Jonathan Garcia Dynamic Duel Podcast Jun 11, 2024 3.5/5

Despite its strong themes of vengeance and duty, the obvious mystery reveal and plot holes prevent the film from comparing to Batman’s best stories.

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Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review Oct 15, 2023 4/4

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, embodying the show’s complete and focused creative abilities, plays like a dream for those desiring more from their superheroes.

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Jake Cole Slant Magazine Sep 22, 2023

The film leans hard into the show’s retro-future aesthetic and doubles down on its fondness for the hard-boiled 1940s detective era that birthed Batman in the first place.

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Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Sep 16, 2023 3/4

It’s interesting how the film manages to weave together three plotlines and allow them to finally dovetail in orderly fashion.

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Douglas Davidson Elements of Madness Sep 12, 2023

Rather than being either a thrilling detective story or an action-packed adventure, it’s a pensive, thoughtful exploration of the schism that exists within Bruce Wayne.

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Calvin Wilson Kansas City Star May 23, 2023 3.5/4

This animated addition to the Batman myth is that rarity -- a mystery that is genuinely absorbing, suspenseful and moving.

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Barbara Shulgasser San Francisco Examiner May 23, 2023 3/4

The film is beautifully drawn in a stilted, halting style that fits perfectly with Bruce/Batman's stiff personality, and well directed by Eric Radomski and Bruce W. Timm.

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Ron Weiskind Pittsburgh Post-Gazette May 23, 2023 3/4

Based on Fox Broadcasting's daily TV series, the movie shares many of its virtues, including superb animation, a stylish "Dark Deco" look and an understanding of the psychological underpinnings that drive the man in the bat suit.

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Steve Persall Tampa Bay Times May 23, 2023 B

The Caped Crusader makes his second leap from television to the silver screen in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, an unusual animated film that gives us Gotham City's savior the way he was meant to be.

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Charles Solomon Los Angeles Times May 23, 2023

"Phantasm" looks exactly like what it is: A television program that's been expanded to fill a big screen. But enlarging the characters only makes the flaws in the Saturday-morning-style animation more evident.

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Pat Gillespie The Age (Australia) May 23, 2023

[Combines] the flair and humor of the television series with the dark morality and melancholia of the original DC Comics strips. Excellent action sequences and vivid animation that seems to leap off the screen crown this terrific release.

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Ross Jones Guardian May 23, 2023

A fantastic-looking back-to-basics telling of the legend, it totally disregards any attempt at nineties reinvention.

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Steve Murray Atlanta Journal-Constitution May 23, 2023

As far as the story goes, there's almost too much background, and too little payoff. The true identity of the Phantasm doesn't come as much of a surprise. But the wonderfully stylized graphics can keep the most jaded eye interested.

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David Kronke The Hollywood Reporter May 23, 2023

Scripting is competent and clever, as good as if not better than your average live-action action flick. Shirley Walker contributes effectively operatic music. Still, the mayhem level here may give parents pause.

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Malcolm L. Johnson Hartford Courant May 23, 2023 2/4

While wildly uneven in its look and writing, this creation of co-directors Eric Radomski and Bruce W. Timm and Alan Burnett... moves along at a blazing pace, cleverly interweaving the lives of Batman the fledgling crime fighter and the mature Dark Knight.

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Bob Fenster Arizona Republic May 23, 2023 3/5

While the adventures are no more rousing than the TV show, the big screen does full justice to the stylish animation.

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Jackie Potts Miami Herald May 23, 2023 2/4

Like Burton's films, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm also has a distinctly dark, lurid feel to it... We've seen this gimmick before, although here it seems even more desperate.

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Sean P. Means Salt Lake Tribune May 23, 2023 2.5/4

The Caped Crusader's animated adventures, modeled on the Fox daytime series, doesn't work so well on the big screen. The story's slow, and doesn't get energized until the Joker (maniacally voiced by Mark Hamill) comes into play.

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J. Stephen Bolhafner St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 23, 2023

If you're a Batman fan, you won't want to miss this one. If you once liked Batman but were turned off by Tim Burton's excesses, particularly in the second movie, this might bring you back to the fold.

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Gene Seymour Newsday May 23, 2023 2.5/4

While the animated series' producers prove they can fill 80 minutes as well as they do 30, they haven't shown any comparable ambition with their animation style.

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