- I can confidently claim that Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker is the best episode of Batman Beyond, a decent show that still never quite managed to top its creative opening sequence. But the movie, directed by Curt Geda and written by Paul Dini, is impressive enough to merit comparison to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and the two or three good live action films. I'm not going to claim that Mark Hamill's Joker is as essential to Batman animated movies as he is to Batman video games, but including this guy in your Batman-related projects is clearly a good idea.
- But the strange part about this particular Joker story is that Hamill's puckish psychopath vanished for decades before recently reappearing to terrorize Gotham once again. Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (Angie Harmon) both swear that the real Joker is dead, and a particularly disturbing flashback certainly supports that claim. But the new Batman (Will Friedle) wonders if Tim Drake (Dean Stockwell) remembers things any differently since his retirement as Robin coincided exactly with the Joker's apparent demise. These days, Tim spends his time doing telecom repairs and doesn't exactly crack a smile when reminiscing about the old days. So who is this villain who looks, acts, and sounds like the Joker, but knows just as much as Batman?
- But back to that flashback sequence for a moment - I watched the uncut version of this film, and it is some truly disquieting stuff. Some of the best episodes of the original animated series leaned heavily into psychological trauma, and this movie somehow manages to take things one step further. The film's digital art and animation are generally great, its fight choreography is excellent, and even the soundtrack manages to transcend that very specific moment in the late 1990s when it seemed like industrial rock was the future of music. And of course the voice acting is superb, not just from veterans Conroy and Hamill, but also from the series regulars and some unexpected guests (Arleen Sorkin, Melissa Joan Hart , Michael Rosenbaum, Henry Rollins). In short, this movie is really what I would have hoped for from the Batman of the future.
