The Batman Film Thread

[Guest TheZsaszHorsemen]

This thread is for whoever asked me my poinion on the Batman films last night at CWM's farewell chat. I know it's someone here, so:

 

 

BATMAN

 

Starring:

 

Michael Keaton

Jack Nicholson

Kim Basigner

 

There are a LOT of problems with this film, and they generally fall into three distinct areas:

 

1. Unnecessary and dull love intrest.

 

2. Joker was given the spotlight, but never made to be an interesting character.

 

3. Script has an almost insane series of mood and tone shifts at the 3/4's mark.

 

First of all, the movie does A LOT to distance Batman from his campy 60's days, and it also showcases some brilliant work done by Michael Keaton, Michael Gough, Jack Palance, and Billy Dee Williams, but besides that; it doesn't really accomplish much. The Vickie Vale subplot really killed the first half of the film. There's no reason for Batman to have a love intrest EVERY SINGLE FILM. He's not going to get married, he's fighting a war on crime for God's sakes.

 

Joker is given great manic energy by Jack Nicholson, but as a character he falls flat. He just never seems that interesting or real.

 

The final fight sequences feel improvised, it just doesn't feel right.

 

All in all, it wasn't bad, but certainly left a lot of room for improvement.

 

 

 

BATMAN RETURNS

 

Starring:

Michael Keaton

Michelle Pfiffer

Danny DeVito

Christopher Walken

 

 

I love this film. It's dark and twisted, and captures everything comic fans love about Gotham City. Sure, they gave us "revised" origins for Penguin and Catwoman, but I still love them. The villains ARN'T allowed to steal the film, and they are instead used as dark reflections of the Bruce wayne character himself. Schrek is Bruce Wayne's potential for evil, to use his money selfishly. The Penguin is Batman/Bruce Wayne's freakish and psychotic nature that is welling inside them. Catwoman is a dark spectre of vengeance; just like Batman. When Batman fights them, it's a metaphor for OUR inner demons.

 

The major weakness of the film is it's lack of good action. What little there is of it is very good though. Almost all of it has a darkly comic aspect of it that I love.

 

Unquestionably the best of the series.

 

 

BATMAN FOREVER

 

Starring:

Val Kilmer

Tommy Lee Jones

Jim Carrey

Nicole Kidman

Chris O'Donnell

 

 

Well, this film is enjoyable, but very, very, flawed. Jim carrey plays Nygma like Poor Man's Frank Gorshin, giving him absoulutly NO MENACE that's necessary for a rampaging psychotic. The score is awful and Danny Elfman is dearly missed. Val Kilmer is about as good as Keaton is, although I never dug his Bruce Wayne. He wasn't foppish enough. Tommy Lee Jones RUINS two-Face. He turns him from the tragic figure, and symbol of duality into... Joker 2.0 . Chris O'Donnell makes me hate Robin ALL OVER AGAIN. Nicole Kidman is good looking as the token love interest. The use of lighting and the costumes were cool, the fights scenes weren't bad, the rest... BLAH.

 

 

 

BATMAN AND ROBIN

 

Starring:

George Clooney

A Bunch of Really Shitty Actors

 

 

I dare not speak of it. Clooney was great as Wayne, but awful as Batman. No one else came close.

 

 

 

Overall if you want a great Batman film... rent MASK OF THE PHANTASM, other than that... I'm out.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

I feel I should call attention to the excellent Danny Elfman score and original songs by Prince for the first Batman movie. They helped a lot, and are in fact my favorite combination of score and soundtrack on the same film.

[Guest razazteca]

Batman and Robin had too many one liners and it seemed like the tv series on CRACK with out the Pow! Boopth! Ouch! graphics.

[Guest Lethargic]

Wow, I'm in the middle of writing reviews for all 4 movies myself right now. Of course mine is 4,000 words and I'm only through the first two. haha Luckily there isn't much to say about the last two.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

they're trying to get Guy Pearce for the next BM movie. He could do a pretty good job.

[Guest Tony149]

All of the Batman films had flaws, but I liked the first three. B & R sucked. If that was done in the 1960s, it would of done monstor business, but not in this day and age, and especially after the first two movies.

 

BATMAN, while it had its flaws, was the best of the films IMO. Keaton surprised many as Batman, now whoever plays Batman in the future will always be compared to him. Great theme by Elfman, as well.

 

A lot of people don't like BATMAN RETURNS because it was too dark, changed things around and introduced a Penguin much different that its comic version, and while I understand that, I like it. While Gotham seems "smaller," the sets and acting were great.

 

BATMAN FOREVER was the first Batman film I got to see in theaters, so I'm fond of this film. The atmosphere should of been darker, but with WB's desire to "lighten" up the franchise, we got neon and nipples. The theme sucked compare to Elfman's. The film also got edited, which supposedly deleted important scenes like Bruce meeting the giant Bat.

 

BATMAN & ROBIN was bad. Like I said earlier, it most likely does huge business during the Adam West days, but not for 1997. The film killed the current Batman franchise and WB hasn't been able to get another Bat-film out.

 

One can only hope the new franchise, whenever that may be, can keep things in check. Then again, with WB's track record with superhero movies, anything can happen.

[Guest Downhome]

I predict that the next installment will be the best yet. I thank God for Christopher Nolan, I stand behind him 100%.

[Guest DrTom]

I didn't like any of the movies, actually. The first one was probably the best, but it was the best of a bad lot. It had a lot of flaws, and ruined a great performance by Jack Nicholson by not having the Joker written as an interesting, threatening villain. I hated the way they messed with the Penguin in the second one. Combined with the lack of action, it made for a pretty dull movie, though I liked Keaton's performance throughout. The third one was about as "good" as the second. Kilmer didn't really add anything to the role, thought I thought he looked the part of Batman the best. Robin could have been left out of the movie entirely. We shall not speak of the most recent monstrosity.

[Guest Lethargic]

The sad thing about Batman and Robin is that it wasn't really a financial disaster. It still made over 100 million here. It made 230 worldwide. It more than doubled it's budget. It was still pretty much a success on the financial side of things. Financially it didn't "kill" the franchise. It killed it solely on being so pathetic. The studio could've very easily had continued in the direction it was going until it really did completely bomb out, but even THEY knew that it was a shitbomb and a total embarassment to them. When even the studio realizes a big budget blockbuster sucks, you KNOW it sucks.

 

I'm all up for the Nolan Batman too but the suits at WB are just friggin idiots it appears. And if they have a chance to screw this up, they'll do it.

[Guest Lethargic]

My rant on all 4 movies is up if anybody cares to check it out. It's pretty long. This is a link.

[Guest IDrinkRatsMilk]

Those rants were quite interesting, Lethargic. I enjoyed them. The only thing I really disagree with is calling the Prince songs terrible... I liked them.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

I agree for the most part with Lethargic, although I like the first one far more than the second. The only good thing about the second one is Christopher Walken, something that seems to be my comment for many Walken films. My favourite is Batman Forever as well, thanks in large part to Val Kilmer who is easily the best Batman of the three. Two-Face is interesting enough for the first half of the movie, but he just drops off the map after he becomes Riddler's sidekick.

 

Keep in mind, I never really read the comics so I am not very sticky about characters being legit, just as long as they work in the context of the film. It is interesting to note that a fan and a non-fan agree on most of the points.

[Guest SPwasmurdered]

Hey Zsasz, have you ever read my review of PHANTASM over at www.viewedaskew.com? It was at SmarkTalk for a while too.

 

I pretty much agree with everything you said. I personally feel that Phantasm is closest to the comic book character at it's core than we've gotten in any incarnation.

[Guest Sassquatch]

Lethargic on the first Batman movie:

 

And the fact that they took the Joker and made him the person who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents was terrible. Joe Chill murdered his parents, case closed. You can't change that. That is just wrong. Changing the murderer of Thomas and Martha Wayne is like taking Superman's flying ability away and giving him a Supermobile. You can't do that. It's engrained in the character. It's a major factor.

 

I'm glad that someone was able to point out the most hideous defect of the entire movie.

 

I could ignore the other infractions that the movie had (which Lethargic pointed out) but making the Joker the man who was responsible for the deaths of Wayne's parents was just pandering and typical Burton.

 

Like Tom, I was never really a fan of any of the Batman movie and I actually felt the first Superman was better than the first Batman in regards to the time it took place (Superman was pre-Crisis while Batman was Post-Crisis).

 

Nice reviews Lethargic.

[Guest the 1inch punch]

I liked Batman Forever

 

Anyway, Guy Pearce will OWN as the Next Batman

[Guest BorneAgain]

My rant on all 4 movies is up if anybody cares to check it out.  It's pretty long.  This is a link.

Great work there my friend. I love Clooney's idea at the end for the fifth movie.

 

 

Yay, three hundred posts.

 

(Waves flag with the number 300 on it)

[Guest Mattdotcom]

Hey, Lethargic, I couldn't agree more. Batman was the very first movie I saw in theatres, and up until last year, I swore it was one of the best movies ever. But now with an exposure to the Internet and comics and whatnot, I see the faults. I don't like it, but they're there. Coming from someone who calls their car the Mattmobile and whatnot, yeah, I still like to watch the movies (except B&R, which makes me want to hang myself from a celing fan), so it's not like I hate the movie or anything, it's just, ya know, I know it could be a lot better.

 

And Clooney, damn. I respect the guy more and more.

[Guest Lil Naitch]

One way to cure the Batman franchise- get rid of Schumacher! He took it from dark and Gothic to a world so full of neon that a raver would start listening to Billy Joel to escape it. Do you know what I hated most? When Mr. Freeze froze the town, I hated the 'icecicles' on the cop car. They were so obviously plastic it made me sick.

[Guest Ravenbomb]

so Guy Pearce is going to be Batman or is it still just rumored?

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

so Guy Pearce is going to be Batman or is it still just rumored?

Rumoured, but I wouldn't count on it. He turned down Daredevil because he didn't like the idea of playing a comic book hero..

[Guest Lethargic]

Actually is it even a rumor? I haven't seen anybody even speculate on that. There's not even a set script yet so obviously they haven't cast anybody. The only people that I've see say anything at all about Pearce are just fans that immediately jumped to that conclusion just because Nolan was signed. Just because he directed the guy once doesn't mean he's gonna use him in every movie. I doubt if Robin Williams will be Batman.

[The Dames 0]

EXCELLENT work Lethargic.

 

Check this out...I actually have a friend who HONESTLY BELIEVES that Batman & Robin was the best of all of them.

 

Dames

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

Lethargic on the first Batman movie:

 

And the fact that they took the Joker and made him the person who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents was terrible. Joe Chill murdered his parents, case closed. You can't change that. That is just wrong. Changing the murderer of Thomas and Martha Wayne is like taking Superman's flying ability away and giving him a Supermobile. You can't do that. It's engrained in the character. It's a major factor.

 

I'm glad that someone was able to point out the most hideous defect of the entire movie.

 

I could ignore the other infractions that the movie had (which Lethargic pointed out) but making the Joker the man who was responsible for the deaths of Wayne's parents was just pandering and typical Burton.

 

Like Tom, I was never really a fan of any of the Batman movie and I actually felt the first Superman was better than the first Batman in regards to the time it took place (Superman was pre-Crisis while Batman was Post-Crisis).

 

Nice reviews Lethargic.

I'm not so much of a comic buff these days as I was in my younger years and even then I wasn't a fanatic, so I don't really wish to get into some big thing about this, but I don't hate that change at all. In comics, you have years and years to develop a character, but in a movie, you have a mere couple of hours. It's because of this, that we need to be given a real reason to dislike the villain. Telling us he's bad isn't going to do it, so I think that having the Joker being the one who killed Wayne's parents is a good idea to get us to dislike him.

 

What you need to understand is that any movie that is based on a comic is going to feature several changes, some big, some minor. Of course, most of these changes are only noticed by the hardcore COMIC fans. Although there are plenty of comic fans who go to see these types of movies, I assure you that the majority of the viewing audience seeing these movies aren't and have very little knowledge of the comics, if any.

 

Bottom line is that as strange as it seems, comic book fans don't make up the majority of the people flocking to the theater to see the latest comic book based movie. The fact that a movie only has a short time to get us to feel certain ways about the characters is going to ensure that there are changes made when it comes to the comics and their movie counterparts. I've seen Sass have this very arguement with Crucifixio Jones in a WDI chat this past summer and after all was said and done, neither had changed their opinions on the matter, so I'm not expecting that here. That's just basically how I feel about the matter and as a movie fan, I didn't find the change to be some big travesty.

[Guest Lethargic]

I understand changes. I'm all for changes if it makes the story better. I stand behind the changes made to Spiderman because I think the changes they made there made the story work better on screen. Even the Goblin suit while being very gay. I mean, the comic suit wouldn't be much better. Then he'd just look like one of those guys you see at a grand opening of Toys R Us. I don't think very much of what was changed in Batman DID make anything work better. I think a lot of things they changed kept the movie from being better to fans AND non-fans. Joker could've been made a hated villain in a million ways besides this way. As a matter of fact, I don't remember the parents thing having any real effect on my feelings toward the character one bit. After all, we didn't find out until nearly the end of movie. It would be one thing for that to be discovered right at the start and watch Batman try to track down his parent's murderer throughout the film. But throwing it in toward the end just seemed kinda pointless. Joker had already killed quite a few people by then. Batman was already on his trail. We didn't really need anything else to prove that he's evil or that Batman should be after him at that point.

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

But up until that point, Batman had no real reason to hate the Joker. It was simply a case of good guy after bad guy up until then. When we found out that it was the Joker who murdered Wayne's parents, that's when the battle became much more heated and Batman now had a true reason to get his hands on the Joker. Yes, I know that he should already want to bring the Joker to justice because he's the hero, but I think that that reasoning gets a little stale after so many times and it's then that you need to create a new reason as to why someone's going after someone else.

 

BTW, I read the first half of your column going over the franchise and what I saw was pretty good stuff. You as a young kid watching Batman constantly reminds me of myself at a younger age watching certain movies constantly.

 

Since Batman was one of my favorite movies growing up, I really try not to critique it when I watch it these days. Sure it has its fair share of flaws, all movies do; they just tend to vary. After being exposed to the 'net and having seen the movie so many times, of course it's going to be a little harder not to find flaws, but when it comes to movies I loved as a younger kid, I let nostalgia overpower what's there. May not be the wisest thing to do, but in some cases, I think that's what should be done.

[Guest Mattdotcom]

One way to cure the Batman franchise- get rid of Schumacher!

 

.........already did, about four years ago...