Well, If You're So Smart is a fun episode, definitely worth seeing.
But the vibe of this episode was off, the animation is strangely noodly, and Batman's voice performance and overall personality is oddly cheeky and hammy compared to his usual behavior. It feels like this may have been an early episode before they had a mood nailed down for the show.
In terms of animation you can see it's oddly expressive when Lucius looks up at the riddle on the ticker tape outside the window. There are a lot of other moments where you'll see the animation "dances" in an off-putting manner. At least relative to the show's usual art deco, minimal-necessary-gesturing for the sake of maintaining that classic Animated Batman regality. The intro that plays before every episode exemplifies what I'm talking about. Characters in this show just don't move that much, the animation is very reserved.
And when it comes to mood, the tone is kind of inconsistent and the ending especially leaves with a weird message. Mockridge fired a guy for selfish reasons and the ending is saying that all is right with the world because now he lives every night unable to sleep, in fear of his life. I don't see how that's reasonable justice for something like that, seems very heavy handed, and Bruce delivers the point like it's the end of A Christmas Carol.
But the vibe of this episode was off, the animation is strangely noodly, and Batman's voice performance and overall personality is oddly cheeky and hammy compared to his usual behavior. It feels like this may have been an early episode before they had a mood nailed down for the show.
In terms of animation you can see it's oddly expressive when Lucius looks up at the riddle on the ticker tape outside the window. There are a lot of other moments where you'll see the animation "dances" in an off-putting manner. At least relative to the show's usual art deco, minimal-necessary-gesturing for the sake of maintaining that classic Animated Batman regality. The intro that plays before every episode exemplifies what I'm talking about. Characters in this show just don't move that much, the animation is very reserved.
And when it comes to mood, the tone is kind of inconsistent and the ending especially leaves with a weird message. Mockridge fired a guy for selfish reasons and the ending is saying that all is right with the world because now he lives every night unable to sleep, in fear of his life. I don't see how that's reasonable justice for something like that, seems very heavy handed, and Bruce delivers the point like it's the end of A Christmas Carol.