(9/07/09)
Now that the Riddler is divorced from the tired motive of revenge, he is allowed to have a little fun. He desires to destroy all hard copies of his identity as Edward Nygma, continuing along the storyline introduced by If You’re So Smart Why Aren’t You Rich?, and he hopes to achieve it via a web of riddles and distractions that allow his minions ample time in ridding the world of any trace of Nygma.
What I enjoy about What Is Reality? is that we can indulge in the surrealism of the Riddler’s virtual reality world at the same time there is a string of real-world action taking place. More so than the linear action of If You’re So Smart…, here we get an idea of the Riddler’s grand abilities to manipulate and keep Batman and Robin guessing. He has a citywide access to computer databases, and his riddles are as clever as they’ve ever been. Yes, he still has dumb henchmen, but what criminal mastermind doesn’t? I especially love that an excursion to DMV gives Batman the clue to return to Police Headquarters, where he happened to be just moments before.
But a lot of the riddle-solving wastes time, delaying the inevitable foray into the virtual reality world, the episode’s major set piece and the central focus of our attention. It is a wonder to behold; the early 90s fascination with cyber technology rubs off on it quite a bit. The producers imagine virtual reality as a vast expanse not bound by physics and subject only to one’s imagination. It is something of a Dali-esque surrealist universe rendered in red monochrome. There is even a melting clock featured during the climax.
We don’t spend more than an act’s worth of time in virtual reality, presumably because of the strain it puts on the art designers who must muse on how to transition from chessboards to astronomical flying. It’s too bad; it would have been fun to see the better part of an episode take place in the confines of such an unrestricted world. The positive side to this is that the Riddler’s wild goose hunt at least makes the act of getting there a fun experience.
Batman was never the right show for AKOM, and I simply cannot blame the studio for its shoddy work animating such complicated designs. Its expertise was needed elsewhere. As well, the producers did have a budget to worry about, and I’m sure shipping production off to AKOM was cost-efficient. Certainly the animation in Cat Scratch Fever is unforgivable and bad work must always be confronted regardless of behind-the-scenes reasons, but to be honest, I think that the animators really tried on this one. That I could not detect that this was AKOM’s work until ten minutes in is a testament to its effort.
The ending is an abomination, an attempt at eeriness that was appropriately dropped so that the Riddler might make future appearances. I suppose the idea that a virtual reality helmet might fry one’s brain was too hard to resist, yet the Riddler belongs among the ranks of the recurring rogues. He should not be immobilized to achieve a manipulative effect.
The basic plot is that Nygma wishes to eradicate any known file of his existence, so he must therefore destroy police records, DMV records, etc. Of course, given his uncontrollable urge to leave clues, here in the form of riddles broadcast on electronic news headlines and ATMs, Batman and Robin eventually defeat him. Given that he spends most of the episode unseen, most of his attacks rooted in his puzzles and goons, and also given that his motivation is a bit less clichéd, the Riddler feels far better characterized here than in ‘If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?’ There’s also an odd climax involving virtual reality that provides the proper action-packed resolution to the story, but also is filled with interesting riddles, despite the fact that it slightly dates the episode.
There isn’t much coherency to the story, at least as I recall. It is more or less a series of incidences in which Batman follows each clue to overcome the Joker’s henchman and trap, while Robin helps Commissioner Gordon figure out what’s behind a recently delivered package that arrived at police headquarters. After Batman finishes rollicking around, he finds out that Gordon has been trapped in a virtual reality machine of Nygma’s design. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the final battle is actually quite interesting and abstract, if hurt a bit by poor animation and a distracting monochromatic color scheme.
What gives the episode some intrigue is the sheer amount of clever riddles that dominate the show, giving the episode a bit more weight than the typical good guy vs bad guy action-fest. It seems to me as if the writers feel like compensating for pretty substandard stories with clever riddles interspersed throughout, and it certainly elevates the episode somewhat. Still, the great ‘Riddler’s Reform’ managed to combine brief instances of cleverness with a solid storyline, so it’s still hard for me to consider this more than an average episode.
The studio for this episode is AKOM, so it’s pretty much a given as to what I thought about that. Usually good direction can make up for it, but aside from some neat abstract environments, there’s hardly a shot that can’t be distinguished from any typical episode of the animated series. As for music, I tend to appreciate Riddler episodes for how fitting the music sounds, and while I don’t think the score in this episode is as good as that in ‘If You’re So Smart Why Aren’t You Rich?’, I still enjoy it.
This episode has a few decent parts, but overall, it’s another average Riddler episode: a mediocre story with above average dialogue and below average animation.
No comments:
Post a Comment