REVIEW: Beware the Batman "Broken" - And Nobody Could put Humpty Together Again
Beware the Batman continues to straddle a line somewhere between “dark and gritty” and camp. Those are two hard tones to harmonize. On one hand you have the villain of the week: Humpty Dumpty. Another low tier villain that on its face sounds like he’d fit right into one of the many episodes of Adam West era Batman. His use of life size robotic toy soldiers reinforce this camp reading. “Broken” zags with it’s presentation of these camp elements. “Broken” presents Humpty Dumpty as Jigsaw-esque (Saw franchise), a maniacal planner out to get revenge on the men and women he holds responsible for the loss of his identity. Which is told through flashbacks. Those life size toy soldiers have human size compartments with bombs inside. The episode uses shadowy images of Dumpty planning his next move by vaguely placing toys on a model table with voice actor Matt L. Jones speaking in high pitched rhymes. This rhyming dialog is what brings these two ideas together. Nursery rhymes when spoken in a high pitch voice just sound creepy as hell. Only to be further heightened by the visual presentation of a shadowy Humpty vaguely telling the audience his next scheme. You almost want to laugh partly for the comedy and nerves.
This tonal balance is lost a little bit in the final battle between Humpty Dumpty and Batman. Outside of an abandoned(?) castle Humpty sits upon a wall and two squads of soldiers are set to fire on one another. Even with the shows continued instances that all battles take place in the isolated dead of night, it couldn’t make it all not look a bit outlandish and funny. And maybe that’s the best for the show, having these obvious darker readings available for viewers while still sticking to outlandish setups that make for toy fodder. Hilarity is once again cut as Batman chases after Dumpty through the labyrinthine castle walls, Dumpty's high-pitched voice echoing off the walls explaining how he didn’t want to hurt anyone until he was dragged into “their war” (Gordon and Whale’s). All he wants to do is play with his numbers and toys again. Humphry Dumpler was just a casualty of war.
There is a nice homage to Tim Burton’s original 1989 Batman as Humpty Dumpty lives up to his name and falls from a wall and can’t be put back together again. Of course it’s not really Humpty but the broken recording and action mirror The Joker’s fall from the church in the original Batman. Burton’s first Batman film is a nice reference point when thinking of the style of Beware the Batman. Batman had a very gaudy, what now would be camp 80’s aesthetic. Mixed in with all the Prince music and Warner Bros. corporate synergy was still an underlying sense of darkness that was part of the comic era. Beware lacks the hyper stylized color pallet, instead using the villains of the week as vessels to mix the dark and camp. Other than the League of Assassins(how do you make them funny?) the rest of Beware’s rogues gallery have been a mix of extreme characteristics and darkness (psychologically or aesthetically)
When the preview assets were distributed I’d hoped “Broken” would return to the identity motif found in “Secretes”. At best this is only hinted at but my hopes would have been the wrong play here. Using Humpty Dumpty sparingly until the very end gave him a villainous edge that would have been lost the minute you had to hear him speak for more than a minute. Matt L. Jones high pitched delivery worked best when used sparingly.
“Broken” does do other things then use Humpty Dumpty as vessel to mix “dark and gritty” with camp. There is a fair amount of work given to furthering the relationship between Batman and Lt. Gordon. The latter flatly refusing the vigilantes help. Seeing him, perhaps rightly, as making these types of situations worse. This gives Kurtwood Smith several sarcastic one liners to deliver. It’s fun getting to see this relationship slowly develop since most incarnations simply have Batman and Gordon already as old war buddies.
Katana also has to fess up and explain how she came to posses the Soultaker Sword. The CIA had sent her undercover into the League of Assassins to attain the whereabouts of Ra’s Al Ghul. Instead she witnessed the power of the sword, which lives up to its name. The League had hoped to use the weapon to gain further power and Katana realized that it was too powerful for the CIA to not use. So she faked her death and stole it from them. In her flashback we see Silver Monkey using the sword that would explain why he withheld the information last episode.
The visuals continue to be a little hit or miss with this show. The texturing isn’t the greatest, objects have a incomprehensible shine to them. Batman’s suit should not be so shiny. It also doesn't look very good when you have bland skin textures and a partially framed face, with only the mouth moving. It creates an uncanny valley effect that just looked terrible. Animating mouths is a hard thing in CGI but this really bad. Some of the coloring between Katana and Alfred also looked a off, the skin was too bright compared to the lighting of the rooms.
“Broken” does at least prove that there are people who live in Gotham City. All 3 random citizens that come across the life size Toy Soldiers. The shows continued late night setting does make for a built in excuse as to why there is a lack of people. It’s still horrible mise en scene, the world within the frame. It makes everything look hollow and dead due to the lack of life.
The Bits At The End
Is it weird just saying Humpty or Dumpty and not his full name?
I’m betting we get a Batgirl appearance before we get a Robin
Don’t ever sneak up on a former Spy while he’s making a sandwich. For further things not to do around old spies go watch Red.
I use “dark and gritty” with a certain amount of irony here. I loathe the term. It’s crap corporate double speak the belies oversimplifies and misses the point about what made the Nolan trilogy so great.
