Blankman (1994)

Batman's been done a million different ways by a million different people, but one of my favorite versions of the character has always been the '60s television show that starred Adam West as the titular hero. It's a hard show to take seriously, but it's just so much fun that one can easily overlook its flaws. And I'm not the only one who loves the show, either. Twenty-six years after the show's cancellation, Damon Wayans would create an affectionate parody of that incarnation of the Caped Crusader in Blankman. The movie does have a certain charm, but it's a sadly disappointing movie.

The movie introduces us to Darryl Walker (Wayans), an awkward, childlike inventor who is blissfully unaware of the fact that his inner city neighborhood is quickly decaying. When mob boss Michael Minelli (Jon Polito) kills a group of supporters for an honest mayoral candidate, including his beloved grandmother (Lynne Thigpen), Darryl's eyes are opened to just how bad things are.

Convinced that someone has to clean up the city, Darryl decides to become a masked superhero in the vein of his favorite TV do-gooder, Adam West's Batman. He dons a goofy-looking pink costume coated with a bulletproof chemical of his own design, and arms himself with homemade weapons made from assorted junk and household objects. His brother Kevin (David Alan Grier) remains cynical but plays along anyway, believing that this is just Darryl's way of coping with their grandmother's murder.

But Darryl's various good deeds around the city earn him the attention of the media, who dub him "Blankman" after his initial failure to come up with a name. Kevin himself starts tagging along as Blankman's sidekick, "Other Guy," to make sure Darryl doesn't get in over his head. But it won't be an easy job, as Blankman and Other Guy quickly find themselves in Minelli's crosshairs.

The argument could be made that Blankman is a spiritual sibling to The Meteor Man. Released right at a year after The Meteor Man hit theaters, Blankman is also about an African American man donning a superhero costume to fight crime in the ghetto. However, Blankman is much more focused than The Meteor Man. While Robert Townsend's tale of an ersatz Superman couldn't decide between being serious and being funny, Blankman is most certainly a comedy. It doesn't try to be anything more than that, and is better for it. That doesn't mean it's a good movie, but it at least knows what it wants to be.

Helming the movie is Mike Binder, whose direction is evocative of the Batman TV show. The villains are filmed at Dutch angles, and the scene transitions where the Batman logo comes rushing at the screen is humorously lampooned. Binder also sure to keep the movie moving at a steady pace, never letting Blankman slow down long enough to get boring. But he handles the movie in such a way that you can tell it isn't going to be taking itself too seriously. This works in the movie's favor, since that sort of feel makes it easier to stomach some of its dumber moments. I mean, if the movie is going to be laid back and carefree, then why get upset over some stupid stuff?

But let's move on. The next item on my list is the screenplay, penned by Damon Wayans and J.F. Lawton. And as a spoof of the old Batman TV show, it isn't bad at all. It could have been better, though. That's the sad part. Not every joke in the movie works, and a lot of the ones that do are cheesy and kinda lame upon retrospect. I also didn't like the idea of giving Blankman a love interest. It just feels tacked on and unnecessary. Did Blankman absolutely need a love interest?

There are parts of the script that do work, though. As I said earlier, Blankman is focused on being nothing more than a simple comedy. Wayans and Lawton know what they want to do with the movie, and things are better for it. If they had been indecisive about how they'd wanted to approach it, then the whole thing would have been screwed. But Wayans and Lawton know what movie they're writing. And even though the script is flawed, at least it has a definitive identity.

Rounding things out are the cast, who I didn't think was too bad at all. There aren't any Oscar-caliber performances by a long shot, but at least nobody in the movie actively sucks. In the title role is Damon Wayans, who plays Blankman as so tremendously nerdy that he makes the Tri-Lambs from Revenge of the Nerds look like the Alpha Betas. It starts to get a little irritating after a while, but Wayans still manages to be funny and likable enough to make it not that big a deal.

In the role of Blankman's brother and sidekick is David Alan Grier, who is essentially the movie's straight man. But Grier seems to be something of an aversion of the typical straight man archetype, since he ends up contributing just as much humor as the rest of the cast does. Grier is really funny at times, but other times his acting method seems to be solely "annoyed yelling." But he's still good when he's not yelling or screaming, so at least he has that going for him.

I also liked Jon Polito as the movie's villain. Polito is so hammy and so over-the-top that you can't help but be entertained by his performance. The rest of the cast works well too, with the possible exception of Robin Givens as the aforementioned love interest. I thought Givens was forgettable and just plain disappointing, though it's obvious she's at least trying her hardest. But I guess that sort of thing will happen when a casting director hires someone whose greatest claim to fame is being Mike Tyson's ex-wife.

Blankman isn't a great movie and probably will not appeal to anyone who isn't already a huge fan of superhero movies. But it's not a bad movie, either. It's not perfect, yeah, but it has just as many funny moments to counterbalance those flaws. So I guess you could say Blankman breaks even. That's not too bad, is it? I do wonder, though... why parody the Batman TV show after Tim Burton had already done his two Batman movies? Wouldn't it have been more topical to parody them instead? But considering Blankman is almost twenty years old, I guess it's too late to change it now.

Final Rating: ***