reluctantly agrees
to work with Quigley, a self-proclaimed amateur detective, to investigate their
postcards, despite her suspicious eagerness.
If
you dig flashbacks (or flashforwards) than this is the show for you. It is not
that they are confusing. It is a question of pacing, based on the six episodes
provided for reviewers (out of ten). The first episode is by far the worst
offender, which is surprising, since it is the one helmed by Karyn Kusama (Destroyer,
The Invitation), but it often has the tone of a deliberately over the top
WB teen melodrama spoof. The next five get smarter and tighter in dealing with
all the dark secrets, but it really should be further along by the end of its
sixth installment. As Scotty the reporter in The Thing from Another World would
say, Yellowjackets nurses its secrets like a June bride.
