BATMAN VS. TWO-FACE (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*


This direct-to-DVD production. following on the heels of BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS,  once again re-united three performers from the classic 1966 BATMAN teleseries, Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin), and Julie Newmar (Catwoman). But TWO-FACE-- which also boasts William Shatner voicing the titular villain and Lee ("second Catwoman") Meriwether playing a supporting-role-- will almost certainly be the last in the series, thanks to the 2017 passing of Adam West.

Though the second DVD-flick shares the same director and writing-team as the first, TWO-FACE is at least, well, two times as good (given that I rated CAPED CRUSADERS's mythicity as "poor"). And this is a fair accomplishment, given that Two-Face, though it's rumored that he was considered as a "guest villain" for the 1966 series, really did not fit the camp aesthetic. Two-Face's 1942 debut was about as gritty and grotesque as a kids' superhero comic could be at the time, and such grotesquerie didn't really fit the bright primary colors of the West-Ward world.

So, do the filmmakers succeed in making their version of Two-Face fit their version of that world? Well, somewhat. Despite my liking for the origin-story of the villain, I've generally found that he doesn't "travel" well in later stories, and that his focus on "twos" wears out his welcome much faster than the Penguin's birds or the Riddler's riddles. In order to make the villain fit the more science-fiction-heavy world of the DVD-series, Two-Face's grotty old origin is changed to include a device called an "Evil Extractor." The device's inventor is a version of another Bat-villain, Hugo Strange, who in this iteration is actually working to purge Gotham City's villains of the villainy with the Extractor. However, things go wrong and district attorney Harvey Dent is horribly scarred on one side of his face, thus giving rise to Two-Face.

The continuity then leaps over the villain's initial criminal career, showing the viewer that he's summarily captured by Batman and Robin. Following the capture, reconstructive surgery repairs the damage to Harvey Dent's face, once again suggesting that science can obliterate evil.

It should go without saying that you can't keep a good villain's bad side down, and so it's revealed that the apparently reformed Dent can morph into Two-Face, a clear nod to Jekyll and Hyde. While even the youngest viewers will anticipate this revelation, the script keeps things interesting in that square-sided Batman continually wants to believe in Dent's reformation, since as Bruce Wayne he's friends with the attorney. This version of Robin is more suspicious and less of a goody-good than he is in the original series, but he's proven right when the recrudescent Two-Face captures both crusaders and offers to sell them to the highest bidder among Gotham's usual heinous suspects. However, Catwoman, playing a quasi-heroic role as she did in the previous entry, comes to the heroes' rescue.

Whereas the first film in the series played up goony humor too much, this one manages to sell more of the teleseries' signature irony. This is evinced in an early humorous scene in which Batman seems to be courting the villainess-- only to reveal that he's just visiting her in prison. As if to make the hero squarer than ever, he brings the languishing Catwoman a book of Edith Barrett Browning poetry. Later, as if the creators were congratulating themselves for getting things right, there's a sign in front of a hospital labeled "The Sisters of Perpetual Irony."

Since this was the last go-round for the "Adam West Batman," I can appreciate that the creators stepped up to deliver a work with considerably more in common with the breakthrough TV-show.