Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero

Review by Jason Gaston

 

With the Batman live action franchise being flushed down the toilet thanks to the inept bungling of Batman & Robin, the creators of the animated series stepped up to the plate and decided to show everyone how to tell a Mr. Freeze story.

Completely ignoring Joel Schumacher and Akiva Goldsman's blight on the Batman universe, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero depicts Mr. Freeze as the tragic character he's supposed to be and not some muscle hea- moron who wants to make nasty with a plant lady.

Due to an accident, Mr. Freeze' frozen wife is dying and the only way to save her is an organ transplant. The problem is, she has a rare blood type and, unfortunately for Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, she happens to share the same type.

So, Freeze kidnaps Barbara to save his wife's life and it's up to Batman and Robin to find her and stop Freeze from icing Batgirl once and for all.

Here, Mr. Freeze is presented as the tragic and obsessed character he was meant to be from the beginning. Not only that, but Batgirl is actually presented as a mature and capable crime fighter and Robin is the right hand man of Batman and not an annoying and awkward sidekick as he was in the live action movies.

Subzero works because writer producers Bruce Timm, Randy Rogel and Boyd Kirkland know the Batman characters. They can write intelligent dialogue for them and still keep a sense of humor without resorting to annoying camp.  Here, the characters are treated maturely and the intelligence of the audience is respected.

There are a few problems with the movie as CGI is needlessly placed among the traditional 2-D animation making for some pretty distracting and strange looking action scenes, but all in all, this is a great movie especially when you consider it was made just to show up the live action Hollywood folks.