Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero Review

 

Out of all the Batman films that have come out during my entire lifetime, this is the first movie that I saw when I was a child. I feel it’s more poetic since this is the last entry for the Bat-centric month of September. I remember my parents and I were in the local Blockbuster and the cover caught my eye. I enjoyed it since it had both Batman and Robin. As well as being entertaining.

Now, 20 some years later, I think it’s a weak follow up after Mask of the Phantasm. It barely reaches feature length. Meaning that its an hour and 10 minutes long. I think its interesting that it was supposed to be a tie-in with the live-action film Batman and Robin. To put it bluntly, Warner Bros. delayed SubZero since they probably didn’t want the film to be associated with the stinker. Both films had the villain Mr. Freeze and Batgirl but the animated one was way more mature than the George Clooney one. SPOILERS will appear in the review.

1.      Story

The film is fairly simple, Mr. Freeze is living quietly in the arctic with an Inuit boy and his wife Nora, I'll elaborate on her. A submarine crashes into the abode and causes Freeze to kill those aboard the sub.

Meanwhile in Gotham, Freeze finds his old associate Gregory Belson who bargains with him to help cure his wife. They both research that the wife has a rare blood type and finds that Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, has the same blood Freeze's wife has. I kind of found it odd during the moment Belson and Freeze were finding blood donors, Barbara just so happened to be the same height and have the same blood as Nora.

As Barbara and Dick Grayson, Robin, are out at a club, Mr. Freeze crashes the party and kidnaps Barbara. Batman and Robin mount a rescue mission and attempt to stop Mr. Freeze. I feel that the film should have been in the animated series as a two-part episode. Since the stakes are high but not something that involves Gotham.

There’s only so much to talk about the plot since it lacks the levity of what Phantasm had.

2.      Mr. Freeze

Aside from the Joker, the villain Mr. Freeze had his entire origin rewritten in the animated series and has been considered one of the best Batman villains. In the comics prior, he appeared as an atypical zany villain that was part of Batman’s rogues who wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously. When the animated series came out, showrunners Paul Dini and Bruce Timm changed the character's origins drastically. Which can still be seen in different medium such as video games and in the stinker Batman and Robin.

Freeze was a scientist who had a wife named Nora who was suffering from a disease. He cryogenically frozen her until he found a cure. He was turned into the villain when a shady humanitarian pushed him into chemicals which made him only survive in the bitter cold. While he never craved domination, he only resorted to extreme acts of violence to find a cure for his wife. He appeared in three episodes in Batman: The Animated Series and in one episode in the spinoff Batman Beyond.

He demonstrates the violence, but he isn’t alone in the movie. As I mentioned before, Gregory Belson was an associate for Freeze. He assists with helping him when the villain tempts Belson with a clump of gold. It’s established that Belson was in financial hole that he takes the gold and helps Freeze.

3.      Bad CGI

I know that the film was released in ’98, but I feel that the use of CGI was really forced. I find it hard to believe that Disney, who pioneered CG with computer animation made the use of computer imagery and traditional animation coalesce. Although, it looks half-assed and inconsistent in this one. For instance, the beginning has the submarine be CGI including the arctic environment. When it breaches Freeze’s home there’s a shot where the top of submarine is a matte painting.  

Now, I can understand that the budget isn’t in the millions, but I don’t understand the insistence of implementing CGI. I would’ve liked it if it had played it straight with just having it be traditionally animated. I think the worst example is when the dynamic duo are about to takeoff to rescue Barbara. The Batplane looks okay, but why is Alfred CG’d? When he appears, he looks stiff. I wonder if they tried to animate him traditionally, but it didn’t look quite right. That’s just my theory.

Overall

            As a direct to video movie, its okay. Most of the complaints I have are just mainly on the visual aesthetics. Such as the film having a 1940s vibe but clashing with the 90s. I would’ve wanted to be just as good as Mask of the Phantasm. Though I can see why it was originally supposed to be a tie-in with a lesser movie. It’s a good Batman movie but not one of the best.

            Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero gets a 3 out of 5.