Author: brian (---.adelphia.net)
Date: 06-20-2005 07:29
I hated Batman Begins. I wanted to like it. I really did. I wanted a darker, grittier, more "realist" take on Batman. Instead I got bored.
Here's what I disliked.
1. The "I'm invisible" stuff. Film-makers who do The Shadow and Batman tend to spend a lot of time showing frightened villains who "can't see" the hero. But things that can't be seen make for dull film imagery.
2. It wasn't frightening. The whole movie was about fear - overcoming fear, inspiring fear. But there wasn't one single moment when I thought, Holy hell, what happens next?
3. The villains are disposed of in dull ways. The gangster at the center of Batman's vendetta -- who was marvelously, callously evil -- winds up getting beaten almost by accident. One minute he's the source of Bruce Wayne's shame and impotence; the next minute he's strapped to a spotlight.
4. Most of the villains are dull. The Scarecrow has got NOTHING except a smug expression and some drug powder. The Liam Neeson character is Gai Gon Jin (sp?) gone to the dark side.
5. The fight sequences are dull. American filmmakers need to sit down and watch Crouching Tiger and House of Flying Daggers and Hero and get modern. This was a gaping hole at the center of the latest star wars movie: fight sequences utterly lacking in poetry or grace. Same with Batman. Punch slug. Kick. Snore.
6. There's no joy. Spider Man was complex and human, but there are several moments when we share Peter Parker's sheer delight. I mean, Batman gets to swing like Tarzan. He gets to pounce like a hunter. That's thrilling. It's intoxicating. Hell, even vengeance is a rush. (I have a theory that superhero behavior resonates with adults because it's a throwback to our experience of childhood, when our small bodies reveled in the lesser claims of gravity. Just the experience of soaring on that cape should have been a pure adrenaline moment...)
7. Did anyone else think that the blurry bat-signal projected on the clouds looked uncomfortably like the Abu Ghraib silhouette?
8. Sorry, but in the end I was bored. I just can't listen anymore to Liam Neeson talking pseud-psychology. I expected him to bust out about mitychlorions. At the bottom of all things, superhero comics have to function as Saturday matinee fare. Yes, they can be layered in other ways, but they have to capture the imagination.
Brian
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