Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero 1998

[6.2/10] What makes Mr. Freeze interesting is that he has a clear motivation apart from the normal good and evil that defines the typical superhero vs. supervillain tales. He wants to keep his wife alive and, if possible, cure her. Sometimes he needs money to do that. Sometimes he wants revenge on the people who put her and him in this state. Sometimes he just needs the right set of organs. But his goal is not evil for evil’s sake, and that makes him more interesting as a character than a less-dimensional villain.

The problem is that “Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero”, which I can only assume was meant to be a synergistic animated release meant to coincide with the execrable Batman and Robin film, doesn't really take advantage of that until the very end. There’s something intriguing about Mr. Freeze as something less than an inherently bad person, whose devotion to his comatose wife leads him to some “by any means necessary” villainy. But until the final reel, he could be any bad guy kidnapping any bat-ally for any reason, and it wouldn’t make much difference.

I will say this for the movie -- it does a good job of explaining its villains’ actions. Mr. Freeze not only wants to save his wife, but needs someone with a particular blood type for an organ transplant, which gives him particularly ghoulish goals. Dr. Belson, a civilian, doesn't seem the type to go along with something so craven, but is desperate for cash after some investments gone wrong and so becomes Freeze’s meatball surgeon in exchange for some bullion. And Barbara Gordon conveniently shares Nora Fries’s bloodtype, making this a good excuse for her to be targeted and for the rest of the bat family to get involved.

The problem is that SubZero frames itself as a mystery the audience already knows the answer to. Much of Batman and Robin’s efforts in the film are to figure out why Freeze wanted Batgirl, who he’s working with, and what he might plan to do with her. Except that the viewers, having been privy to Freeze’s machinations and intimidations, already know the answers to those questions, so Batman ferreting them out doesn't add much.

Plus, they’re not even particularly relevant questions, nor is Batman’s method of uncovering them particularly exciting in and of itself. Batman already knows that Mr. Freeze is the one who took Barbara, so him seeing the connection to Nora doesn't add anything. The World’s Greatest Detective should really just be trying to figure out where Freeze took Batgirl, and he gets that information almost accidentally, by threatening a fairly innocent stock broker of Dr. Belson, who just happens to call while the dynamic duo are there. Little of the info Batman uncovers is especially relevant or useful, and there’s nothing especially clever about how he gathers it either.

Some of that might be more forgivable if the action were better. SubZero is filled with all manner of pedestrian fights and fisticuffs. Even when Batman: The Animated Series would put out a clunker of a story, the show usually could make up for it with some cool imagery. But while the tedious throat-clearing from the baddies and even more tedious sleuthing from the heroes takes place, the more kinetic sequences lack a certain zing.

Robin tries to chase down Freeze’s van, but it’s a forgettable set piece. Freeze sends his polar bears after multiple folks, which should be tension-filled and instead comes off as bland. Even the chase of Batgirl, who cleverly finds her way into the ducts of her makeshift prison cell, doesn't have the thrills it should. There’s little of the visual wizardry that keeps even the lesser lights of the DCAU shining just enough.

That’s particularly true for the movie’s efforts at CGI. I don’t mean to slate a film that came out in 1998 for having computer generated elements that are not up to snuff by modern standards. But the way they’re deployed is jarring, with flat, low-texture versions of the batwing, for instance, cut into the same scene as the more detailed and vivid hand-drawn version. The use of CGI is not the problem here; but the clumsy way it’s integrated into the rest of the traditionally-animated action certainly is.

That said, once Batman and Robin get to the oil rig, things pick up considerably. In terms of visuals, as is often the case, the B:TAS crew does some of its best work when there’s smoke and fire in the background. The bright flash of explosions, or the red and black silhouettes of our heroes while the platform crumbles around them, adds energy and flourish to the final showdown. Sure, some of the fights remain less than inspired, but the use of color and shadow steps up considerably which makes the thing more eye-catching.

There’s also more to the movie’s themes and character motivations in that final act. Barbara no longer has to be a damsel in distress but instead gets to be a ready part of the action. Freeze shows his complications by trying to use his freeze ray to dispense with enough of the flames so that Batman can save his wife. And Batman trying to save a dangling Mr. Freeze lines up with his no-kill policy and has stakes from our hero risking his life to save the villain.

It’s just too little too late. SubZero is fine. It ends on a bittersweet note of Nora being cured without Mr. Freeze being there to enjoy it. But the narrative and visual and thematic intrigue the movie musters in the final twenty minutes is all but absent in the first forty. Instead, there’s just dated big band era trappings, generic romance beats, and plodding villain plots and mystery-solving before we get to the actual meat of the episode.

I was excited when I saw that there was a Mr. Freeze-focused B:TAS movie, because the character has so many layers that make him more complicated than the average villain. I hoped we would get something with the depth and excitement of Mask of the Phantasm. Instead, SubZero is just an extended episode of the regular series, and not a particularly good one, that largely squanders the potential of its titular antagonist.