YMMV / Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

• Adaptation Displacement: It's far better-known and better-regarded than the comic it's loosely based on.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Does the Joker know, or at least suspect, that Bruce and Batman are one and the same at the end? If so, his laugh at the end could be triumph at his realization that his actions have corrupted and driven away his archenemy's greatest love. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker would seem to contradict this, though it's certainly possible it didn't count for him unless the info was forcibly extracted...
  • Alfred's reaction to Bruce when he puts on the mask for the first time. Is Alfred reacting to Bruce's terrifying appearance, or to the realization that he has finally cast aside any chance of a normal life, and has irrevocably set himself on this course.
  • Was Andrea planning on murdering Arthur for his role in her father's death as well? Or did she not even know that he was involved? The Animated Series tie-in comic, The Batman Adventures, reveals that she learned of Arthur's role eventually, but decided not to deal with him since he became a disfigured pariah thanks to the Joker. Instead, he would try to get revenge on Andrea (not knowing she was the deadly Phantasm) and fail, getting himself killed anyway —accidentally.
  • Bronski's "Chuckie, Chuckie... you always were a loser," line. Last Disrespects and a Hidden Disdain Reveal? Or did he mean it in a forlorn, Vitriolic Best Buds way? The way he chucks the flowers at the grave (knocking over another vase of flowers) is particularly telling.
• Award Snub: "I Never Even Told You" not getting nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, likely due to the movie flying under the radar and not getting a lot of attention at the time.
• Awesome Music:
  • And how. Shirley Walker cited her work here as one of her favorite compositions, and it's not hard to hear why.
  • "I Never Ever Told You" was viewed initally by Bat-fans as an intrusive Award-Bait Song. However, fans have come to associate the song as an inseparable part of the film, and summarizing the mood perfectly at the end.
  • You can tell that the film had a bigger budget than the TV show from the fact that they were able to use a 30-piece choir to sing along with the orchestra, something unheard of on the show.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Andrea being the Phantasm. The story places a lot of focus on her, and she returns to Gotham around the same time Phantasm's rampage starts. Her father, Carl, was intended to be the Red Herring, even having him and the Phantasm both be voiced by Stacy Keach to throw the audience off. Unfortunately, it becomes easy to figure out it's not him when he never shows up outside of flashbacks.
• Complete Monster: The Joker both pre-transformation and post-transformation. Closer to the 1989 movie's origin of the character than the Multiple-Choice Past's origin of the comics, though no less ambiguous than the latter. See here for more details.
• Cult Classic: The film was ignored when it was first released into theaters, but has since gained quite a following and is now considered one of the best Batman films.
• Growing the Beard: Mark Hamill said that this was the project where he truly developed the Joker voice and laugh.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The film showing how Bruce is seemingly fated to be alone looks even worse when Batman Beyond shows this really will be the case for him.
  • The Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue" also showed Andrea's future: as a contract hitwoman (though one that still retains at least a tiny amount of morality).
  • The scene where Bruce visits his parents' grave is an extra twist of the knife when you think of the DC Rebirth storyline The Button, in which his father (from another timeline) tells him personally to stop being Batman and find happiness. Even worse, Tom King's run ends with the Flashpoint version of Thomas trying to force Bruce to quit, resulting in Alfred's death. Also, the Martha of the Flashpoint universe was herself rather unhappy to learn her son was meant to be Batman rather than her husband, being Driven to Suicide by the news.
  • Alfred praises Bruce for not choosing the path of vengeance. Guess what Batman ends up becoming in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
  • In 2020, Andrea Beaumont finally made a belated debut in The DCU proper in Batman/Catwoman and reveals she has a son, only for him to be found dead in Gotham in issue #1.
• He Really Can Act: Kevin Conroy has proven to be a very good voice actor as Batman in the TV show itself, but he really shows his talent in this film. Several scenes of the prologue where he realizes Andrea has rejected his proposal, his pleading for his parents to let him go from his mission, and him begging with Andrea to leave to let him apprehend the Joker, have his voice practically breaking with heartbreak, especially given that Batman is usually not one to show or hint emotion.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In an example of Those Two Actors, a few years later Batman would be interacting with Andrea Beaumont (in a sense) again.
  • The Joker says, "Why so formal?" to Sal Valestra. Replace "formal" with a synonym and you get...
  • The Joker ultimately taking over as the central antagonist by the end of the film over the Phantasm becomes more amusing in light of his tendency to do so in the Arkham games.
  • The mob boss Joker is seen working for in the Flashbacks has the last name "Valestra." A few decades later, another incarnation of the character would have that as a surname.
  • Phantasm's vendetta against the Joker failed, inevitably. Justice League Unlimited later revealed that Phantasm would end up hired by Amanda Waller in the/a distant future, and the Joker's ex also regularly worked for Waller.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Gene Siskel liked the movie a lot, but his statement that he didn't like the Joker's voice drew quite a bit of ire from fans.
• It Was His Sled: The Phantasm's true identity. It was even Spoiled by the Merchandise!
• Magnificent Bastard: The titular Phantasm, Andrea Beaumont, is driven by both a passionate hatred for crime, and a desire for revenge for the death of her father. Arriving in Gotham in her Phantasm guise, Andrea begins picking off the mob bosses responsible for her father's death, scheduling a plane ride to bring her in later on publicly to divert suspicion from herself as the Phantasm. Using her old relationship with Bruce to deduce his identity as Batman, keep him from the truth and put him on a wild goose chase, Andrea targets The Joker as her next victim, sparing the madman only on Batman's request. Becoming a professional mercenary in The Batman Adventures, Andrea saves Batman several times from assassins and ingrains herself in criminal organizations just to take down the masterminds from within. In her final appearance in the DCAU, Andrea talks Amanda Waller herself out of carrying out a ruthless assassination, imploring her to respect the memory of Batman and be a more honorable person.
• Memetic Mutation: The image of Joker talking on the phone has spawn a meme of him prank calling various places and asking for the opposite of what's expected.
• Misaimed Fandom: The sequence with Batman confronting Andrea in her hotel room, ending with her declaring that "The only one in this room controlled by their parents is you," has become something of a moderate Memetic Mutation from the film and is typically used on places like Tumblr to blast Batman for the root cause of his being Batman. In context, however, it completely ignores the fact that Andrea is just like Bruce, if not worse, as she's become a killer because of the death of her father and seeks vengeance only on those involved with said death while having no plan for her life afterwards, possibly even wishing to die achieving her final vengeance. Even she admittedly doesn't get that Batman is not about vengeance, as demonstrated at the film's end.
• Narm: The stand-off with the police is a little undercut by the SWAT members all shouting "Hut! Hut! Hut!" It's very hard not to imagine the climax of The Blues Brothers.
• Vindicated by History: When the film was initially released, reviews were generally positive but the film was a failure at the box office due to getting a last-minute release with little advertising. However it eventually turned a profit in its home video releases and in the years since then it has only become more well-regarded, and is now hailed as not only one of the best Batman films (if not the best), but one of the best animated films ever. Notoriously, Siskel and Ebert neglected to review the movie when it was in theaters but later admitted they made a mistake in overlooking it and stated it was superior to the other Batman movie of the time, Batman Forever.

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