Batman & Mr. Freeze - Sub-zero (1997)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Randy Rogel and Boyd Kirkland
Directed by Boyd Kirkland
Starring Kevin Conroy, Michael Ansera, Loren Lester, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Features:

• "The Hunt for Mr. Freeze" game
  
• How-to-draw Batman
  
• Music montage
  
• Cast and crew info
  
• English, French, Spanish, and Portugese language tracks
  

Rating: NR, suitable for 7+

Anamorphic: N/A; presented in original TV aspect

My Advice: Rent it.

In Sub-Zero, Victor Fries, long an enemy of Gotham City and Batman, has put away his freeze ray and his cold-guy spacesuit at long last, and retired to the Arctic Circle to be alone with his thoughts, his polar bears, and his wife-cicle, cryogenically frozen until a cure for her mysterious malady can be found. All is well in this frost-bitten world until the US Navy dorks everything up by surfacing a submarine inside Fries's cavern lair. The resultant destruction of his home puts Mr. Freeze's blue-lipped beloved in jeopardy, as his equipment that sustains her frozen state is damaged.

So out comes the freeze ray and the weird encounter suit, and Freeze heads back to Gotham to get medical attention for Nora. While looking for a suitable organ donor, it becomes clear that his best choice is one Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, so he promptly abducts her to involuntary donate organs. Bats and the Boy Wonder give chase, and find themselves against the clock to locate Freeze's hidden operating theatre before it's too late.

The story of Sub-Zero is pretty straight-forward stuff, but that's not to say that it lacks depth or complexity. Freeze has always been an interesting character (at least in the animated series), because he is in many ways one of the most sympathetic villains ever constructed. He wants to cure his wife and basically be left alone, but somebody always rolls up and wrecks what little peace he's been able to carve out for himself, and then he serves up his revenge, bringing in Batman to stop him before too many people get hurt.

This feature-length version of the show is also interesting as it marks the last appearance of the traditional blue and gray Batman costume of the earlier series before the switch to the pure black and gray costume design found in later episodes as well as in things like The Batman/Superman Movie. Later episodes also switch from Dick Grayson as Robin to the younger Timothy Drake.

The animation is predictably good, and the voice-acting, as with all other examples of this series, is excellent. The DVD treatment is pretty slim, providing only some simple cast and crew info and another lame attempt at a DVD game. Word to the wise: until you can package something at least worthy of the original Playstation or N64 console with your DVDs, don't bother. Nobody's impressed, and nobody's playing the stupid things when they could be spending their time playing Final Fantasy X. The "how-to-draw" feature, included on every Warner animated Batman release, is about the most useless thing I've ever seen. Concept galleries, interviews with voice talent, storyboards, anything else would make a decent extra, and probably wouldn't take any more time than making cheesy music montages.

So this one's a rental unless you're a completist, but definitely check it out. DVD weaknesses aside, the story is excellent and a heck of a lot of fun to watch.