Genre Guesstimation – Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by Bubbawheat of Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights and we will be reviewing our favorite Animated Comic Book/Strip Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Feb by sending them to animatedbubbawheat@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Bubbawheat!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Animated Comic Book/Strip Movies..…

“Ah, brave new world, that has such putzes in it. ” – The Joker

Number of Times Seen – 1 (23 Feb 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Years after the Joker’s death, he reappears in Gotham and Bruce Wayne and his new protege Batman must try and find out how that is possible and stop this new menace.

My Take on it – As a fan of the Batman story lines, I was pleasantly surprised to come across this film which is a stand alone story that takes place many years into the future.

This allows us to see the future of Gotham, while also seeing it’s new savior since Bruce Wayne has grown too old to fight crime on the streets.

The way that he trains his protege works really well and we get to see how together they keep crime off the streets of Gotham.

The film has a great voice cast and I loved hearing both Kevin Conway and Mark Hamill as the Batman and Joker respectively.

The film has a great futuristic look to everything and it adds so much more gravitas to the story of batman because we get to see how things have progressed in numerous ways over the years.

The film has a great premise and does a superb job raising the ante over and over as the surprises keep coming along the way.

The story is presented in a very realistic and plausible way that also adds so much to things.

Bottom Line – Great stand alone Batman story that takes us years into the future. It allows us to see the Gotham of tomorrow where Bruce Wayne can no longer be Batman and is in the process of training a new protege to keep the city safe from crime. The voice cast is great and allow us to really feel these characters since both Conway and Hamill are back in these roles. Really liked seeing this futuristic look at things and it helps give the story of the Batman so much more gravitas because we see how things progressed over the years. The film’s premise works quite well and seems quite plausible by the way it is presented. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The original cut of this film was much more violent than the final version, including, among other scenes, the young Robin/Tim Drake shooting and killing a character with a spear gun. After the tragedy in Columbine, studio pressure forced a new cut of the film be produced. Several scenes were snipped and re-edited to achieve the final PG rating. After the film had been released for some time, the original PG-13 version was released separately as an uncut version. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Comes awfully close. The story works really well but something is missing taht would help push it over the edge.

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)