frOVIE REVIEW jPnly Adolescents May Like TV-Type Cartoon Dark version of Caped Crusader with its crashes Snd violence may scare pnall fry but bore adults fiy CHARLES SOLOMON PBCIAL TO THI TIMES ronkally the animated feature "Batman: Mask of the Phan- (city wide) looks its beat When it moving I Background stylistco-director ricRadomski has created a terrif-K-looking world of film noir-influ-jfiteed Art Deco skyscrapers shadows gargoyles and windows Vnfortunately some of the wont-anlmated characters in any recent feature get in front of those stylish backgrounds looks exactly like what it is A television program been expanded to fill a big tfcreen But enlarging the charac- only makes the flaws in the turday morning -style animation (done in South Korea) more Jyident The screenplay by Alan Burnett Paul Dini Martin Pasko and Michael Reaves has a number of loose ends that not only remain untied tfcit flap in the wind that blows through the film A convoluted peries of flashbacks reveals that SatmanBruce Wayne (voice by Kevin Conroy) once loved Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delaney) the ddored daughter of prominent lisinessman Carl Beaumont (Stagy Keach Jr) But the elder Beau mont set up dummy businesses for underworld figures so his daughter marry a crime-fighting vigilante Years later Andrea returns to Gotham City cm business at the same time a mysterious Phantom in a long cape appears and begins executing aging mobsters Batman is blamed for the murders which leads to a climactic confrontation with the Joker (Mark Hamill) amid the ruins of the Gotham Pair (modeled after the 39 New York Fair) Needless to say the good guy wins and all ends semi-happily Like the popular syndicated program on which based "Phantasm" (rated PG) often viewers a very dark version of the Caped Crusader modeled after the anti-hero of Frank Miller's graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" The film is obviously aimed at the adolescents who tune in regularly mi weekday afternoons: The stiff animation and campy voice acting will quickly bore parents and older siblings the fistflghts shootouta and car crashes may frighten smaller children "Batman: Mask of the swwrsBjweKSnai)mwwnfc aw Snob Tan SaiHnti I Kd UBhl pradwar Tom I Co Mm Same Bli ha Mu SMS WUhar Stmnpv May ItPAA rated- PO Timet guidelhut: fighting ihootoutt car crasbet
