bruce timm's BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993)

i'm the first to put Batman: The Animated Series forth as the most faithful, accomplished superhero cartoon in memory (and up there with the best cartoons period) but its bigscreen foray doesn't completely live up to its legacy; Timm & co don't seem comfortable flexing their storytelling muscles at "feature" length, and even though the flashback structure provides passable padding, the story isn't sufficiently engaging (and, more critically, the action sequences aren't nearly numerous or spectacular enough) to make too much of an impression.