Mask of the Phantasm
Happy coincidences abound in this world – as I write this post, I am actually watching the film on Boomerang!
I now forgive them – a little bit – for dropping Thundarr, SWAT Kats, and Centurions from their afternoon lineup. I’m sure I’ll hate them again the next time I come home and the only thing on is Snorks.
Now, a little buildup in the 3 minutes leading up to the film. Mask of the Phantasm was the first of a small handful of feature-length productions done for Batman: The Animated Series (TAS), the brilliant series that followed the 1989 revival of the franchise with Tim Burton’s film. Several years down the line, Mask of the Phantasm came out. It was serious, it was mature, it was romantic, and it was tragic… in short, it was brilliant.
It was a total flop.
Why, I really don’t know… I tend to blame, as my brother does, the “ghettofication” of cartoons; the idea that animated shows aren’t suitable for adults to watch, and the PG-13 rating on this one did *not* mark it out for the kiddie audience. But I love it all the same. Now, as I watch it for probably the thousandth time, I’m going to go on about why.
Most of what makes Mask of the Phantasm work is the same thing that made TAS work in general. Beautiful art, sweeping gothic designs, and that most rarified quality in any work of mass-market fiction… maturity. It takes place in a corrupt city placed somewhere between the 20’s and the 90’s, a world trapped simultaneously in the eras of the Shadow, Doc Savage, Sam Spade, and The Punisher. That the film was even more mature than the series is what earned it that PG-13 rating… and what makes me put it at the pinnacle of Batman movies.
Spoilers shall follow.
The film opens on Chucky Sol and a bunch of other gangsters examining a shipment of counterfeits, when Batman breaks in. A firefight ensues, and Chucky escapes into the parking garage… only to be confronted by an ominous figure who announces that his ‘angel of death awaits.’ Mistaking this figure for the Batman, he opens fire, before fleeing to his car and attempting to run the man down… only to miss, running his car out the side of the parking garage.
We next meet one of Gotham’s councilmen, an anti-Batman crusader who spends his time railing against the Batman… and trying to make some moves on one Miss Andrea Beaumont, an old flame of Bruce’s.
The heart of this film, really, is the relationship between Bruce and Andrea. What we begin to discover throughout the film is that Andrea was the girl who almost made Batman never happen. Bruce and Andrea meet in the cemetery, of all places – Bruce is visiting his parents’ grave, during the months leading up to his becoming Batman. Andrea is having a conversation with her deceased mother, which turns around to be about Bruce. They begin a courtship that gradually becomes more and more serious, and is fleshed out enough that it actually feels like a real courtship. This isn’t your typical whirlwind romance – this is Bruce Wayne, before he surrenders his life to the cape and cowl, finding out that there’s more to life than pain and revenge. Granted, it moves quickly, but there’s enough there that it feels like an honest relationship more than your typical ‘love at first sight’ sequence, where the hero throws his life away for somebody he’s known all of five minutes.
Perhaps oddly, the scenes are interspersed with some of his early crimefighting capers… typically unsuccessful ones. At the same time that the Batman is being born, Bruce is beginning to waver in his conviction to the promise he made his parents.
But, as we all know, this couldn’t last. Andrea flees the country with her father, a lawyer who seems to have some shady business dealings with a few local gangsters, the very night she agrees to marry Bruce… and the next day, when Alfred tells him the bad news just after he’s come up from what will become the Batcave, it’s like fate closing the door. The next scene is Bruce donning the cowl for the first time… and Batman being born.
Now, back in the modern day, we have the “Angel of Death” continuing to hunt down mobster associates of Chucky Sol. This figure, the Phantasm, wears a large blade on one hand, and seems to generate fog everywhere he goes. Unlike Batman, he doesn’t just turn his victims over to the police when they commit a crime – he hunts them down anywhere he can find them, and he kills them, terrorizing them first. With two deaths down, one of the remaining mobsters (Sal Valestra, a liver-spotted emphysemic) goes to speak to the last of his old cronies, seeking protection….
Unfortunately, that last one happens to be the Joker.
Mask of the Phantasm’s plot works between two different extremes; the romance of the past, and the mystery of the present. The ties between the two eras are constantly harkened to, as they shift between timeframes in ways that play nicely with the similarities between them. For example, Bruce staring up at the looming portrait of his parents shifts back to his visiting their grave. His rain-soaked embrace with Andrea in the past, just after a tearful confession to his dead parents that he doesn’t have the heart to fight the way he’d promised anymore, moves to his perching alone in darkness, the iconic image of the future that came of his decision that he *would* fight. Watching Andrea go out to dinner with the Councilman, where she mentions the future, brings back their memories of going on a date to the “World of the Future” exhibit at the Gotham World’s Fair… a relic of a past they both long for, that symbolizes a future they can’t have, and that serves as the backdrop for the final battle between the Phantasm, Batman, and the final target of the Phantasm’s rampage… the Joker himself.
This is also when we discover that the Phantasm, who Bruce has persuaded himself is Andrea’s father come back for revenge and to kill the men who’ve hounded him around the world, is really Andrea. One final flashback tells us that the Joker himself was the one who hunted down her father (with the Councilman’s help), and killed him, before he was the Joker. But Andrea – and, eventually, Bruce – both recognize him yet. Eventually, everything comes to a head. The Phantasm confronts the Joker, Batman hunts her down to try and save her… and we have an epic battle between three titans, each reflecting the spectrum of Batman’s existence.
The Phantasm, aptly referred to by the Joker as “the Ghost of Christmas Future,” who represents what Batman could so easily become. The Joker, who represents sheer madness and lunacy, a Nero who laughs as his world burns around him. And Batman, a good man who walks the fine line between sanity and madness, good and evil… and who is eventually doomed to be unable to save that happy past he longed for from the dark future he lives in.
As you might imagine, Andrea supposedly dies in the final battle, along with the Joker, disappearing into the ruins of the World of the Future as it explodes, hurling Batman clear. Batman retreats to mop up what’s left of his life… only to find that somebody’s been in the Batcave, and secreted Andrea’s pendant there. Our closing shot is of Andrea, standing alone on the deck of a cruise ship, leaving Gotham and her past behind, forever.
Now, spoiler-ridden synopsis completed, let’s take a look at the main theme I like about this film.
Mask of the Phantasm is, ultimately, Batman’s version of the film noir. The major players in this drama already know the hand that fate has dealt them. The past, that place of hopes and dreams and happiness, lies in ruins. The future that once looked so bright is twisted and rusted to nothingness, the domain of madmen like the Joker. When Batman encounters Andrea and the Joker in the World of the Future, we already know what’s going to happen. There’s no other way for it to end – the future has consumed Bruce’s past, and Andrea’s. As much as you might look back longingly, you’ve got no choice but to keep going forward, sailing off into the night. The more I’ve watched this movie over the years, the more I enjoy it, and the more I pick up deeper filmic elements than you’d normally see anybody dare to put into a kid’s movie.
All of this aside though… does it justify calling this the greatest Batman film of all time? Well, I think so… but I’ll admit, I’m a little biased. So here’s what I’m gonna do.
I have a copy of this that I bought on DVD. I have *another* copy that came in a boxed set with Return of the Joker and Sub Zero, but I can’t find it just now. However, when I *do* find it… I plan on holding a little contest. The winner takes home a brand-new, unwatched copy of Mask of the Phantasm of their very own. The rules?
Honestly, I don’t know yet. But keep tuning in once in a while to find out – as soon as I know them, I’ll post them here for everybody to see. 
So, what’s in line for next week? Well, hopefully, contest guidelines.
But beyond that, and whether or not I can find my prize package, I plan on giving you all a look into my twisted little brain, as we see what I would like to see (and know I won’t) for the third movie in the Batman Begins series.
Here’s a hint. It’s got a thing or two to do with our current offering….
