New Batman might not suck

[GKarsEye]

I'm usually the first one to bash comic book movies (X-Men and original Superman are the only I really like) and I just rolled my eyes (as such: ) when I heard they were making a new Batman movie. Suffice it to say that I may enjoy the last bunch for a good laugh, but they're not, you know, good. And I really like Batman the character, especially as portrayed in the animated series in the 90s.

While, here's what I've read about it:

- It's about how Wayne become Batman, thus ignoring the last 4 films and "resetting" the story. I think that is the perfect subject for the movie. We all know there will be sequels, but at least starting over at the beginning can make the sequels not as retarded as the last ones.

- Batman will be portrayed by Christian Bale. I absolutely love American Psycho and his performance as Patrick Bateman. He was also pretty decent in the otherwise failed Equilibrium. Suffice it to say that I think it's an excellent choice.

- Other actors include: Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, Michael Caine as Alfred (sweet!), Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe (from Last Samurai) and Liam Neeson. Holy shit, people, those are some names! And real actors, too, not Arnold Schwarzeneggar or Jim Carrey.

I still can't get over that someone decided to cast Arnie as the ultra-intellectual Dr Freeze. And then someone else approved it.

- the new Batman suit doesn't have nipples. It's a small thing, I know, but goddamn those things were retarded

- director: Nolan, who did Memento. The dude has skill. If he also applies a bit of restraint, this could be a visually exciting film.

- David S Goyer, who wrote Blade and the upcoming Flash movie, did the script for this. I don't remember much about Blade, except that it sucked, so this worries me a bit, but then we don't need Chaucer to write this script, just someone with a modicum of common sense and taste, and it remains to be seen if he has them.

- Nolan's major inspiration for how to film this is Blade Runner.

- The proper story (as described in the comics) will finally be represented on film, because of course unlike what we saw in the Michael Keeton film, the Joker was not the one who killed his parents.


The last film I thought wouldn't do justice to a story I liked but proved me very wrong was Lord of the Rings. Let's hope this will also not suck.

 

[Quagmire]

First off I like the first Keaton Batman, but I never read comics so that may be part of the reason. All my batman knowledge basically comes from the 90's cartoons. I don't know whether Arrrrnold as Mr. Freeze or Bane as a braindead stooge pissed me off more. Bane was always such a cool villian in the cartoons.

This does look cool expecially with Nolan directing. It will be nice to see part of the story nobody has really covered before.

I did like the original Blade, for the opening fight if for nothing else. It wasn't Shakespeare but that's not what I was looking for.

 

[darth_librarian]

Its based partly on Frank Millers Batman Year One, which is just great. With the cast and director i'm expecting big things from this, have you seen the new batmobile? It looks very cool.

I like about 50% of comic book movies, including the first two Batman Burton ones.

 

[The Juche Warrior]

I still think that the only Batman productions that were any good at all were the cartoons. The year one concept is cool, but they should have turned things over to Paul Dinni and company.

 

[Recoil]

I was never a big Batman fan. Probably because I got introduced to it at a young age in the form of the infamous Adam West TV series version. "Good thing I brought my alphabet soup bat-container Robin." You get my drift...

However I did think the 90s cartoon that ran was very good, and I also will mention that I *did* really like the Michael Keaton Batman. I believe all the ones that came after that were pretty poor. I mean, hell, how many did they make total? 4? And each one they had a different guy playing Batman. Thats a recipe for failure in the first place. Second thing as mentioned above, was getting guys like Arnold and Jim Carey in the roles. Ick. Carey was good if the job was to impersonate the Adam West series Riddler, but thats about it.

So I think this one might be nice. I wish it didnt totally reset things as I liked the original Batman movie, but at this point, starting over is by far the best call. Ill probably pay to watch it in the theaters...

 

[Chris Springob]

Batman Begins is definitely in the top two or three on my most anticipated movie list for 2005. The advance buzz for this movie is fantastic.

Those of you who liked Memento, I'd also recommend Nolan's first movie, Following . Very good movie. Nolan recycled several elements from this movie when he made Memento, including the nonlinear aspect.

 

[Flounder]

My introduction to Batman was the 1966 Adam West version. It WAS campy, but me and my friend liked it. It was like, 1990, and I was 10 years old. I had no idea at the time that it actually was made in the 60s .

I still haven't seen a Batman movie that I liked. Maybe this one is the ticket. (here's hoping)

 

[GKarsEye]

IIRC, the original comic book Batman was a "dark night" type of character and pretty deep (you know, for a comic). Later comics and then, of course, the TV show camped it up, which is why fans were so pleased with the animated series in the 90s. Folks of my generation saw it as a re-imagining of Batman but older cats saw it as returning to the original vision of the character, albeit with a generational update in tone.

The first Batman film has elements of that and kept the story relatively simple enough to not be too retarded. And, of course, it had Jack Nicholson. So it's universally accepted as the best of the Batman films. Still, it's quite cartoony (not as bad as what would come of course). And Michael Keaton did an admirable job (I actually blame none of the films' failing on any of the actors who played Batman.

So, off the top of my head, here's who were in the 4 Batman films:

1. Batman
Batman = Michael Keaton
The girl: Kim Basinger (hubba hubba)
Villain: Jack Nicholson as the Joker

2. Batman Returns
Batman = Michael Keaton
Villain: Danny Devito as the Penguin
The girl and other villain: Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman
This film is notable for the presence of Pfeiffer in a skin-tight leather outfit with a whip and acting quite sexy even without the leather get-up.

3. Batman Forever
Batman = Val Kilmer
The girl: Nicole Kidman
The villains: Jim Carrey as the Riddler; Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face
introduction of Robin (Chris O'Donnel)

4. Batman and Robin
Batman = George Clooney
The villains: Arnold as Dr Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy
Chris O'Donnell returns as Robin
Introduction of Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone)


I won't complain if the new series of Batmans avoid bringing in Robin and Bat Girl.

 

[Ninja_Squirrel]

For Batman Returns, don't forget Christopher Walken as Max Schrek. Even though his character wasn't focuesed on that much, I remember him feeling more like the true villain of the movie. In comparison, Penguin and Catwoman were more like flamboyant, troubled souls.

 

[2aMageing]

Personally, I liked Keaton (always a strange performance, yet oddly effective sometimes) in the first two Batman movies. You did have to make allowences for departure from the classic Batman story, yet they produced a pair of darkly playful and mildly dramatic Batman movies.

And ANYTHING looks like pulitzer prize winning work when compared to 3 and 4, though 3 still had a shred or two of personal drama for Wayne, inspite of the cartoony treatment of the Batman concept. There is no forgiving live action trying to act like cartoon......cept maybe the Adam West Batman series and movie, which pulled off an entertaining, if camp, variety of Batman that really didn't have much of the heart of the Batman concept.

And had the 3rd Batman movie had not offset the talent of Tommy Lee Jones with someone with little to no acting discipline like Jim Carrey, then it might have even been at least respectable, inspite of cars driving up sides of buildings..........

As for the best effort to bring the heart of the Batman concept to the TV screen, it is all about Batman: The animated series that came out in 1992. It was dark, serious, and far more gritty (amazing considering the "suposed" target audience) than any of the movies had been.
Unfortunately it could not last too long before getting watered down some and the quality of the animation seemed to suffer along with the depth of story.

As for the upcoming one, yeah they pretty uch needed to start over. And while I love watching Michael Caine do his thing......I find it concering that he would be a prime contender to somewhat "camp" up the role with his own style for humor, even in drama.

Morgan Freeman is ALWAYS a great choice, and as Lucius Fox he has a solid role to flush out.

However, Oldman as Gordon.......I REALLY don't know if I'll be able to buy it......he is usually in his "element" when doing an extreme bad guy......he may have been miscast........

.....and someone not yet mentioned, whom I think is a pretty good actor, Rutger Hauer seems to be slated to be in it too.

And of course Katie Holmes always brightens up the screen, and she seems to have a good look for a batman series, IMHO.

It really is a testament to the power of the Batman story in people's hearts and minds that it could be done to quite literal death and yet still there can be enough left in the tank to take another, hopefully better run at it. It probably didn't hurt that Spiderman was resurected to the screen so solidly in recent years.

Link to the Internet Movie Database Page for the new Batman movie

 

[2aMageing]

For Batman Returns, don't forget Christopher Walken as Max Schrek. Even though his character wasn't focuesed on that much, I remember him feeling more like the true villain of the movie. In comparison, Penguin and Catwoman were more like flamboyant, troubled souls.

Number 2 was probably the best of the Batman movies, for me anyways (though Jack in #1 was huge, and Basinger was marginal). De Vito was quite strong as the darkly playful Penguin, and as was basically said, you can't hardly argue with a Christopher Walken sighting, especially as the seedy manipulating industrialist, almost as a sort of contrast for Bruce Wayne as the virtuous industrialist.

Once again the female role was not quite on the mark, yet Michelle did significantly better than Basinger's Vale and certainly did well enough to be legit. in her effort as catwoman........certainly better than the offshoot they produced just recently..........as for Batman Returns, good battles, lots of deep desperate characters well portrayed, with a somewhat meanfdering but still worthwhile story driving it........it was just a little deeper than the first one, I think.

 

[GKarsEye]

As for the upcoming one, yeah they pretty uch needed to start over. And while I love watching Michael Caine do his thing......I find it concering that he would be a prime contender to somewhat "camp" up the role with his own style for humor, even in drama.

Michael Caine has done his fair share of subtlety and elegance. His presence (and that of Freeman) do much to class up this thing.

Gary Oldman is also capable of greater range than his most popular roles. Check out his portrayals of Sid Vicious and Beethoven in Sid & Nancy and Immortal Beloved, respectively.

 

[2aMageing]

Indeed, they both have far too much talent to be written off as weaknesses. I will simply be stashing my mild concernes "in some deep dark place" until I see what actually comes to pass. I sincerely want it to be good, so I shall keep good thoughts in my mind.

 

[Jonny_Fever]

As for the comic version of Batman, it does depend on which Batman title you read. In a few of them Batman is a bad-ass who kicks the bad guys when they are down and out and trash-talks Superman and even hits Wonder Woman (not hit on).

 

[KoshFan]

I personally liked the episode of the Justice League cartoon I saw once -- Batman reveals that he carries around a lump of shielded kryptonite "for insurance."

 

[SwiftBiscuit]

And he actually used it, through Green Arrow, in The Dark Knight Returns

 

[2aMageing]

Was that the one where everyone was over-weight, over-aged, and looking pretty corrupt?

 

[darth_librarian]

Batman has loads of Krytponite stashed away, just in case... He uses it in most of the comics at some point...

When Grant Morrison reworked the Justice League comic, he made Batman out to be the hardest of them all, who through cunning, ingenuity and all-round badness could take the rest of them out easily.

 

[GKarsEye]

When Grant Morrison reworked the Justice League comic, he made Batman out to be the hardest of them all, who through cunning, ingenuity and all-round badness could take the rest of them out easily.

In general, that's what I like about Batman- NO SUPERPOWERS! Unless you count the ability to maintain an obscene fortune while being a vigilante at night a superpower.

The only thing about Batman I don't like is that he refuses to carry a firearm.