Remember Mask of the Phantasm? That was a good movie. Well, this is not that. The plot here is that a new costumed vigilante has shown up in Gotham. She's wearing a costume similar to Batman's and I guess we're calling her Batwoman. So Batman has to figure out who she is. Thankfully we have female suspects coming out of our ears so it shouldn't take long.There is so much off about this I don't know where to start. First thing, I hate the "New Batman Adventures" animation style and character designs but I could overlook that if it was the only flaw. It's not. The music is terrible. There's a distinct lack of atmosphere throughout. The whole thing is weirdly upbeat, despite the subject matter of revenge against criminals. Bruce Wayne spends a lot of the movie smiling. But why shouldn't he when he's the object of desire for all the jailbait in Gotham? Which brings me to the grossest parts of this movie. First, you have barely legal Batgirl being interested in Batman which is just all kinds of wrong. Then you have another girl whose age is not stated but she is at most early '20s. She becomes the love interest for Bruce. What was the obsession with giving Bruce a hot young girlfriend in this? If they thought they were being progressive by creating these female characters and making them such a big part of the plot, here's a thought: how about romance having nothing to do with it? Was it impossible for them to do this clichéd plot without making it even more clichéd?The story is weak. I didn't care who Batwoman was as the mystery wasn't that intriguing to begin with but I was able to figure it out pretty quickly. It's so obvious it's insulting. Penguin, quite possibly the lamest of all of Batman's classic villains, is a poor choice to use here. He's so yawnworthy they have to bring Bane into things to try and introduce some actual menace to the plot. The worst part of the movie is that it's terribly dull. If it's not the worst of the animated Batman films, it's near the bottom.

SPOILERS.What do you get when you remove the subtly, the artistry, and development and pacing of "Batman: The Animated Series"? You get this.The art is more flash than substance here; even though the animation of the 1992 series wasn't always up to standards, it still felt better suited. The opening looks cheap and like it was a rushed tact-on addition.The writing is amateurish and makes clichés of all the characters we came to love. It's pretty bad when the best line 20 minutes in is a throw-away line by Alfred reading Dennis the Menace in the newspaper. It takes more than another 20 minutes before a good scene comes again.Speaking of menace, the menace of Thorne is gone. The Penguin is reduced to a mass arms dealer and not the artsy Shakespearian fiend previously known, and another actor takes over voicing. Batgirl is turned into a clichéd young woman love interest. Even black people are a little clichéd here. And what's wrong with Kevin Conroy's voice?Composer Lolita Ritmanis, whom contributed great efforts to B:TAS and S:TAS, seems to not have been inspired by this either, as the music doesn't hold a candle to the previous series and is sorely cheapened by being made with synths instead of an orchestra. Also, it lacks the class of earlier Timm efforts.Everything is rushed and it doesn't breath, it doesn't flow properly, and there's no investment; it just goes by the motions. I cringed several times.And if that weren't enough, the special ends with a terrible song.Just a terrible effort.

I thought the film could be a bit more complex,in a psychological sense perhaps, but the action and voice acting were top notch. The animation was heavy CG in many scenes, but very good ones at that. This is one of the Batman Returns/Forever type films, which include romances and the conflicts of Wayne and motives for dating. 007 fans would love this, and so would the females, great theme song! Wayne was portrayed very well in this film, and the Penquin was back to his true form, no mutant genes in him this time! I liked the fact Robin wasn't used too much, Tim Drake was just a good computer nerd, somewhat of an Indigo child or mind of the future.The supporting cast was made up of some soap opera stars, decent talents and the characters were drawn to look like the voice actors too. Kelly Ripa was hilarious in this film.I rate this below Phantasm, Return of the Joker, and Batman vs. Dracula, but liked the smarter script better than I enjoyed Subzero. 7/10

I give this movie 7 out of 10 because the villains were interesting in their roles and the unknown batwoman creates an interesting "guess who" game. The movie, however, needs more Robin in it. He appeared in the movie in the beginning and sporadically throughout the rest. I always thought the new animated series did little justice to the neat new Robin character, let alone Knightwing. This movie just continues that bad tradition. The movie spends too much time on Bruce Wayne and his romance which wouldn't be so bad in one movie if the romance wasn't so unbelievable. It is still a good movie if you are a Batman fan and I would recommend watching it.