Friday, February 23, 2024

Batman (1966)

I'm usually not a fan of superhero movies, especially the 21st century's bombardment of them, i always feel they take themselves far too seriously... and that is why the first Batman movie is brilliant because it does just the opposite.

A long-form version of the classic Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. As this is a big screen outing for the story one super villain is not enough, instead we have four! The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), Riddler (Frank Gorshin), Joker (Cesar Romero) and Catwoman (Lee Meriweather) team up with a dastardly plan to turn the UN Security Council into powder and extort billions in cash from the world governments.

The bad guys need to get rid of Batman as well but as usual their far too complicated schemes go wrong. There is an interesting subplot though as Bruce Wayne falls in love with a Russian reporter, not realising she is really Catwoman...

This is a fabulously fun film packed full of camp nonsense including Penguin's submarine which has flippers, Riddler writing messages in the sky using Polaris missiles and the batmobile being joined by the batboat, batbike and even the bathelicopter! The best superhero film there is? Probably.