Retro Review: "Batman: Revenge" (2003)

Directed by Jonathan Markiewitz. Considered one of the best "LEGO movies" to hit the internet circuit and the founding feature to spark a Batman LEGO phenomenon, "Batman: Revenge" will forever stand out as not only the first Batman LEGO film, but a true and genuine masterful piece of filmmaking art. It is important to know that "Batman: Revenge" was not always intended to be a LEGO film, and that the success it incurred after its production using these toy and collectible bricks may not have happened at all if it had been made in the traditional sense, that being fan films utilizing real locations, actors and scripts. However, because the director wanted to make a film that looked like a Batman movie one would expect to see in the cinema in terms of cinematography mixed with a variety of sets, specialized vehicles, and locations, the only way to accomplish the feat at the time was to use the one thing that he could use on a small budget, creating the same effect, Legos. Building Gotham City from the ground up, including all of those "Bat-necessities" audiences expect to see in any production featuring the Caped Crusader, was accomplished in full by use of Legos, with development, for example, of the batcave, batwing, and most importantly the batmobile.

The 6-minute story is a relatively easy one to follow and there is no dialogue in the film, the former and latter points being very common of early LEGO films of the time. Neither however, detract from the film being enjoyable or clearly understood by fans of any age. CGI is non-existant in this movie, which could be considered by many to be one of the several reasons why it has been so universally welcomed and appreciated since its debut in 2003. Scenes that required "extra" attention where CGI would now-days be easily, and most times "sloppily" put in without care were developed using carefully placed lighting and ingenius camera movements over computer printouts (the first scene with the batsignal for example) or other similarly related visuals.

The plot revolves around the escape of the Riddler from Arkham Asylum, who has clearly become more of a madman in the murderous sense than the inquisitive question-marked adversary typical of the character. This character plot was uniquely spinned from the fate of the Riddler in the end of the Warner Bros. movie "Batman Forever", although "Batman: Revenge" in almost every other aspect, such as the look of the batmobile and batwing among other things, closely resembles the neo-gothic undertones of Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns". The escape of the Riddler then evokes a brief crime-spree of the villain himself and his henchmen as a plan to place one of Batman's closest allies in jeopardy comes to fruition.

"Batman: Revenge" is an "easy-to-follow" movie in the most positive sense of the phrase, in that it is universal to enjoy by any viewer, it's a fun movie to watch, and it is definitely something that deserves the praise it's received over the years.

4.5/5 stars