Amazon.com video review:
Holy camp site, Batman! After a fabulously successful season on TV, the
campy comic book adventure hit the big screen, complete with painful puns,
outrageous supervillains, and fights punctuated with word balloons sporting
such onomatopoeic syllables as "Pow!," "Thud!," and "Blammo!" Adam West's
wooden Batman is the cowled vigilante alter ego of straight-arrow
millionaire Bruce Wayne and Bruce Ward's Robin (a.k.a. Dick Grayson,
Bruce's young collegiate protégé) his overeager sidekick
in hot pants.
Together they battle an unholy alliance of Gotham City's greatest
criminals: the Joker (Cesar Romero, whooping up a storm), the Riddler
(giggling Frank Gorshin), the Penguin (cackling Burgess Meredith), and the
purr-fectly sexy Catwoman (Lee Meriwether slinking in a skin-tight black
bodysuit). The criminals are, naturally, out to conquer the world, but with
a little help from their unending supply of utility belt devices (bat shark
repellent, anyone?), our dynamic duo thwarts their nefarious plans at every
turn. Since the TV show ran under 30 minutes an episode (with commercials),
the 105-minute film runs a little thin--a little camp goes a long way--but
fans of the small-screen show will enjoy the spoofing tone throughout.
Leslie H. Martinson directs Lorenzo Semple's screenplay like a big-budget
TV episode minus the cliffhanger endings. --Sean Axmaker
