LEGO DC BATMAN: FAMILY MATTERS (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

This DTV animated film, the ninth in the DC series, follows in the wake of THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE. The script for FAMILY doesn't pursue the previous film's idea of "Bruce Wayne, Conspicuous Consumer." Yet there's still an argument that in some ways Batman can be, as he's termed late in the film, a "narcissistic jerk." (Did the kids who were the main audience for this DTV have any idea what a "narcissist" was?) Though the Dark Knight still puts his ass on the line to defend the helpless, he also gets a charge out of being a hero. He hates devoting any time to the philanthropic pursuits of his billionaire alter ego, because it takes time away from his crimefighting.

During a meeting with his board, Wayne is told that the corporation can save considerable expenses by adopting a new computer program known as Brother Eye. Wayne not only embraces this policy, he also decides to sell off Wayne Enterprises so that he can be Batman full-time, despite protests from butler Alfred, Current Robin and Nightwing (the latter evincing worries about his "trust fund"). 

At the same time all this is going on, a new criminal mastermind, the Red Hood, begins making inroads in Gotham, enlisting the talents of many prominent Bat-foes into his service: Killer Croc, Penguin, Riddler, Scarecrow, and Two-Face. In fact, Red Hood devotes quite a time to conferring with Two-Face, who happens to be enduring a villain's "mid-life crisis," because he's often considered a "B-lister." (Would he have been happy if they called him a "second-rater?")

Red Hood begins laying traps for the current members of the Bat-Family, which in this narrative also includes Batgirl and the New Batwoman. (I don't recall a previous Lego-video claiming that Nightwing and Batgirl had started dating, but that's the game plan here.) I don't know if in 2019 the average kid, given Internet access, would have been surprised by the revelation of the Red Hood's identity, especially since in the comics the Big Reveal was almost twenty years old. Suffice to say that Red Hood's career of crime is something of an imposture. However, Two-Face essentially takes over his operation for real, weaponizing Brother Eye and his worker-robots, the OMACs, to conquer the city, so that the five Bats have to assemble to stop him.

Given that Two-Face drops his criminal pattern of focusing on "twos," nearly any villain could have been plugged into his place. The main threat stems from the computer and its drones (both extrapolations of scenarios presented in the 1970s by Jack Kirby's short-lived series OMAC). As it happens, Batman's the one forced to emphasize the double nature of his existence, since he uses his two identities, costumed and uncostumed, to outwit the schizophrenic marauder. The cowled crusader does realize that he needs to maintain both his identities in order to better serve Gotham, and his Bat-fam largely functions to point out his strengths as well as his weaknesses. One interesting aspect of FAMILY is that while the other Lego-Bat films don't show more than cursory scenes of fighting, all five Bat-heroes get a lot of martial action (G-rated of course) against their assorted foes.