The Batman vs Dracula

To coincide with the release of the ‘Fright Night’ remake I decided to look at a vampire flick, and what did I pick? ‘The Batman vs Dracula’. Yeah that’s right, Batman versus Dracula. Who the Hell thought up this idea? What will they come up with next? Dracula fighting Billy the Kidd?

But then again, the idea of Batman facing Dracula has been done before, oh yes. In 1991, in the DC Comic’s Elsewhere series, Batman faces off against Dracula, but in a stunning result becomes a vampire, even after defeating Dracula. This would then go on to spawn two sequels, where the vampiric Batman would kill Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face Riddler, heck, even Commissioner Gordon and Alfred bit (no pun intended) the dust at the end of that series.

But let’s start this review shall we? We start at Arkham Asylum, where the sign looks like it was borrowed from a carnival and the building itself looks like a hotel. Inside, an inmate is asking the Penguin to help him break out. The Penguin has no interest until the inmate says he’ll share some loot with him, but makes the mistake of saying the location of where it’s buried, not the exact location, but where it’s buried, which just happens to be a cemetery. Unfortunately for the Penguin, the inmate also went to the Joker, where it is then revealed that the Joker has broken out of Arkham, right on cue.

Now it’s here where I notice the animation. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, far from it. The animation, whilst I prefer the 90s animated series, is really good, great in fact. Okay, it’s not the animation I’m concerned about, it’s the character designs. The Penguin looks really good I have to say, and Joker looks more like Hitmontop from Pokémon now, though I admit it actually suits this version of the Joker. But the Batman design, it looks weird to me, he has a weird body and his facial features look odd, where’s his nose? Why’s his chin pointy?

Anyway, Batman fights Joker, where it appears Joker is electrocuted in a river and is killed. Penguin goes onto the graveyard, breaking into a tomb where he believes the loot is hidden in a coffin which is chained up. Come on Penguin! You’re smarter than this! Did you really think the inmate went to such lengths to hide the loot? He told you where it was for God’s sake! He’s not crazy, he’s just stupid!

It turns out there’s only a body in the coffin, big shock. However whilst opening the coffin Penguin cut himself, and his blood drips onto the heart, resurrecting Dracula. Yes, that’s right, Dracula’s tomb is in Gotham City. Why? Well it turns out in Transylvania the townspeople stormed his castle...at night, put a stake through his heart...whilst he was sleeping...at night, and then shipped him off...for insert reason here, where his coffin ended up in Gotham. I don’t know.

But despite the silly plot idea, the creators actually did a serious story that holds up. Dracula goes on doing what he’s best known for, drinking people’s blood, flirting with females and creating servants from the Penguin and turning the Joker into a vampire. Yeah, Dracula takes the most dangerous criminal Gotham has, and makes him more dangerous! But the story, well, it is pretty much taken from the book by Bram Stoker. It is essentially Dracula turns up, enslaves a minion, flirts with lead female, annoys vampire hunter, steals lead female, tries to turn her into bride, fights vampire hunter and is killed. Just replace vampire hunter with Batman. But at least they didn’t take a weird, stupid concept and made it, well, stupid. They actually took it seriously, they put a lot of effort into it. It’s dark, gritty and has a great flow.

Now, the love interest. Bad news; it’s Vicki Vale. Good news; she doesn’t actually suck (again, no pun intended) this time. You know from my ‘Top 15 Batman Villains’ that I really didn’t like her character in the 1989 Batman film. But here, she’s actually a likable, well rounded character, with a decent voice actress! Then again it may be because there wasn’t really a love sub-plot in this. Whenever Vicki goes to see Bruce, he’s in the Batcave or out in Gotham as Batman, I think they only had like two, three scenes together. But at least Bruce and Alfred acknowledge this; Batman was originally going to go after Dracula at dawn, when he’s at his most weakest, but after learning that he’s taken Vicki, he says “I think she’s waited long enough,”.

The voice acting was great, I have to say, though I must admit, I am biased more towards the 90s animated show which included Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil, but I did like the voice acting in this, especially the Joker, this time voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. Wait a minute, I recognise his voice. Holy crap! It’s the principal from American Dad! I’m never going to look at that character the same again. Then there’s the Penguin, voiced by Tom Kenny. Yes I do like the Penguin’s voice from the other animated series, I can’t help but draw a comparison, but Tom Kenny did a brilliant performance.

But not everything is good, there is some dodgy dialogue and some bits you probably won’t like. One example is Batman’s first line, “Don’t get caught out in the rain without your straightjacket,”. Was that meant to be a one liner? Batman does not do one liners! Then there was the bird puns earlier with Penguin, Joker and Alfred at one point saying they were “out for blood,”,  in a film about Dracula...do you get it? Then we have Dracula introducing himself as Alucard...do you get it? Well just in case you didn’t Bruce holds it in on a card in a mirror to literally spell it out.

It’s not a perfect piece of animation, but it is definitely well worth a look and a good solid entry in the Batman franchise.