Batman: The Movie (1966)

“Holy costumed party! That’s the Penguin! ” – Robin

Number of Times Seen – a few times (Cable, video and 12 May 2014)

Brief Synopsis – Batman and Robin must defend Gotham and the World’s leaders when the 4 most lethal criminals (Joker, Catwoman, Riddler and The Penguin) join forces

My Take on it – As a kid, I loved watching reruns of the Batman TV show from the 60’s.

At the time, I never realized how silly it truly was and just enjoyed the comical crime fighting scenarios.

I saw the movie a few times during those days and liked the idea of combining the 4 villains together to fight Batman and Robin.

Watching this now, I can even see merit in the plot and would be curious to see what a modern moviemaker could do with such an interesting storyline.

Unfortunately, the dialogue, and acting here is too campy, it’s more fun to laugh AT than laugh with.

Here are a few very laughable points about this movie:

• shark repellant – why would a Batcopter have numerous kinds of oceanic spray repellants aboard?
• who is flying the helicopter? – Robin climbs down the rope ladder to help Batman fend off a shark, how does the Batcopter still hover above with no one to pilot it?
• how do they change their clothes automatically? instant costume change lever is prominent EVERY time they slide down the BatPole
• great idea about how they tricked Schmidlapp into thinking he was at Sea by splashing water on teh window of his room and rocking the room back and forth.
• why is everything labeled in the Batcave? Magnifying glass? Film Developing tank? Navigational Aid Computer? Super molecular dust separator. Hilarious!
• love how the batcopter and batboat are stored in plain site and the batcycle in a bush.  Shouldn’t they be worried some villain would come and steal them?
• the riddles were hilariously stupid
• never notices the painted eyebrows on Batman’s mask.  Was howling with laughter over those.

All in all, it was a fun movie to watch, but it won’t win very many awards.

Bottom Line – Very Campy movie. Good plot that could possibly be re-tooled today to work well, but the dialogue and acting are horrendous

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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