I was not pleased when Christian Bale started wearing the mask of Batman. Always before we had seasoned actors to take over the role, actors with character and skill. Michael Keaton, definitely a good actor. Even George Clooney had some character to add to the part. Look, let's sum it up. Batman is essentially a rich guy, with lots of martial arts training, who puts on a tech-savvy suit and goes after the bad guys. Michael Keaton and George Clooney and everyone else who has played Batman before Christian Bale, focused on the fact that Bruce Wayne was a character in and of himself. The Batman was just a mask. Bruce Wayne was the one out there, beating the shit out of those thugs. The mask was just to give him a flimsy excuse to ignore the law and get his hands dirty with some vigilante justice.
Christian Bale does not play the role that way. Now, it may not in fact be his fault. It's possible that the role was just written that way and that Mr. Bale was the only one who took on the job. But the fact remains that, while Mr. Bale has played the Batman, it is not the Batman that is the mask, but in fact, Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale plays it as if the Batman has always existed within him, and Bruce Wayne is merely the public persona he has adopted in order to mingle with the rich and powerful and keep tabs on the criminal element of high society. I don't think this adds to the role in any way, in fact, I think it detracts from the role. Instead of us seeing a cultured man, a man of means (even a means with which to get even with the thugs who killed his parents), what we see is a thug who has risen from the ranks of the same criminals he fights. Yes, his family has money, yes, he generally fights for the little people, but where did he come from? According to the Christian Bale mythos, he was a member of a secret shadow society, trained to assassinate, to bring people down, to cause chaos, to attack from the shadows, to bring fear to the populace. Basically, in Christian Bale's world of Batman, Bruce Wayne is a trained terrorist.
This is just not the same as a rich boy, wounded at criminals causing the death of his parents, learning to fight against that very criminal element. This is not a story about a man who struggles with the desire for revenge. This is, now, a story about a terrorist who decided to switch sides. Or maybe it's a story about a terrorist who still fights for the poor and downtrodden, but the other terrorists switched sides, making them his enemies. This whole story is now about the Batman. Bruce Wayne no longer exists. There is no longer a dichotomy over which alter ego becomes dominant. There is only the Batman, slipping on the Bruce Wayne mask in order to pass for a civilized man. Perhaps the comic books portray him more along those lines. I don't really know. I never read the Batman comics. I was more of a Marvel fan. All I know is, I honestly don't really care about who a terrorist is fighting for, what his romantic life is like, or whether he wins or loses. Because frankly, no matter who wins, there's still a terrorist out there causing havoc, whether it's the Joker, Mr Freeze, the Riddler... or the Batman. Maybe it's Mr. Bale's acting skill. Maybe he's just not suited for the role. Maybe the role was badly written and that's just the version the producers went for. But it just isn't turning out well, at least, in my opinion.
So let's sum this bitch up. Bruce Wayne is getting old. Apparently there was some fight or something, and he got his ass beat, and he's hurting and not recovering well. He's lost his will to live. My nephew told me this, but somehow I must have missed it. Maybe it happened in the last movie and I just don't recall that part. Maybe it happened at the beginning of this one and somehow my brain took several minutes after the beginning of the movie to clue in that it had started. I'm not really sure. In any case, the Batman is a wreck. Maybe it was the last movie, the battle with Harvey Dent and the Joker taking everything he had? Couldn't say. So, Bane pops up. I guess Bane was in the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Mr. Freeze? I don't remember Bane being in that movie. Anyway, there's a lot of backstory going on here, about Rhaz Al-Ghul (Liam Neeson returns for a brief cameo), and his family, and a prison, and the Batman trying to live as a fighter when he's way past his prime. Personally, I was always more fond of how the Batman used his skill and gadgets to outwit criminals, not out-fight them. But this is not that Batman.
I guess I should deal with the acting talent first. Morgan Freeman is back as Fox. Always a good performance from Morgan Freeman. Gary Oldman is back as Commissioner Gordon, who for my money, is the real hero here. The man has to lead a police force where the cops are outgunned, outmanned, out-lawyered, and out-moneyed. He's using Harvey Dent's reputation to help get his job done, even though Harvey Dent is the one who nearly killed his son. He's doing all this while feeling horrible for hiding the truth, that Harvey Dent was actually Two-Face, and that the Batman saved his life and that of his kids. I can't agree with the casting of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. One, i didn't really know who she was, because she hasn't done any monster movies. Two, Catwoman is supposed to ooze sex appeal. Anne Hathaway isn't, uh, how to put this delicately... well, she just doesn't ooze sex appeal. I don't know how well the main villain delivered his lines, mostly because, with that stupid mask over his face, i couldn't understand half of them.
Seriously, wtf, whose decision was it to have a villain with a mask over his face through the whole movie so you could barely understand a word he said? Now, I may be old but my hearing is generally pretty good. When the bad guy does his bad guy monologue, you're supposed to understand it. You aren't supposed to be wondering wtf he just said. I mean come on, it's like Kung Fu Panda standing on the roof in Kung Fu Panda 2, shouting his challenge to the peacock, when the peacock can't hear a word he says. Totally loses all the impact. So Bane starts delivering his lines, and I hear mumble mumble, mumble mumble detonate mumble mumble, mumble mumble mumble. Take back mumble mumble, mumble mumble mumble mumble. What a rousing speech! I was moved to tears. And I'm supposed to fear this guy? I can't even understand him. What is it they say about a good movie? The villain makes the story. Which would make this story rather lacking.
I suppose there was your average number of explosions, gun fights, fistfights, and fancy bat-vehicles for a batman movie. I think probably the best moment in the movie, for me at least, came when the police took to the streets again in spite of being outgunned and out-numbered. That took balls, and lately, it's a rare instance of police being shown in a good light. The last time I saw a police officer on the screen, there were like a dozen of them beating on a person for taking video of them on a cell phone. And it wasn't fiction.
I can't say as I will watch this movie again. I don't like Christian Bale as the Batman. Honestly, I don't really understand the status of Batman as of the end of this film, and I hate it when things aren't really explained. I was much more interested in how Michael Caine's character fared as Bruce's butler than I was about Bruce Wayne, the batman, catwoman, Bane, or however many bad guys crawled out of the woodwork. I'm pretty much hoping Christian Bale is done as Batman. I know they'll do new Batman movies in the future and hopefully the next one will be better. I guess I now feel the same way about the batman franchise as I do the james Bond franchise. That is, the current one sucks and I'm waiting for a better one.
That's all I got for now, except, why the HELL did Syfy decide to toss a stupid series into the middle of their saturday night movie lineup? Seriously, the only goddamn reason I watch Syfy now is to see crappy monster movies. And as everyone knows, I love crappy monster movies. So now, instead of every saturday being a crappy monster movie fest all day and all night, I got a few monster movies and then shitty syfy one-hour series. Look, Syfy... You're DOING IT WRONG. I understand you want to pump up viewership of your new series. But you can't get two things into your collective heads that you really, REALLY need to understand. One, you make bad series. I'm sorry, you just do. There hasn't been a single series you have ever made that was any good. Any series you have that were any good, started somewhere else, and then you ruined them. Just stop trying to have a syfy series on the air that you made because you aren't any fucking good at it. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this. You just aren't. Stop it. Two, you DO make halfway decent B monster movies. I don't know if you collect them all from somewhere else or you make them in-house, but the ones I have seen have been fairly fun to watch. Not all of them, mind you. No one bats a thousand. But I think if you focused your money more on making and showing the B monster movies, your viewership would increase a lot more than trying to sell one more crappy series that will just be cancelled after a season or two because they SUCK HUGE SWEATY DONKEY BALLS. Nuff said.
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