Cartoon Corner- Batman and Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero

Originally posted at the DL January 2016

Basically a two-parter padded out to the length of a three-parter.

Well that was easy.



That really does sum it up, but obviously we should break down what I really mean by that.

So Mr. Freeze kidnapping one of the gang like this is obviously a bit higher in stakes than usual, and there is a sense of closing off his overall story arc, which is nice.  But where the previous movie felt like it was trying to go a new place with the characters and be an event (I don't think it quite succeeded, but that was the intent), this is more just putting a nice bow on one of the show's story arcs.

The larger problem is the sense of padding.  The climax mostly falters here; yes, I get it, the thing is exploding.  Exploding it more does not really make it be any more on fire or deadly than it was.  We have to save the invalids and run away, that's great, please focus and stop showing me yet more explosions.  The repeated escape attempts by Barbara also drag on, but at least that does serve some purpose (hey guys, you fucked up and picked the superheroine to kidnap!  She's not gonna let you steal her organs uncontested!)  They probably could have gotten away with shortening the initial escape a little bit, especially considering it just leads up to "oh fuck we're on an ocean" and maybe just left some of the shooting gallery portion to our imaginations or something.

Actually I think some of the point of all this was as a Batgirl showcase, and while that's not remotely what they promised with the, y'know, title and packaging, if you knew that and signed on for it, hey, you're gonna get a good show.  There's also a pretty decent chase sequence between Mr. Freeze and Robin!  Not very much Batman though.  This is another reason it feels a bit more like an episode, because if I'm remembering it's placement in the release order, it came out while the show was on hiatus before returning as the New Batman Adventures or whatever, and the episodes of the series right before that did focus a lot more on Batgirl and Robin than Batman himself as a rule.

Rating- 6/10.  Enjoyable enough, but not a lot of meat to it.