Peter Stormare, The Batman vs Dracula (2005)
‘I thank you for carrying on my legacy in its absence, but now there is room for only one bat-man in Gotham.’
A feature spin-off from the animated series The Batman (2004-8), this is one of those ideas which had to happen sooner or later.
A youngish Bruce Wayne (voiced by Rino Romano) is pitted against an arrogant Dracula (nicely voiced by Peter Stormare), and Batman’s just-starting legend is in danger of being eclipsed by the well-established image of the bat-man from Transylvania. Duane Capizzi’s script works classic bat-villains into a Dracula story: searching for mob treasure in a Gotham City graveyard, the Penguin (Tom Kenny) discovers the vampire’s staked and chained skeleton (transported from Transylvania) and bleeds on it, then becomes a Renfield-like minion; Dracula turns various Gothamites (‘the Lost Ones’) into semi-vampires, and the Joker (Kevin Michael Richardson) becomes an even-loonier, fanged, wall-walking albino. Assuming the pseudonym ‘Dr Alucard’, Dracula crashes high society, intent on ritually draining Lois Lane knock-off Vicky Vale (Tara Strong) to revivify his vampire soulmate, Carmilla Karnstein (hauled in from J. Sheridan LeFanu). Batman synthesises a cure so he can restore humanity to recently-turned vampires, but uses a sunlight generator to dust the Count (overcoming his superheroic reluctance to kill by reasoning Dracula isn’t alive).
Though it has effective, spooky action and is decently-scripted, the film is hampered by blocky, manga-look character designs carried over from The Batman, a less pleasing take on the comics material than the earlier Batman: The Animated Series or the later Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Directed by Michael Goguen.
Extract from Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon.
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