The Batman vs. Dracula (2005)

Directed by Michael Goguen

After a wild and crazy weekend of partying I decided to take a relaxing day to tone things down and go with some lighter fare. I started out watching Casper: A Spirited Beginning, but that was so unrelentingly dull and formulaic that I can’t even bring myself to spend any more brain-power to make fun of it, and I wound up taking a look at The Batman vs. Dracula. I’ve been a fan of a lot of the animated Batman content I’ve seen, Batman: The Animated Series is a classic, and Batman Beyond is an underappreciated gem, but I wasn’t too familiar with The Batman, which was admittedly a little after my time. Maybe I should go back and give it a chance, because The Batman vs. Dracula was surprisingly good.

It’s always convenient when the title of a thing describes the plot completely, and that’s exactly what happens here; Dracula is awoken in Gotham City and Batman has to fight him. Sure, there’s a little plot about Dracula turning people into vampire slaves, and a bit at the beginning with Joker and Penguin, but the meat of this is that Batman has to fight Dracula, and all of that works for me. I always enjoy Bat-media that embraces Batman’s weird adversaries, and Dracula fits pretty well with the whole Bat-mythos, providing a neat villain that has some fun fights, even with a predictable conclusion. Generally, the visuals here are fine, nothing groundbreaking but not a bad faux-gothic look, and this did get a lot more gruesome than I was expecting, which is a big plus. Overall this is a breezy and fun Batman adventure that hits all the basic notes without being spectacular. One thing I will say though, what the hell is up with this Joker design? I have to include a picture of it here because this is probably the worst depiction of the Joker, who also is a martial arts expert for some reason.