Customer Reviews

Batman Beyond - The Movie

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is something of a rarity. Not only do you get the first two episodes of Batman Beyond, or 'the Movie' as they call it, but you get four more episodes as well. This, is just speaking on the value vs. the VHS version. The VHS version gives you 'The Movie' and that's it. The DVD gives you tons more value, and it has a french language track for those of you who's Primary language is French. Oui? Now. On to the story. Batman Beyond as a whole is a wonderful departure but continuation of the legacy of Batman. We get to see Bruce Wayne, not as the hero, but as a mentor for a new Batman. Set in the future of Gotham City, Bruce Wayne has long since hung up his cowl (although the opening scene has him as Batman but I don't wish to spoil it) and has sit by and watched his own company become corrupt. There are some nice references to the original Animated Series and it ties in beautifully. If you're an Animated Series fan, I HIGHLY recommend this great value on DVD. If you don't have a DVD player, get one instead of buying the VHS version.

It is truly unfortunate that the animated film is considered "fodder" for children in this country. In Europe and Japan animation is given the respect that it so richly deserves. The writers and artists struggle long and hard to produce quality stories and they are entitled to some recognition.

The genre is no better served than in this latest in the continuing saga of one Bruce Wayne, AKA Batman. To place the character as an elderly man who finds a worthy successor in the form of student Terry McGinnis was truly genius at work.

The film has its share of violence that is essential to plot development. Persons who feel that the violence is inappropriate for children need to know that this is not a film designed solely for small fry. It is a movie for anyone who has ever thumbed through the pages of the comic book or sat in the theater watching the exploits of "THE DARK KNIGHT."

As was in the case of the other Batman series, Kevin Conroy provides the voice of the mature Bruce Wayne; Will Friedle provides the right vocal balance between student and "superhero."

Rumor has it that the "Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker" is being edited to "tone down the violent content." If this is true, then one might want to buy "Batman Beyond - The Movie" before it is recalled and receives a hatchet job.

Great DVD! Starts off the Batman Beyond series. The stories are interesting and though the style animation is not exactly new, but has the new and unique intersting twist of being staged in the future. They have done a great job with it.

ONE WARNING!!! If you want season one do not buy this! There are 13 episodes on season one and this DVD has 6 of them! This would get 5 stars if you were not able to get all of them on the season one DVD. I felt just a little ripped off.

With FIVE new Batman DVD's being released on April 23, 2002 (including Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: The Original Cut!) and Justice League quickly becoming the biggest show on Cartoon Network, I thought now would be a fine time to revisit Batman Beyond: The Movie.

I remember the night when 'Rebirth' (aka BB: The Movie)premired. I had a history project due the next day, but I made sure to block out an hour to watch the new series. I was definitely NOT disappointed. Unfortunately, the series didn't always live up to the high quality of that first night, or the quality of the shows before it. Fans who have watched all three seasons of Batman Beyond know that while the episodes have been good, only a third of them really harkened back to the spirit of the original series. Most of season 2, for example, was wasted with teen angst plots (a tough love boarding school, a psychotic robotic girlfriend) underdeveloped villains (a father is laid off, builds a power suit and turns to crime, a terrorist organization with a new ripped from GI Joe), and the character Max, the annoying sidekick who more often than not robbed Terry of character development by doing things for him. Granted, the episodes were always fun to watch, but they never really had the emotional and intellectual impact Batman: TAS was famous for. On the plus side of things, most of the episodes in the 1st season were excellent, and this DVD manages to deliver six of those.

BB: The Movie starts out with an intro that manages to develop the original Batman (Bruce Wayne), and set up why he gave up the cowl. It's a breathtaking opening, and features the new Batsuit in a not-quite futuristic world. The story then moves on to introduce Terry, the new Batman, his chance meeting with Wayne, and his motivations for donning the suit. There are lots of classic moments in this two-parter: Bruce beats off a gang of Jokerz, smirking at their attempts to imitate the original clown prince of crime; Terry banging on the gates to Wayne Manor, demanding for Bruce to let him in because he has vital info concerning a viral plague; Bruce and Terry talking about the death of Bruce's parents and how Terry's situation is similiar. All in all, a nice self-contained movie that sets up the characters and villains well.

The other four bonus episodes on this disc are just as great. One episode is a teen angst episode about a boy and his robot, but it's well done in the way that it focuses more on the boy than Batman, which is how the majority of the villains in the original series were introduced. Another episode has the return of Mr. Freeze (need I say more?). The third episode features a romance similiar to the Batman/Catwoman relationship of the past, and, though melodramatic at times, is fun to watch. The weakest episode is The Winning Edge, which features someone selling Bane's venom formula to kids on the street. The 'say no to drugs message' becomes overly obvious, and the surprise villain isn't really that great. However, six episodes still means two hours of entertainment, which makes it just as long as any feature length film.

I'd give this disc a solid recommendation except for one problem: One of the episodes, Black Out, is missing. Not only was this a fantastic episode, it also ruins the chronological order of the episodes on this DVD (all the episodes are in order, with the omission of Black Out). Because of the new DVD's, petitions have been created to release all Batman Beyond episodes on DVD. This might mean if you buy this disc now, another edition might come out later with the missing episode on it. This is nowhere near definite, but it's something to consider.

Based solely on this disc, not on what special editions the future might bring, I recommend Batman Beyond: The Movie. Great animation, music, and acting make this a must-have.

A few years after the end of Batman: The Animated Series, I saw an ad for a new series that featured a new Batman in a future Gotham City. And, horrors - Bruce Wayne/Batman was an OLD MAN, unrecognizable from the form BTAS fans are accustomed to. I refused to watch it, thinking it was kind of a travesty.

But when I mentioned my concerns to a friend, he said it was good. So I checked it out, and am so glad I did. BB is the continuation of the Dark Knight and the city he protects. Bruce Wayne has become quite old, and even more stubborn. Alfred has passed away, so the only companion for the old man is a dog, Ace. Ace is no ordinary dog. I happen to remember buying the comic when Ace was re-introduced in the 1990's. Ace is Wayne's intelligent guardian and helper. Bruce Wayne is secluded in his manor, all the memoribilia of his crime-fighting days lovingly displayed in the now unused Batcave. Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, is now the aging commissioner of police, taking her father's former position. The elder Gordon has also passed away.

Enter Terry McGinnis. A brash, handsome young man with the same black hair and blue eyes as his predecessors, he stumbles upon Wayne and his secret. Wayne and McGinnis clash, and through a touching series of events and flashbacks, there is a new Batman, with the original Batman at the helm.

Batman Beyond is proof that Batman lives, that his legacy is enduring and what he stands for will last forever, even if he will not. Criminals will still look up at the night sky and shudder with fear just by hearing his name.

At first I was worried about this new Batman, considering they weren't going to use Dick Greyson or even Tim Drake. However, Terry McGinnis has proven that he is a capable addition to the Bat-Family. The story here shows both an older Bruce Wayne and younger Terry facing the reality that you can never go back to the way things were. For any Bat-Fans, I highly recommend this movie

In this future version of Gotham City, Bruce Wayne is an old man, long retired from being BatMan. Dick Grayson's fate is unknown (though its hinted in this series that he still lives), Babara Gordon is now the police Commissoner, her father James Gordon has passed on as has Alfred. Tim Drake, the second Robin, is AWOL (though we learn his fate later in BatMan Beyond: Return Of The Joker).

In a twist of fate, Terry McGinnes becomes the new Dark Knight with a reluctant Bruce Wayne as his mentor. This DVD features the premiere of this series as well as 4 additional episodes from the series.

BATMAN BEYOND (Pilot) - Bruce Wayne has been retired from being BatMan for over 20 years. In that time, his family company was bought out by crooked businessman Dereck Powers and Gotham is not what it once was. When Powers has a worker murdered to cover up one of his crooked dealings, Terry McGuiness (the worker's son) wants justice. Thus, through a series of events, he becomes the new BatMan to take down Powers.

GOLEM - A kid at Terry's high school becomes fed up with being bullied and uses a giant robot called The Golem to take revenge on those that bullied him.

WINNING EDGE - During a robbery, the new Batman discovers that one of the robbers is a kid at his high school. This mystery leads him down a trail that points to one of the original Batman's old enemies......BANE!

DEAD MAN'S HAND - The Royal Flush Gang returns to Gotham to loot and seek revenge on Batman......problem is, one of its members falls for him!

MELTDOWN - Still alive after 50 years, Mr. Freeze is given a new chance at life only to be duped into a dangerous experiment! Seeking revenge, he battles both Batman and a new enemy.....BLIGHT!

This DVD gives you a good introduction into the world of the new Batman as he battles new enemies plus updated versions of the original Batman's old enemies! I'd recommend this along with Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker!

It's certainty been quite a lackluster decade for the Dark Knight of Gotham City with such massively disheartening creative travesties such as the departure of Tim Burton from creative helm ship over the film series, Joel Schumacher's (Batman Forever, Batman and Robin) misfortunately offensive one-dimensional cheapening of the entire Batman film franchise, the shamefully overly embellished stereotypical performances of Uma Thurman (holy horny Chlorophyll Batman), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Oozing with frozen ham in every bite!), Tommy Lee Jones (Golden Raspberry quality for both performances), and Jim Carrey (Please give him some Valium!), Batman having been contradictory played by a different person in virtually every sequel (Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney), the notable absence of a Knightfall film adaptation, and Kurt Russell being recommended as the next Batman might have suggested that Batman had finally been dealt a destructive fatal blow by an uncreative excessively formulistic Hollywood machine.

Thankfully however, Batman only required a timely and compelling revitalization of the Caped Crusader's mythos, atmospheric landscape, criminal adversaries, psychological complexities, and thematic significance as a crime fighter. All of which and substantially more were provided amply in Warner's Brother's new animated motion picture Batman Beyond: The Movie. Bitingly refreshing in its sheer story-telling audacity, Batman Beyond: The Movie chronicles the untimely retirement of Bruce Wayne as Batman after Wayne's physical prowess seriously fails him for the first time in his illustrious career after a botched kidnapping rescue attempt forces the once physically immaculate crime fighter to threaten a condescending hoodlum at gunpoint. Twenty years later, Gotham City had become profusely submerged into a searing plague of rampant youth crime, beleaguered by widespread fraudulent corporate treachery, and ultimately had deteriorated into a grotesquely dynamic breeding hotbed for countless hordes of technology competent super villains and physically aggressive social outcasts.

Purposely isolated and outlandishly secluded from the world he previously protected, Bruce Wayne steadfastly monitors world events in his lavishly dilapidated mansion ominously overlooking the Fritz Lang-eque metropolis below. Until one day, when a young impetuously irresponsible young man, Terry McGinnis, toting a similarly tragic past unintentionally unearths the nocturnal skeletons in Wayne's rather substantial closet. After numerous innovative progressive narrative twists, Terry assumes the Batman mantle and endeavors to bring law and order back upon Gotham once again.

Displaying a dash of Orwell's 1984, a minuscule aroma of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and some of the visual bravado from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Batman Beyond: The Movie represents quite a considerable narrative evolution for the animated motion picture. Enveloping the viewer with a massively intoxicating animated parable of Paradise Lost translated to comic book proportions, Batman Beyond: The Movie remains a vigorously gripping comic caper inordinately graced with uncommonly diverse characterizations, keenly perceptive sociological insights, profusely diabolical plot twists, and an inordinately gripping comprehension of it's source materials. I for one was extensively flabbergasted by the film's deft integration of the classic Batman motifs immersed with the sci-fi based innovations of the Batman Beyond's present storyline. Though hindered slightly by the pitfalls of having a teenage protagonist storyline crossbreed with the gargantuan Batman canvas, Batman Beyond atypically represents the definite potential of sharply conceived and breathlessly executed action animation. A sheer pleasure for anyone who likens themselves a Batman fan.

As for the film's DVD features, Batman Beyond: The Movies also contains four other Batman Beyond episodes and the film's theatrical trailer for your viewing pleasure. A Definitive Must for any fan highly sophisticated animation.

P.S. Substantial kudos should go to the Warner Brothers Animation Department for single-handedly reaffirming and redeeming the Batman legend for an entire new generation of prospective fans everywhere.

If you own the Batman Beyond DVDs, you don't need Batman Beyond The Movie. This item consist of the first four episodes from disc one of the first season. If your interested in this , just buy the first season of the series its worth it.

Batman Beyond the series is a great edition to your DVD collection, if you happen like Batman the animated series.

I can not express how much I love this DVD. I'm sure alot has been said about this DVD / Series. So I'll get to the point. This is NOT for kids, its totally a PG13 genre. On this DVD you get 2 things:

#1- 'The Movie' which is basically a full hour or so, to ease you into the new world and explaining of how the NEW Batman is reborn and takes you into a very cool emotional ride till the end.

#2: you get 4 episodes, eachone is about 25mins or so long, they are awesome, they introduce you to new villians and old villians in a NEW way.

This DVD is one of my favorites, even though I know the story of Batman Beyond almost word for word, I just can't get enough of it, the music is totally Head Banging to..and you will fall in the love with the characters.. the dialoge is never cheesy. its an action film first and for most, and an animation second.

This is must have for the new generation Batman lovers, screw the WB this is the real thing :D