Rick Morales directs William Dozier’s take on the famed caped crusader in “Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders,” bringing back the one-liners and innuendoes to the big screen made famous by the original 1966 TV series.
The movie was animated true to the artistic style of Neal Adams the original comic book artist and brought to life the entertaining and sometimes corny fight scenes with the words, “Pow, Biff and Bam” filling the screen every time a villain got hit in the face.
The movie included the voice talents of Adam West as Batman/Bruce Wayne, reprising his role from the series and also known for his role as Mayor West in the animated series “Family Guy;” Burt Ward as Robin/Dick Grayson and Julie Newmar as Catwoman. The film follows millionaire Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman as he fights crime and hides his secret identity from Dick Grayson’s pesky Aunt Harriet (Lynne Marie Stewart), who is always snooping around, but never finds their secret identities.
The storyline follows the original 1966 elements of crime featuring the usual suspects, the Joker (Jeff Bergman), the Penguin (William Salyers) and the Riddler (Wally Wingert), as well as a host of other villains.
It was entertaining to hear Robin say “Holy TV dinner, Batman!” and “Holy Salsbury Steak, Batman!” when the dynamic duo was about to be cooked in a giant TV dinner tray at an abandoned TV dinner factory’s oven.
Overall the movie was good, as it portrayed the simpler times and crimes of the 1960s era of Batman and Robin trying to foil one scheme after another. “Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders” releases on Blu-Ray and DVD on Tuesday, Nov. 1.