review: BATMAN: THE MOVIE (Blu-ray)

Fox  //  Buy from Amazon.com When Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) get a tip that Commodore Schmidlapp (Reginald Denny) is in danger aboard his yacht they launch a rescue mission. But the tip is a set-up by four of the most powerful villains ever who seek to defeat the Dynamic Duo once and for all! Armed with a dehydrator that can turn humans into dust the fearsome foursome intends to take over the world! Can the Caped Crusaders use their high-flying heroism and groovy gadgetry to declaw Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) ice the Penguin (Burgess Meredith) upstage the Joker (Cesar Romero) and stump the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) in time? I know as a kid I was enamoured with the classic "Batman" tv series, loving how it was truly a comic book brought to life (completely with action-packed sound effects ON the screen!) Somewhere along the way I lost interest and stopped watching the reruns while flipping through the channels... and then Frank Miller and Tim Burton introduced me to entirely new envisionings of the bat man and I never looked back on the fun, frivolous, campy version of the tv series. So, I never did watch "Batman: The Movie" - at least not until the fine folks @ Fox were fine enough to send a copy of the Blu-ray release for review. Popping a big bowl of corn, I hunkered down for all the 60s campiness I could muster, and much to my (pleasant) surprise, this movie not only holds up really well 40 years later (and in the face of multiple modern movie versions of Batman), but it's damn entertaining to boot! Sure, it's cheesy, campy, and over the top - but that's exactly what makes it so much fun. It's not meant to be serious, and it sure as hell ain't deep and dark like modern Batman - this is painted-in-chalk-eyebrows Batman, with exploding sharks and bad guys with old-style robber eyemasks on. What a hoot - I had a blast, you will too. Video Wow - this is really great looking film, especially considering it's now over 40 years old! Presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen high definition transfer, I am genuinely surprised and impressed at the cripsness of the picture - great job. Audio Equally impressive is the DTS HD 5.1 surround mix - the bam/krash/pow sound effects seemed to explode out from the screen, both visually and sonically! Extras audio commentary w/ Adam West & Burt Ward look-back featurette featurette on the Batmobile photo galleries audio comments from writer isolated score track trivia track trailers Closing Thoughts Classic, fun campfest + LOADS of top-notch extras = shining example of how even the golden oldies can get a deluxe Blu-ray treatment!