Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman 2003

[7.0/10] I have to give Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman this much -- it’s a good mystery. If you’re going to highlight the whodunnit elements of your film in its title, they’d better be solid, and this one delivers on that front. The movie keeps you (read: me) guessing as to who this mysterious new bat figure will be, with a plausible array of possibilities, some twists and turns as the audience plays the film’s guessing game, and a satisfying answer to that central question.

That game concerns who’s under the cape and cowl of Gotham’s latest crime-fighter. Is it Kathy Duquesne, the rebellious daughter of a gangster with a pipeline of info on his criminal escapades? Is it Rocky Ballantine, the Waynetech scientist whose apparent clumsiness may be a cover for her nighttime proclivities? Or is it Sonia Alcana, Bullock’s new partner, using her GCPD connections to track down the baddies?

The movie introduces all three as new characters early, allowing Mystery of the Batwoman to obfuscate who the culprit really is from the jump. The film seems to gesture in Kathy’s direction, given her risk-taking personality and how much time we see her developing a relationship with Bruce Wayne. But then we see her in civilian attire at the same time the Batwoman is doing battle with Penguin’s goons, conveniently enough at the same time Sonia’s on a stake out with Bullock.

That pulls the rug out from under the audience’s expectations, especially when Batwoman seems to be using the exact malleable metallic alloy that Rocky was demonstrating to the Waynetech team earlier. Even that theory runs into problems when Batman uncovers video footage that seems to eliminate her as a suspect. The movie does a good job not only making it appropriately mysterious as to who Batwoman really is, but introducing quality feints and red herrings to throw us off the scent.

The solution is a clever one -- it’s all three of them working together. Mystery of the Batwoman is hardly the first whodunnit to provide that sort of answer, but it works well here. Early on, the film shows Penguin, Rupert Thorne, and Carlton Duquense working together, giving it a clockwork feel when the Batwoman turns out to be three different people, each with a grudge born against one of these crime bosses.

Mystery of the Batwoman parcels out the motivations for each woman a little clumsily, but they give each Batwoman candidate a reasonable justification for wanting revenge, which helps muddy the waters for the audience guessing at home, and add something righteous to each of their causes. Kathy Duquesne is upset that her father’s mob-ridden life got her mother killed just for happening to be near him during a hit. Rocky Ballantine’s fiance is stuck in jail after being framed by Penguin. And Sonia’s parents’ shop and home was burned to the ground by Thorne’s goons without her ever receiving justice. Some of these backstories are a little stock, but they provide good rationales for each of these characters to work together and to strike back at the criminal triumvirate. Whatever else there is to say about the movie, it works as a sound mystery.

It’s just not a very compelling story. As good a job as Mystery of the Batwoman does of obscuring who the true culprit is and misdirecting the audience along the way to a good solution, it’s not a very emotionally involving mystery. The show does its best to give a sentimental dimension to each of the Batwomen’s crusades, but none of the quick scenes we get to establish their motivations is enough to make much of an impact.

The performances are also surprisingly flat and unconvincing here, especially for a production cast and voice directed by the nigh-peerless Andrea Romano. Granted, the dialogue does none of the characters any favors, but neither Ballantine, Alcana, nor Duquesne come off the screen as characters via their actors’ performances, leaving that emotional contingent lacking. Even the unstoppable Kevin Conroy feels a little off here, a sign of the vaguely off-brand sensation that permeates the whole film.

Despite continuity connections like Penguin, Thorne, and a pointlessly-added Bane as baddies and the familiar Batman: The Animated Series crew at play, this doesn’t feel much like a DCAU production. Everything from the duller characters, to the pedestrian action sequences, to the synthesized score make the movie feel out of step with prior Batman stories in the universe. That’s odd, since so many DCAU vets are listed in the credits, but whether it’s new producers or just rust after a long gap since we regularly saw the adventures of Bruce Wayne in Gotham, this doesn’t quite feel of a piece with the Batman stories we know and love.

Worst of all, the movie introduces an almost completely unconvincing romance between Bruce and Kathy. Kathy herself comes off like a knockoff Halle Berry in contemporary movies like Die Another Day and Swordfish, and the film’s attempts to sexualize her are both clumsy and gratuitous. But tepid imitation and titillation aside, that could be forgiven if Duquesne was something other than the latest in a long line of superior love interests for Bruce. There’s nothing that Kathy brings to the table that Catwoman and Andrea Beaumont haven’t done better. In particular, the romance here plays like a watered down version of Mask of the Phantasm, and isn’t nearly as affecting or engaging.

That broader issue turns out to be one of Mystery of the Batwoman’s biggest weaknesses -- the sense that we’ve seen all of this before and a better version of it at that. We’ve seen Bruce Wayne fall in love with a “bad girl” who’s secretly involved in crime-fighting before. We’ve seen costumed characters execute a longstanding vendetta against Gotham’s criminal bosses before. We’ve even seen Batman fight Bane on a sinking ship before. There’s little new or different here to engage DCAU fans, leaving this a film that only really works if you’re not immersed in the other stories it emerged from.

But taken solely as a mystery, the film works, even if it falters as a tale of the Dark Knight. Plenty of other Batman stories, on the screen and on the page, provoke stronger emotional responses, feature better characters, and cooler set pieces. Nevertheless, few play the mystery angle, or Batman’s detective skills, as well as Mystery of the Batwoman does. If only the film’s narrative was as good as its mystery-making.