Batman: Caped Crusader

Stream on Amazon Prime

Episode: 10 twenty six minute Episodes

Rated TV-14

A new take on the Dark Knight mythos created by Bruce Timm, who was one of the original creators of Batman the Animated Series, and J.J. Abrams. This time around the series takes place in the 1940s and takes the hero back to his pulpy detective roots along with some new ideas.

Themes:

Vigilantes, crime, experimental medicine, the mob, burglary, crime and punishment, justice, good vs evil, playing the field, police, psychiatrists, bad cops, court, psychosis, mental health, villians, origins, friendships, law, prison, Arkham Asylum, mistakes, fraud, police, secret identities, super powers, vigilantes, the legal system, government, the mob, and vengeance.

Language:

Religious Exclamation - 24 A*s - 3 B*st*rd - 3 D*mn - 20 Hell - 19

Stuff to be aware of:

Gore - There is a man seen with a knife in his back, but no blood is seen. There are two dead bodies with their eyes open. A spider crawls across one of their eyes. A ghost figure burns up and his ghostly skin comes off revealing a zombie looking skeleton. A man has some blood coming from his mouth after Batman punches him. There is a man who is killed in a car accident and has some blood running down his mouth. (SPOILER) There are some dead bodies that have faces contorted into laughter.

LGBTQ - Harleen Quinzel, a female character, asks another female character to dinner. After this takes place Harleen says, “then it’s a date.” This character is know to be bisexual in other media. She later tells someone that she, “asked her out.” The two are seen on a date and flirting with each other. She and the female she is on a date with kiss.

Violence - Comic book style fighting with some villains firing guns. Characters get shot and die, but no blood is usually seen. A character is shut in a box and thrown into the river. A character gets electrocuted, but only his shadow being shocked is seen. A woman is shot at and it grazes her leg. The cut bleeds. A man is shot and killed, but no blood is seen.

A man is shot and falls out of a window killing him. He is seen falling, but not hitting the ground. His arm and leg is seen later, but no blood. Over the course of the season several people die by being shot, but no blood.

Scary - A character gets possessed by a ghost. His eyes glow and he speaks in a creepy way. There is a creepy looking girl that sucks the energy out of several children. Her mouth opens a bit wider than humanly possible. Several kids are taken by this girl.

Sexual - A female character tells a police officer that he can frisk her anytime. A female is seen in a bed in sleepwear with some cleavage showing. Catwoman tells Batman he is a thousand times sexier in person. There is one scene of a reported taking some photos of a man kissing a woman that is not his wife. One person mentions, “a fetish or two.” There are a few scenes with posters hanging up of women in bathing suits.

Other - One character staggers out of a bar, obviously drunk. There is a party in which characters are seen drinking and liquor is mentioned. A man drinks something out of a flask he pulls out of his coat. Dope is mentioned. In episode five multiple people are being held hostage and they are dressed in odd outfits.

Overall:

There are four things I will mention about this show: the voice acting, the animation, the characters, and the stories.

The late, Kevin Conroy’s voice will live on forever as Bruce from Batman the Animated Series, but newcomer Hamish Linklater does a great job. He isn’t Conroy , but he kind of channels Conroy while making this Bruce his own. Still, there are a few times I can hear Batman from Batman the Animated Series when he talks. The other voice acting is all top notch.

The animation is wonderful. The 1940s feel and look make it feel like old school Batman cartoons, but is fluid and feels good. It will give you nostalgia vibes if you grew up with Batman the Animated Series but is also different enough to be its own thing. I really like how all the characters have their own unique and realistic body types.

As far as characters go they all get some new makeup, if you will, but the most noticable is Penguin who is now a woman. The Gordons and Harley Quinn have their races changed. Barbara Gordon is now a lawyer, which puts her in the middle of Harvey Dent’s story, which is good, in my opinion. It also allows her to interact with inmates and those going through the court system which is a neat take on the character.

Clayface is a neat mixture of the original character from the 1940s and more recent renditions. Not sure I cared for Penguin being a woman too much, but it did give Batman a new Ma Buggle type of villain. It just didn’t really seem like they did anything worthy of gender swapping the character. Gentleman Ghost seemed odd for season one. Everything felt pretty grounded except that supernatural episode.

I liked what they did with Harley Quinn, Two Face, and Clay Face. Also, I really liked the slow burn story of Harvey Dent. The way they gave his character two lives (or two faces) throughout the season really worked for when his personality split.

One thing I found odd was Batman calling Alfred, who seemed to have raised him, by his last name, Pennyworth? I know this plays into the story a bit, but didn’t really make sense.

The episodic nature worked fine, but I kept finding myself wanting a bit more especially on episodes that introduced characters that were only in that episode. I think this first season could have benefited from telling stories over multiple episodes. They do this with a few characters, but there are several one shot villian episodes. I guess this harkens back to the old days, but a couple have episodes with, “to be continued…” would have been okay with me.

I enjoyed it, it’s good. However, I think it could have been better.