Batman Animated Films - Ranked Worst To Best

3. The Return Of The Joker (2000)

I€™m not the biggest fan of Batman Beyond, especially where the TV show is concerned. While not necessarily €œbad€ in too many direct instances, the overall show was a pale shade of the original animated series. The villains left me pining for the old rogues gallery, Terry left me pining for Bruce, and my discomfort, quite frankly, was just that this isn€™t really Batman. But The Return of the Joker, the 2000 Batman Beyond film, more than makes up for all of that discomfort. It starts in much the same way as your typical Beyond yarn €“ villains are stealing stuff, Terry swoops in and stops them, and we move on to the next. But what follows is a surprisingly complex story that involves Bruce, Terry, and €“ somehow, even though he is supposedly dead €“ the Joker himself. The Return of the Joker recalls the past in an important way, which is something Batman Beyond should have been doing all along. Appearances by the likes of Tim Drake and Harley Quinn (€œSweetie, get mommy€™s bazooka€) further serve to color the story, but Bruce, Terry, and the Joker are front and center. Mark Hamill and Kevin O€™Conner are in top form as usual, and even Will Friedle lends some heart to the usually whiny Terry. Batman Beyond has more than its fair share of absurd, pseudo-futuristic gimmicks employed as plot points, and The Return of the Joker nearly succumbs to a similar absurdity. By grounding that absurdity in the Batman mythos, rather than blindly forging a path that all but ignores everything but the €œBeyond€ part, this film remains one of the best Batman animated features ever made.
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Matt is a writer and musician living in Boston. Read his film reviews at http://motionstatereview.wordpress.com.