I just looked at the threads started during the past ten days and didn't see one about the new bat movie, not even by Jedimaster!

I ask you, how can that be? The movie only opened six days ago! Or was that just here in Denmark? Did you all discuss it already? Or did nobody see it?

Well, I was of a mind not to see it, but my friends dragged me and forced me to see it against my will.

The only thing that kept me from sleeping through it was the bombastic soundtrack that kept trying to whip up the excitement that the movie in itself failed to deliver.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that one special effect truly amazed me: How they managed to have Rachel grow up to be twenty years younger than her childhood friend Bruce.

Maybe she was really a mutant with the power to age one year for everybody elses second?

What else is there to say? "Nursing home for old actors"?

I didn't like the way the climbing the mountain was stolen from Frank Miller's Daredevil #191, or the way the ending "I can't love you until Bruce is back" was stolen from the ending of Spider-Man, or when Liam Neeson said "Gentlemen!" without adding "Let's broaden our minds!", or the whole train-sequence reniniscent of Spider-Man vs. Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2.

And Katie Holmes made me wanna go: - Ha! Ha! Ha!

...by her mere presence.

All in all, the movie was as exciting as Tim Burton's first, which also bored me silly. So the final verdict is that the only good Batman movie still is the one with Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

I still can't believe she didn't receive an Oscar nomination for that performance.

Old news. It opened a month or so ago in the US.






I liked it. Good summer-time schlocka. Loved the scarecrow character best. What's his face who plays him is dreamy.

hey

there were quite a few threads a while back - think it came out much earlier in other places. consensus seemed to be that it was probably the best of the bunch. jedimaster can tell you more, as he was the principal threader in this regard.

oh, and rachel was

I really enjoyed the film when I saw it. In retrospect, it had a number of flaws, many which you mentioned SciFi. Regardless I think it was a good start to the 'new' franchise. The scarecrow character actually ranks up with the Joker as one of my favorite villians ever in a comic-flick.

I will say, I hope they don't restart the batman saga again for at least 20 years. Hopefully by then I will be too old to care. I don't think I could handle sitting thru the "set-up" of the this story one more time. For as good as Batman Begins was, IMO, this portion of the film REALLY dragged.

endorphin74 said:

Yeah, but that dude from Priest played his daddy.

CarrieMpls said:

Typical.

So... You've all already seen Fantastic Four as well? It doens't open here until 4 August and I am really looking forward to that one.

scififilmnerd said:

I skipped Fantastic 4, but everyone I know who saw it had a good time.

TheFrog said:

Well, apparently it got favorable reviews, but I think the first Batman movie got that as well. And my friends thought it was good, too. But I still only like the one with Catwoman.

A thing that also annoyed me about the new one is that it was reminiscent of the crappy Daredevil movie in the manner in which the fight scenes were done - the pictures were very dark and cut so fast that you really couldn't see what was going on. I suppose it was to hide the fact that none of the actors knew how to fight like ninjas.

endorphin74 said:

But... he hardly got to do anything, besides putting on a mask and drugging people.

It would have been cooler if he was scary without having to drug people into thinking he was.

CarrieMpls said:

Ooh, I can't wait.

scififilmnerd said:

It's exactly the opposite of Batman Begins. Lighthearted and fun. It doesn't take itself as seriously so I was willing to forgive plot-holes which just annoyed me in the more serious summer-fare (aka-War of the Worlds)...

I'll be interested to see what you think of FF. It got blasted by critics in the U.S. but I really enjoyed it.

Yes, I did a thread on it back in June, and I couldn't disagree with you more. I thought it was FAR superior to any of the previous Bat flicks, and Bale NAILED the character. In fact, all of the actors were dead-on in their portrayals of their comic counterparts (of course, that excludes Holmes, who doesn't have an exact comic character she's based on, although there were some elements of Rachel Caspian from Batman: Year Two). Goldman as Gordon? PERFECT!!! Caine as Alfred? FANTASTIC! Freeman as Fox? WONDERFUL!

Oh, the climbing the mountain thing actually comes from an O'Neil era Ra's Al Ghul story, not Miller (although, there are similarities between the two). The train sequence was written before Spidey 2 opened (I know, because I read the script before then), but I thought the two really didn't have a whole lot in common, other than being set on a train. The "I can't love you until Bruce is back" is NOT stolen from Spider-Man at all, since in Spidey, it is Peter who is rebuffing MJ, and MJ is NOT aware of his secret identity at all. Sure, the hero doesn't wind up with the girl, but that really is a common thread in most comics, so that is darned nitpicky.

I'm honestly stunned you like Batman Returns better! That film was a total crap-fest! Penguins with rocket launchers?

As for FF, it was okay. The characters are faithful, with the exception of Dr. Doom (whom they just photocopied the script excerpts dealing with Norman Osbourne from Spidey). It was entertaining, but it could have been so much better. I look forward to a sequel.

JediMaster said:

Yes, Michael Caine was good, but Bale seemed more like James Bond than Bruce Wayne to me. When he was out drinking, wearing a suit, I half expected him to say "shaken, not stirred".

And I thought that Liam Neeson added to the James Bond-esque feeling by coming across as your typical James Bond villain rather than a unique supervillain.

And Morgan Freeman certainly seemed like Q to me, what with all his gadgets and things. VERY James Bond-esque.

JediMaster said:

It WAS stolen. They just switched it around, so's the (young teenage) girl got to say "I can't love you" instead of the (fullgrown adult) man.

JediMaster said:

Batman Returns is classic superhero stuff. I LOVE the scene where Catwoman and Batman both show up at the costume party without costumes. And Michelle Pfeiffer gave a knock-out performance as Selina Kyle, giving some serious competition to Sigourney Weaver's tour-de-force as Ripley in Alien3 that same year. I just love this movie. I thought The Penguin was both fun and a tragic character. His rocket launching penguins were as acceptable as the pseudo-science stuff in Batman Begins with the machine that pressurizes water into steam - like, the human body is mostly water, so every human in Gotham should have been dried out husks after exposure to that silly machine. For the pressure to turn water into steam, it must have been extremely high, meaning that it should have blown every window in the city, too.

Batman Returns is a tragedy, complete with archetype characters and visionary design.

Certainly, the "romance" between Bruce and Selina is much more believable than the silly girl thrown into Batman Begins just to have something for the audiences girlfriends, too.

Batman Begins is plain, ordinary, typical, standard Hollywood action-fare and just as dull as Daredevil, Hulk, Elektra, Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2.
[Edited 7/26/05 8:28am]

Decent Movie...However...too many villians and subplots.

scififilmnerd said:

Well, the Bruce Wayne persona, in the comics, is that of a playboy (and this film nailed the fact that bruce Wayne is the facade, not Batman). Bale portrayed Batman the way he is in the comic.

I disagree with you about Liam Neeson's character as well. Ra's Al Ghul IS like that in the comic, and I don't feel that he was the over-the-top villian like those seen in the Bobd films at all.

As for Fox being like Q, I can agree with that, but it didn't bother me. This film was answering the questions of "where does he get those wonderful toys", and I liked it

scififilmnerd said:

Nope. In Spider-Man, Peter Parker is lying to MJ, telling her he doesn't love her, so as to protect her from the harm that may come to her as a result of his secret identity. In Batman, Rachel is telling Bruce that she realises the man she loves isn't there anymore, as he really is Batman now. It isn't the same at all, other than the hero can't be with the girl (again, a common thread in comics. If you want to nitpick, Superman II already did this as well).

scififilmnerd said:

First off, I won't even adress the crap-fest that was Alien 3! Second, Pfeiffer was the only descent thing about that abyssmal film. Hardly "classic superhero stuff"!

scififilmnerd said:

First off, the rocket launher thing was just stupid. It looked dumb, and was truly annoying. The Penguin was nothing like his comic counterpart, and the film wasted too much time with his ridiculous plot to become mayor!

Second, the "pseudo-science" you refer to is an actual device being developed that Goyer read about, and adapted to his script. The "silly machine" is being developed to convert water supplies to steam WITHOUT harming humans. All of the gadgets in Goyer's script are things that either already exist (like the fabric that goes rigid when an electrical current goes through it), or are in development.

scififilmnerd said:

...and a really dumb script. Batman puts dynamite down a henchmen's pants? The Penguin just happens to have blueprints to the Batmobile? What, Bruce sold those on E-bay or something? Oh, and the Catwoman "nine lives" thing? Puh-leeze! They beat us over the head with that dumb idea.

scififilmnerd said:

I didn't care for the romance angle either, but that was about the only good thing about Batman Returns, whereas I felt it was the only bad thing in BB.

scififilmnerd said:

Well, I liked Daredevil, and I thought X2 and Spidey 2 were simply two of the best comic adaptations to date. I'll totally agree with you on Hulk, which was ALMOST as bad as Batman Returns






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[Edited 7/26/05 9:00am]

JediMaster said:

Yeah, whatever. The silly girl should just accept that the boy she loved grew (faster and older and) in another direction from her and leave it at that, rather than suggesting he remake himself into what she would like for him to be.

But the whole thing was stupid, because it was suggested that she wanted him to become something other than the vengeful boy who was tortured by the death of his parents, and then when she learns that he is not that scared little angry boy anymore, then rather than appreciate that she got what she wanted, she says she wants the old Bruce back.

But if she got the old Brucer back, Batman would cease to exist, so she can't have him back.

Stupid girl! - Ha! Ha! Ha!

JediMaster said:

I approach movies from an emotional stand-point. If I can feel with the characters, then I tend to be more overbearing with the "illogical" stuff. It becomes less important. And Ripley and Selina Kyle were easy to identify with because Ripley was the stranger in a hostile society - which should appeal to most people - and the movie was very apocalyptic and bleak, somthing that appealed a lot to my senses at the time. I found it a very gripping and heartwrenching movie. As for Selina Kyle, she's growing very dissatisfied and frustrated with her life and her single status and her feeling of being the one everybody else steps on - another archetype that most people can easily identify with. And she becomes the "heroine" who gets the chance to actually do something to assert herself. "Life's a bitch, now so am I" is a classic line. She represents our desire to break free of our own reservations and restrictions and repressions.

And I thought the ending was really sad.

As for Batman himself, I have to confess that he doesn't really appeal overly much to me as a character. I just can't find the emotional connection. He's a revenge-driven avenger, like every other Joe in every other gangster flick. He just wears a cape. I agree with Frank Miller's assessment that he is a psychopath and doesn't have a lovelife because he is focusing all his energies into his obsessive behavior. And so it bothers me that they have to stick a girl into everyone of the movies, because in my opinion it contradicts the character and signals that the movie makers made a movie about a character they do not understand. By trying to fit him into the hero-girl stereotype, they aren't really making a movie about Batman.

There shouldn't be any women in Batman, other than as adversaries at best.

I think the reason why the Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne attraction worked so well was because she was basically as disturbed as he was, so a mutual fascination seemed natural.

JediMaster said:

I still think that, realistically, everybodys eardrums should at the very least have burst from being exposed to that sudden, drastic change in air pressure.

JediMaster said:

But Hulk and Batman Begins have one thing in common: The large focus on childhood traumas.

I thought X2 had way too many mutants and it quickly got repetitive that everybody got their one scene to show off their mutant power. They should have left out Iceman, Rogue and Pyro who all added absolutely nothing to the picture and focused on the adults instead. And there was absolutely nothing emotionally gripping about Jean Grey's death. Suddenly, it was something that just happened, like in Dallas: "Oh, okay. She doesn't want to be in the next season."

And the scene in the President's office at the end:

And yes, the opening scene looked cool, but not having had established any emotional connection with Nightcrawler or why he was doing what he was doing - what was the stakes for him? Then it's just pretty pictures, like an Image Comic.

I loved Spider-Man because it was the comic book that came alive up there on the big screen and despite them switching Gwen Stacy for Mary Jane, it was just such an emotional gripping experience.

And Spider-Man 2 was the opposite: "That's not Dr. Octopus!" "That never happened in the comic book!" "Does Mary Jane really have to be in the entire movie?!" (Although I suspected she would be when she appeared so prominently in the movie poster.) "Why didn't they use the part with Otto Octavius renting a room at Aunt May's when she needs money anyway?! This is stupid!" - that was certainly no comic book I recognized.

The only thing that thrilled me in Spider-Man 2 was when Harry - who's kinda hot - found the lair of the Green Goblin and they even had a cameo by his daddy thrown in.
[Edited 7/26/05 10:38am]

P.S.

Say, Jedi... You missed this other amazing comic book thread? http://www.prince.org/msg/100/152157

Well, no longer.
[Edited 7/26/05 10:52am]

endorphin74 said:

I'll keep you informed.

Dude, you're late.

i saw it in a third world country before you guys got it over there!

the movie is a disaster cause of

katie holmes

sinisterpentatonic said:

Well, SinisterP, all the big movies are shown in Imperial, the movie theatre of Copenhagen. And Star Wars occupied it for a month, then War of the Worlds for three weeks. So...

Batman Begins will only play there for two weeks, though. Thank goodness, then I can finally see Fantastic Four.

And after that, The Island. The trailer looks intriguing.

Don't tell me you've all seen The Island already, too?

Thought it was quite good at the time. In retrospect, it wasn't that good really. War of the Worlds was even worse. Revenge Of The Sith was great though. Everything i was hoping for.

shausler said:

Oh, I agree completely, Shausler.

I saw it on bootleg

unlucky7 said:

What, The Island?

scififilmnerd said:

True, and that aspect works well for both characters. What bugged me about Hulk was the whole silly shit at the end with his dad turning into the absorbing man. If they had skipped that part, I probably would have enjoyed it, in spite of the Hulk looking like a bad cartoon.



Couldn't diagree more. I thought the film hada great balance of new and old characters, and left the audience wanting more. Jean's "death" was obviously the setup for her transformation into Phoenix.

[b]


Not sure what you mean. Doc Ock's origin was in keeping with the comic, although they did humanize him a bit by introducing his wife. It was certainly SEVERAL comics that I recognized, most especially the "Spider-Man: NO MORE!" arc of the 70s. Personally, I'm glad they skipped the whole "Otto rents a room at Aunt May's" bit, since that was stupidity on par with the Spider-mobile.

scififilmnerd said:

Eh, too nitpicky!