Sub Zero

After I watched Mask of the Phantasm and playing Arkham Asylum and the new animated feature featuring another Batman and Superman team up, I realized that I must get my hands on more of the Batman animated series, Batman Beyond, and even Justice League Unlimited. If you don't happen to be a huge nerd or weren't a teen or pre-teen when any of those series were regular Saturday morning or weekday afternoon fare I shall spare you the rant about how awesome those series were and how they are on my Christmas DVD list. So without anything else being available to me at this point in time I flipped over the double feature DVD to side 2 and began to watch Sub Zero.

Our story begins in the Arctic where Mr. Freeze is living peacefully with two polar bears and his frozen wife trying to find a cure when a very intrusive submarine breaks up his lab and his wife's apparatus. Rage follows and the entire crew is frozen like fish sticks and Freeze is off to Gotham to find someone for an organ transplant. Cut to Gotham where Batman, Robin and Batgirl are out fighting crime and going to the social event of the season. While at the party Batgirl and Robin start to take things seriously and decide to go off for a romantic getaway. Meanwhile Freeze hooks up with an old business partner for an organ transplant and it turns out that Batgirl is one of the only matches. From there we have kidnapping and a rescue mission on an oil rig.

So first reactions. So where's the fighting? While the first movie based on the animated series had a good balance between the action and the story this movie just feels like an extended episode and an uneventful one at that. Most of the exciting stuff happens during the finale on an oil rig that takes a good twenty minutes to explode which doesn't fully make sense to me. Even then the coolest stuff is Batman jumping through fire and tucking and rolling on numerous occasions. You'd also think that a giant fight with polar bears would come down to more than just jumping out of the way at the right moment. Don't even get me started on the complete lack of fight with Mr. Freeze

My other major complaint is the fact that the whole entourage has to be there. Batman has and generally will always more intriguing by himself. Sure add a sidekick every now and then but usually they just end up getting taken hostage or needing his help eventually so couldn't we just speed up the process and just have him? A partner is fine but once you add in the third one it starts to get ridiculous.

The movie also has a lot of nick of time moments where someone is inches from death or an accident and just happens to be saved at the last moment. By my count this happens at least three times in the last ten minutes.

But there is good stuff to be had. Not like this is a fair comparison but this far better than the awful Batmand & Robin movie that attempted to use Mr. Freeze much like this film did. Unfortunately that movie failed to understand three main things.

#1 One major villain per film. There can be a number one henchman so Robin has someone to fight but there is never enough time for extensive characterization. If more than one villain shows up it tends to be a bit distracting as well. I think I'm going to call this Spiderman 3 syndrome.

#2 Batman villains aren't Bond villains. Freeze here is only motivated by a personal quest which makes him insane. He doesn't try to freeze the city he just wants to keep his wife alive.

#3 Let's make the Batman costume look functional instead of a Nerf product (as much as I want to own nearly every dart gun they've ever made). Petty yes but it is distracting when the suit looks like it's made out of rubber instead of something that might protect his body or be intimidating.

If I had watched this movie before Mask of the Phantasm I may have liked it better but in the end I was just pining to see the Dark Knight go mono a mono against an old foe. But as I have implied about twelve times this is much better than the live action movie that tried to be just like it. It's also fantastic closure to a character that the show reinvented so if you're a huge nerd saddle up and get the two pack dvd set with Mask of the Phantasm and this one.