Michael freakin' Caine, that's who. Your Batman movie is only as good as your Alfred, and in
Batman Begins Caine does a great job giving us an Alfred with wit, compassion, and a bit of steel. Now
this is an Alfred I can imagine, for example, donning a spare Bat-suit to serve as a decoy/distraction for the bad guys while the real Batman does his thing. You know, like he sometimes did in the comics, and the 60s TV show. Don't look at me like that.
(Probably
SPOILERS ahead, if you haven't seen the film.)
I enjoyed
Batman Begins quite a bit, which came as a nice surprise since, as I've
noted before, the trailers just came across as dead boring. However, the decision to build up to Batman's first appearance, rather than just jumping right into the action, gives us something unique in the various live action versions of the character: suddenly, Bruce Wayne is as interesting a character out of the costume as he is in it. We get to learn about him, and what drives him, without that pesky Bat-stuff getting in the way.
The building of Batman comes across as a natural progression...the constant reminders that Wayne needs to a symbol, more than a man; the finding of the cave; the adaptation of his own fear of bats driving the creation of said symbol -- the suspension of disbelief is gradually increased until Batman finally appears, and we all go, "oh, sure, he
had to dress as a bat. Makes sense to me." (Of course, anyone going to see a movie called
Batman Begins is probably predisposed to accepting a guy in a bat-outfit anyway.)
Granted, some of the elements of the Bat-legend come together a little too readily ("Mr. Fox, what do you have down here?" "Why, I have a bunch of stuff that's ready made for use by a costumed crime-fighter!" "Oh, say...could I borrow some of that?"), but I can live with it. And the plot to poison Gotham City is one we've seen before, but at least the villain has a motivation for doing so beyond killing just for the sake of killing. Overall, a well-made, mostly well-
written film, with its overriding theme of "fear" being a nice contrast to the usual theme of "good guys punching bad guys."
I've heard some complaints about the fight scenes being shot/edited too confusingly, and there is an element of that, but for the most part I didn't have any problem following the action. And it was nice to have a Jim Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) who actually looks like the Gordon in the comics.
And yes, it
is deadly serious, with only the occasional humorous line of dialogue (usually from Alfred, but sometimes from Gordon, and a vagrant or two), but it still manages to be dark without being oppressive, and more fun than moody.
Anyway, good flick. Not perfect, but darn sight better than some of the last few Bat-films. Christian Bale is probably the second best live action Batman we've had (
this guy is still tops), and let's hope a sequel, if it happens, manages to keep the same tone.
Unless we can get an adaptation of Frank Miller's
The Dark Knight Returns starring Adam West instead. I'd
kill to see that.
Okay, now I realize being a comics/science fiction/fantasy fan (or, indeed, a fan of
anything..."fan" being short for "fanatic," after all) requires a small bit of obsession. "I have to get the comic shop every week," or "I have to remember to set the TIVO [or VCR...I'm a caveman] for
Smallville," or "I only need two more issues of
Secret Defenders to complete my Bill Wylie collection." You know the mindset. (And just so you don't think I'm about to start casting stones, keep in mind that I'm the guy who bought a
New Titans annual because Swamp Thing appears in one or two panels.)
Doing a
weblog is one form of this obsession, and
making costumes and
writing fan-fiction are a slightly more extreme versions of this sort of behavior. I can even understand going through the effort of making
your own fan film.
However, I think some sort of line may have been crossed when you're doing
full "TV" seasons with multiple episodes. That sort of time and energy devoted to creating a derivative product based on a property you don't own and to which you don't have any kind of official connection seems a little...well, I don't want to be too harsh, since the people involved are enjoying themselves and there is obviously value in that. However, all it would take is one cease-and-desist letter from the property's actual owners to shut down production, and all that energy would have come to nothing.
(inspired by a recent posting on
Memepool)
Speaking of fan-fiction...a
crossover between Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Sailor Moon is about as unlikely as they come. Rated "R" - currently having some bandwidth issues. (via
Portal of Evil)
And speaking of
my particular obsession...
Four Realities discusses the
Swamp Thing comics in his collection.
There's a comic weblog called
"The Comic Blog"? I'm surprised the name wasn't taken. Anyway, lots of good comic reviews here.
So there's that scene in the original, unreleased
Fantastic Four movie where Alicia Masters, the blind sculptress, runs her hands up and down the Thing's body, and the Thing is breathing heavily, practically panting, and the scene goes on and on and on and on, and you turn away, and you turn back again fifteen, twenty minutes later thinking the scene must be over by now, but
no, it's still happening.
Well, poking through our preview copy of the comic book adaptation of the new
Fantastic Four movie (in stores this Wednesday...the comic, not the movie), there's another Alicia/Thing scene that at first glance seems just as peculiar.
SPOILER, I guess...the scene features Alicia apparently spraying down the Thing's body with a hose. That in and of itself may not be very strange, but there's a part of my brain that fears that this scene will also go on forever, with multiple angles of Alicia squirting the Thing with water, squirting herself, everything getting all soapy and sensual and looking like that
Paris Hilton Carl's Jr. commercial.
But maybe that's just me.
FARK photoshop contest: "What would Superman be like if his spaceship crashed somewhere other than Smallville, Kansas?"
Red Son reference in 3...2....
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Suddenly I've received a brief spike in referrals from a comment I left on this
year-old post from The Comic Treadmill. Mag, H, what the heck's goin' on over there?
Still haven't seen
Batman Begins, but I've been hearing from plenty of people that it's pretty good. I'm glad to hear it, since the trailers make the film look dead boring...even despite the always-welcome presence of Michael (
The Hand,
Jaws: The Revenge) Caine.
At the very least, I need to see it before any more of my customers decide to spill the beans on any surprises/plot twists/et cetera that may exist in this flick. "No, I don't want to hear about 'just one really cool part' of the movie...."
I'm in the process of putting together comics for display at the local library (as I mentioned recently), and for the most part I'm trying to stick with titles and characters that may be reasonably familiar to kids. You know, the basics (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) and other characters they might know from the cartoons (the John Stewart Green Lantern, the Teen Titans) or movies (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man). I'm also trying to sneak in a title or two that might stretch the definition of "superhero" (like Phil Foglio's
Girl Genius).
Also, as part of my plan, I was going to put in a superhero title or two that might downright puzzle kids, and maybe (and I realize this is a longshot, here) inspire them to seek out a local comics shoppe (like, say, ours) and Read More About It. My initial choice was a copy of Walt Simonson's
Orion, but then I came across
this issue of Legion of Super-Heroes, which would be even
more baffling to the uninitiated. (Though I may relent and use
this cover instead.)
I'm still going to use the
Orion cover, because gosh darn it, kids who watch the
Superman and
Justice League cartoons
do know who Darkseid is! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it,
Dorian!
Anyway, the superhero theme for the display is mandated by the library...maybe when it's time to take the display down, I can talk them into a manga display!
