the m0vie blog

Surprisingly, not all films featuring Mr. Freeze are terrible. Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero doesn’t quite live up to the best of the animated Batman movies or even animated television shows, standing in the shadow of both Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker, but it’s still a surprisingly solid adventure that offers a much better showing for the Caped Crusader than either of the Joel Schumacher Batman movies.

Things are heating up…

Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero seems consciously aimed at a younger audience than either Mask of the Phantasm or Return of the Joker. For example, the plotting runs on a lot more contrived coincidences, the emotional depth of the movie is quite shallow, and the villain even recruits a pair of adorable polar bears to do his bidding in what must be a sly dig at Tim Burton and Kevin Smith’s failed Superman Lives! script. I mean, Freeze seems to have developed the ability to command two polar bears to do his bidding, to the point where he’s so confident in his control of them that he’d just put a girl he needs alive in the back of a truck with them.

In fact, Victor’s whole evil plan seems rather unfortunately constructed. Desperately needing an organ donor for his dying wife, Freeze finds a list of eighteen possible candidates in Gotham City. To be fair, it makes sense he’d return to Gotham. He knows the city well, and he has contacts there. However, when he brings back the list of names, he happens to draw Barbara Gordon. Barbara Gordon is, of course, Batgirl. It would be a contrived coincidence if he picked her, and she turned out to randomly be Batgirl. That would rely on considerable suspension of disbelief on its own.

If Werner Herzog directed a documentary about this character, it’d be “bi-polar man”…

However, Barbara is also the daughter of the police commissioner. I suspect that Freeze must have been aware of that, given his frequent interactions with various law enforcement bodies in Gotham City. Kidnapping the daughter of any police commissioner seems like a risky move, but it seems especially short-sighted when Commissioner Gordon just so happens to be the best friend of Batman, the character who has foiled the last number of your evil plans.

The script of Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero is fairly weak. It hinges on those sorts of awkward contrivances repeatedly, and nothing really makes too much sense if you stop to think about it. That said, it’s not without its charms. As during the show itself, Barbara’s presence does bring out the best in her father as a character. When Barbara advises Dick that she’s “just playing hard to get”, Jim cuts in, “She is hard to get.”

They’ve got him in their sights…

The movie also provides a suitably vile character in the form of Gregory, an old acquaintance of Victor Fries who is desperately trying to clear some gambling debts. Freeze is undoubtedly an anti-villain, a character with pure motivations who will do terrible things to protect the people he loves. Gregory, on the other hand, is a truly awful piece of work. When he discovers that Freeze plays to murder Barbara and steal her organs, he seems to be disgusted. “You’re a piece a’ work. I said I’d help you… but… this…” And then his true colours show. “This is gonna cost you more than a gold nugget.”

To be fair, the film’s character work with Victor is pretty solid. The character has never been better than he was while being animated as part of the shared DC universe, with Heart of Ice offering the best take on the character ever. He seems suitably conflicted by what he has to do, if dedicated to doing whatever it takes to keep his Nora alive. It’s not the strongest portrayal of this take on the character, but it is better than his appearance in Cold Comfort, the story that would directly follow. (It goes without saying that it’s better than Batman & Robin.)

His heart is cold…

While the script is weak, Boyd Kirkland’s direction is actually fairly solid. The introductory sequences with Fries, establishing that he’s actually found some small measure of peace, are lovely. And there’s a wonderful sequence towards the end of the film as Freeze finds fire closing in on him. There’s a genuine sense of panic as the character fires his freeze gun rapidly, giving us a sense of how truly scared he is beneath that icy exterior.

The short sequence in the Arctic looks lovely, although the animation does make awkward use of CGI technology. I was never too impressed with the use of CGI on Bruce Timm’s other shows, as I don’t think that the technology was at the stage where it would be appropriate to use. Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero offers the perfect example, as it looks like Victor Fries’ tranquillity is ultimately disturbed by a bunch of hostile polygons rather than a submarine.

It’s enough to warm your heart…

That said, the movie was the last time we’d see the “classic” Batman: The Animated Series designs for characters and their world. I honestly miss those, and I never warmed to the updated sleeker designs that were introduced for The New Batman Adventures and Justice League. This is what an animated Batman should really look like, with lots of nice detail and a bit of colour to lighten things up. The villains would generally look a lot worse, and Mr. Freeze’s stylishly retro design here fit the character perfectly. It’s nice to see Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero give that a fond send-off.

There are other nice touches. The introduction is styled to resemble Tim Burton’s two films, with a bat symbol from Batman and a flowing body of water with bats flying over it like Batman Returns. There’s even a nice reprise of Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman score, although Michael McCuistion cleverly gives it a bit of a colder edge, mixing in sounds that call to mind Christmas or snow. The whole film is very well put together, and Boyd Kirkland does an excellent job as director.

Out in the cold…

That said, the film does finally resolve the dangling Nora plot thread, which really should be the conclusion to Victor Fries’ character arc as set up in his debut appearance. While his role in Meltdown in Batman Beyond works well enough, I can’t help but wonder if the character should really have been retired after this point. I think it illustrates quite well that the Nora story places very clear limits on the stories that you can and can’t tell using the villain. I can understand why Scott Snyder’s Batman run made a point to re-write Freeze’s background. While I adore this version of the character, I don’t think it should be the only version. And there are reasons that I think it shouldn’t be considered to be set in stone.

Batman/Mr. Freeze: SubZero is an entertaining enough action yarn, even if it lacks a lot of the depth or complexity one might expect from Batman: The Animated Series. Kirkland’s direction is great, but the plotting and scripting feel a little too simplistic to really measure up to the best of the show. Still, if you have to see one movie featuring Mr. Freeze, there’s really no comparison.

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alfred, alfred pennyworth, Barbara, barbara gordon, batman, batman animated series, batman forever, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Boyd Kirkland, dc animated universe, Freeze, gotham city, jim gordon, Shirley Walker, tim burton |