Saw Batman and Harley Quinn (2017).
I'm one of those individuals who believes that _Batman the Animated Series_ is the best filmic adaptation to date of the Batman character and his stories. They got everything right -the tone,look, mood, music, and how the character reacts to the world. One of the wonderful additions to Batman's mythos which we
got from that show was the character Harley Quinn, an impressionable and underqualified psychiatrist who would go on to be manipulated by both the Joker and Poison Ivy.

The real Harley Quinzel is a person who got through medical school by taking shortcuts and was not ready to deal with sociopathic personalities. This is true in the case of the Joker, a terrorist who desires to sow chaos and reveal the meaninglessness of life, and in Poison Ivy, an ecoterrorist who views humanity's presence on the earth as an unhealthy infestation. Harley's becoming involved with either of them is a mistake - the Joker is violent and incapable of actual love, and Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy) is a literal femme fatale who uses mind control to make men and women do what she wants.

From a certain perspective, the character is a victim but is also one who chooses not to learn from her mistakes. This is true in the main series timeline - only after the death of the Joker in the Batman Beyond
movie, _Return of the Joker_, does she retire and go back to living a normal life (though her granddaughters
Delia and Deidre Dennis eventually developed an obsession with the Joker which caused them to join the Jokerz posergang under the shared alias, Dee Dee.)

It's because of this that I don't really care for the modern "woke" interpretation of the character that reduces her to a female Deadpool in permaclown makeup. While Harley can be very funny at times there should also be a tragic angle to the character - a loser who makes bad choices and loves the wrong person way too much. So I went in wanting to like this movie which was supposed to take her back to the Animated Series character.

A neat idea, but this story happens outside of the main DCAU timeline. I can say that much because she had broken up with the Joker in this and there was no mention of his death. "Return of the Joker" also establishes that she went dark after
his passing and that Batman et. al had not seen her since Joker died. That said, there were quite a few nods to other things in the long-running Batman line, such as a thug imitating Batman's dancing from the 1960s show or pop-up visible sound effects as a nod to that old series' fight scenes. When Batman and co. go looking for clues
at a henchmans' dive, a number of mooks and heavies from the original Batman cartoon are in attendance. It's a nice
little touch. Gotham's red-tinged sky and art deco buildings are there, and they're still lovely to see.

Unfortunately, this particular movie tries to lean too heavily into comedy instead of drama, and many of the jokes just don't land, especially the extended
part about Harley passing gas in the Batmobile. There are also two musical sequences that go on for too long. In my view this movie is like a cover band's take on Batman the Animated Series,
where many of the key elements are there, but it feels lacking compared to the real thing. It was enhanced by some
great voice acting and I was glad I got to hear one of Kevin Conroy's final performances as Batman in this.
My final rating is that you might be better off watching old episodes of Batman the Animated Series (especially Mad Love,
which contains Harleen Quinzel's origin story) and then chasing it with one of the better Batman movies like
_Mask of the Phantasm_, _Return of the Joker_, etc.

Final rating: I want to like it more than I actually do. You might want to skip this one.
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