Jason at the Bat, Part II
Jul. 7th, 2005 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfieldI finally saw Batman Begins last week. As it turns out, the 15 of you who declined to see the movie with me were probably better off. With apologies to Phunwin, who is indeed spot-on in at least some of his praise, I actually disliked this movie. It wasn't total guano, by any means, but there were enough cricital things about the film that made it unusually difficult to watch. Such as:
The plot. Obviously they had a lot to cram into two and a half hours. Bruce Wayne's coming-of-age, his transformation, and the genesis of Batman are all covered here, plus they have to mix in the actual present-day drama and action. But golly, this was a convoluted mess. It made me long for the dry political maneuvering of Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. That was confusing, yes, but at least I knew who was who. An hour after this movie ended, I was discussing it with my companion -- who had just seen it for the second time -- and we were arguing about whether one guy was another guy or the same guy as before, and if he was the real guy, who was the fake guy?
The dialogue. I make allowances for the fact that this movie is essentially adapted from comic books, a genre with such a casual approach to literary craft that it makes Tom Clancy read like Charles Dickens. But some of the exchanges are laughable. The writers seem particularly lost when it came to writing for Liam Neeson, whose faux-philosophical pablum sounded like it was cribbed from a series of fortune cookies.
The casting. Don't even get me started on Katie Holmes. Her Brown-Eyed Girl Power wore off about five years ago. It took all the suspension-of-disbelief I could muster just to imagine her as a college student in "Dawson's Creek." Now I'm supposed to believe that she's an assistant district attorney? As a jury member, would you believe a lawyer who only talks out of the right side of her mouth? I also thought that Tom Wilkinson and Gary Oldman, brilliant actors both, were badly misused, and the casting for The Scarecrow left me scratching my head, befuddled.
The sound. Plainly: this is the loudest movie I have ever watched. It felt like I was watching this movie while listening to Limp Bizkit, during an air raid drill, inside a working helicopter. The fight scenes, which were myriad, were at times so loud that I was literally plugging my ears with my fingers. And then, seconds later, the actors would whisper their overly complicated lines in such a furtive tones that you would have thought they were playing "telephone."
On the upside, I think there is promise for the franchise again after the colossal turd that was Batman and Robin. Maybe with an improved female lead and a charismatic Joker -- and without all the laborious exposition -- the next Batman could be a winner. For now, though, I'll stand by Batman Classic as the real super movie.
The plot. Obviously they had a lot to cram into two and a half hours. Bruce Wayne's coming-of-age, his transformation, and the genesis of Batman are all covered here, plus they have to mix in the actual present-day drama and action. But golly, this was a convoluted mess. It made me long for the dry political maneuvering of Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. That was confusing, yes, but at least I knew who was who. An hour after this movie ended, I was discussing it with my companion -- who had just seen it for the second time -- and we were arguing about whether one guy was another guy or the same guy as before, and if he was the real guy, who was the fake guy?
The dialogue. I make allowances for the fact that this movie is essentially adapted from comic books, a genre with such a casual approach to literary craft that it makes Tom Clancy read like Charles Dickens. But some of the exchanges are laughable. The writers seem particularly lost when it came to writing for Liam Neeson, whose faux-philosophical pablum sounded like it was cribbed from a series of fortune cookies.
The casting. Don't even get me started on Katie Holmes. Her Brown-Eyed Girl Power wore off about five years ago. It took all the suspension-of-disbelief I could muster just to imagine her as a college student in "Dawson's Creek." Now I'm supposed to believe that she's an assistant district attorney? As a jury member, would you believe a lawyer who only talks out of the right side of her mouth? I also thought that Tom Wilkinson and Gary Oldman, brilliant actors both, were badly misused, and the casting for The Scarecrow left me scratching my head, befuddled.
The sound. Plainly: this is the loudest movie I have ever watched. It felt like I was watching this movie while listening to Limp Bizkit, during an air raid drill, inside a working helicopter. The fight scenes, which were myriad, were at times so loud that I was literally plugging my ears with my fingers. And then, seconds later, the actors would whisper their overly complicated lines in such a furtive tones that you would have thought they were playing "telephone."
On the upside, I think there is promise for the franchise again after the colossal turd that was Batman and Robin. Maybe with an improved female lead and a charismatic Joker -- and without all the laborious exposition -- the next Batman could be a winner. For now, though, I'll stand by Batman Classic as the real super movie.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-09 12:14 pm (UTC)