Everybody's excited about Batman Begins. And if you're not, from what I've heard, you ought to be, yes you, the guy who hates those stupid movies, evidently even you can get excited about this one. And being predisposed to liking live action superhero's enough to be excited about Man-Thing's straight-to-video debut, I am of course excited as hell.
But probaby the man most excited about this, even more so than Chris Nolan or Christian Bale is Joel Schumacher. Perhaps the bricks and garbage will stop being thrown through the window of his Beverly Hills home, perhaps finally the mailbox will be unbashed in the morning, and maybe just maybe the only shit in his yard will be from his little gay dog and none of it will be on fire.
I feel sorry for Joel Schumacher. Here's a self-made man who made it all the way to the top, braved a tougher Hollywood than most, directing shit like D.C. Cab to great movies like Falling Down, Lost Boys, and Flatliners. But all he'll ever be remembered as is the buy that fucked up Batman. It's such a pervasive theory, that my friggin' grandma knows Joel Schumacher fucked up Batman. It would not surprise me if he blew his head off this week, EVERY SINGLE magazine, paper, trade magazine, website, chatroom, everything I've read about the new Batman also mentions that Joel fucked the last two up.
But Live Action Superhero movie prior to Blade go, how far off was Batman & Robin? We act like the movies got campy "all of a sudden" but how far is Schwarzeneggar from Tommy Lee Jones, and how far is Tommy Lee Jones fron Danny Devito, and how far is Danny Devito from Nicholson? None of this is THAT far from the original Batman, just one too many nudges in that direction I guess. That mixed with a pure misunderstanding of the audience, and some really stupid stuff. I like Batman Forever a lot, there's some real good stuff in there. I know plenty will disagree, sure it's colorful, but the Robin story has some weight to it, and Kilmer is really good, I love Kilmer as Batman, more than Keaton. But even if you considered Batman Forever the standard-bearer of the franchise, Batman & Robin is still off the mark. But no more so than any fourth entry in any franchise (unless you renumber your series like Lucas did, but we all know what the fourth film is)
Although, I should say, as far as "bombs" like Batman & Robin go, we should all be so lucky to have a bomb that makes $230 mil before DVD.
Monday, June 13, 2005
It's Batman Week!
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2 comments:
I think the perceived problem with Shumacher's version of Batman is one of tone. Burton's could be a little goofy, yeah (Nicholson in the art museum, for one), but it was also, to quote Spinal Tap, none more black. Shumacher suddenly did the day-glo rendition of the Dark Knight, complete with cartoon sound effects and the much-maligned nipples-on-the-batsuit. I, like you, actually find a lot to like in Batman Forever, but Shumacher just seemed to critically misunderstand what makes Batman a great character.
Also, after your posts about '80s horror flicks, I'd be interested to see what you think of High Tension, should you see it. For me, it's an '80's slasher movie with the worst, most pointless plot twist in the history of pointless plot twists (and that's up to and including The Village).
It's too bad, Clooney, if properly directed would have been the best Batman yet. One thing I forgot to mention that I love that they each of the movies represents an era of the comic, #1: 50's, Returns: 90's, Forever: 70's, & Robin: 60's tv show, a big budget redux of the 60's tv show, and in that way I like it.
Can't wait for Haute Tension, that chick is this weeks short-haired chick of the week.
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