Batman vs. Batman Begins
Okay, enough about politics (for now). I've been on this government corruption/conspiracy kick for the past 2 weeks and it's driving Richel nuts. Although I find it fascinating. By the way, did you know that despite all of the current administration's antics and corruption, if they were to hold another presidential election tomorrow Bush would win, again? Amazing, eh? It's not Bush's fault for being president; it's the millions of morons who live somewhere under a rock and don't have a clue as to what's going on in the world. These are the proud Americans who vote for him.
Okay, I digress. Back to Batman. I just bought Batman Begins DVD. Unarguably, THE best Batman movie ever made to date. And a very good movie, period. Batman or not. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you. But just let me say it's a comic-movie that's based in a reality. All this stuff happening is highly unprobable, but not impossible. Good drama, excellent directing, pretty good story. The acting is so-so. And I must say, the character developement for all the characters (except for Rachel Dawes) is excellent. You can actually understand and almost feel the anger, rage and inner turmoil that drives Bruce Wayne to become the Dark Knight.
As the Dark Knight, we see him as pretty cool. But he's pretty scarey at the same time. Okay, I lied. I have to ruin part of it to make an example. There's one scene where Batman is dangling some poor shmuck upside down from 10 stories up and angrily shouting in the guy's face. You can hear it when he speaks; he has that "I'm going to kill you if you don't cooperate" tone in his voice. He sounds PISSED!
Now let's rewind to about 15 years ago, when Batman, starring Michael Keaton came out. When I first saw it, I wasn't sure what to think. The erie Batman scenes with him fighting crooks was somewhat entertaining. Just seeing the mask and the costume was exciting enough. But the Tim Burton feel of the entire film just ruined it for me. Jack Nicholson stole the show as the Joker in this film, or so all the critics raved. But even then, I wasn't impressed with his performance. The impression I got from Nicholson's performance was that the Joker was a nut-case who liked to dress in loud suits. He had a short fuse, yes, but didn't live up to the diabolical nature of the Joker (or George Bush....oh, sorry. Got carried away). There was no driving rage or anger behind Bruce Wayne, we knew he had a grudge about the death of his parents, but that was it. And the scariest thing he does to one of his opponents is dangle him off a rooftop and WHISPERS to him, "I'm Batman". There was nothing about Bruce Wayne's training, his skill and depth in martial arts, his potential for killing anyone, his philosophy, or anything. All we know is...."I'm Batman".
I remember exiting the theatre 15 years ago, thinking "Eh. At least seeing this movie in the theatre might score me some points with my date".
So what's this fixation with killing potential? For those of you who know Batman lore, we know he has great power, even though he's a regular guy with no super powers. If you've ever read some of the books, you'll remember he was blasting people away left and right with a machine gun at one point (I think that was in Frank Miller's Dark Knight series). He wasn't this goody-goody who just tied people up and left them on the doorstep of the police department with a note (that's more Spiderman-style). He'd beat the living crap out of the crook first until the crook was nothing but a bloody pulp, tie him up, then drag him behind his Batmobile for miles to the police station. Well, I don't think he ever did THAT, but that's what he was capable of doing.
The rest of the Batman movies, Batman Returns, Batman and Robin, and Batman Forever were garbage. It was a downward spiral for the Caped Crusader since the first movie, which wasn't that great itself.
But now, we have Christian Bale and a whole new cast who will hopefully turn around the movie franchise. They did a kick-butt job on the first movie. Let's hope they can keep it up.
Okay, I digress. Back to Batman. I just bought Batman Begins DVD. Unarguably, THE best Batman movie ever made to date. And a very good movie, period. Batman or not. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you. But just let me say it's a comic-movie that's based in a reality. All this stuff happening is highly unprobable, but not impossible. Good drama, excellent directing, pretty good story. The acting is so-so. And I must say, the character developement for all the characters (except for Rachel Dawes) is excellent. You can actually understand and almost feel the anger, rage and inner turmoil that drives Bruce Wayne to become the Dark Knight.
As the Dark Knight, we see him as pretty cool. But he's pretty scarey at the same time. Okay, I lied. I have to ruin part of it to make an example. There's one scene where Batman is dangling some poor shmuck upside down from 10 stories up and angrily shouting in the guy's face. You can hear it when he speaks; he has that "I'm going to kill you if you don't cooperate" tone in his voice. He sounds PISSED!
Now let's rewind to about 15 years ago, when Batman, starring Michael Keaton came out. When I first saw it, I wasn't sure what to think. The erie Batman scenes with him fighting crooks was somewhat entertaining. Just seeing the mask and the costume was exciting enough. But the Tim Burton feel of the entire film just ruined it for me. Jack Nicholson stole the show as the Joker in this film, or so all the critics raved. But even then, I wasn't impressed with his performance. The impression I got from Nicholson's performance was that the Joker was a nut-case who liked to dress in loud suits. He had a short fuse, yes, but didn't live up to the diabolical nature of the Joker (or George Bush....oh, sorry. Got carried away). There was no driving rage or anger behind Bruce Wayne, we knew he had a grudge about the death of his parents, but that was it. And the scariest thing he does to one of his opponents is dangle him off a rooftop and WHISPERS to him, "I'm Batman". There was nothing about Bruce Wayne's training, his skill and depth in martial arts, his potential for killing anyone, his philosophy, or anything. All we know is...."I'm Batman".
I remember exiting the theatre 15 years ago, thinking "Eh. At least seeing this movie in the theatre might score me some points with my date".
So what's this fixation with killing potential? For those of you who know Batman lore, we know he has great power, even though he's a regular guy with no super powers. If you've ever read some of the books, you'll remember he was blasting people away left and right with a machine gun at one point (I think that was in Frank Miller's Dark Knight series). He wasn't this goody-goody who just tied people up and left them on the doorstep of the police department with a note (that's more Spiderman-style). He'd beat the living crap out of the crook first until the crook was nothing but a bloody pulp, tie him up, then drag him behind his Batmobile for miles to the police station. Well, I don't think he ever did THAT, but that's what he was capable of doing.
The rest of the Batman movies, Batman Returns, Batman and Robin, and Batman Forever were garbage. It was a downward spiral for the Caped Crusader since the first movie, which wasn't that great itself.
But now, we have Christian Bale and a whole new cast who will hopefully turn around the movie franchise. They did a kick-butt job on the first movie. Let's hope they can keep it up.
posted by V-Hume at 5:51 PM
2 Comments:
talk about more government conspiracies.
Ah, yes, Wei. In order to really appreciate the scope of government conspiracies and reality, sometimes it is necessary to indulge in fantasy and fiction. Comics and movies just aren't comics and movies all the time. Sometimes they have pretty deep messages in them. For example, tell me one thing you learned from Harry Potter.
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