|
We're now 8 years removed from the last
installment in the Batman series, which have gradually to
dramatically gotten worse. So what is in store in the new, yet
previously covered Batman? Anticipation is high for some
reason, despite the mess that was Batman and Robin and we
cannot forget Catwoman just last year, which I refuse to see,
Halle Berry or not. I'll preface by saying that I had a few
Batman comics (pretty much the only comics I ever owned that weren't
Richie Rich!), but I am by far no connoisseur of the "graphic
novel", so I come into this, and all comic movies on only a small
basis of knowledge.
What we see is what one would expect to see in a
back-story and a Batman movie, a lot of action and a lot of
exposition. Fortunately for us, a lot of the exposition is
action. Unfortunately for some reason most of this involves
samurai sword fighting (which I've never seen Batman attempt to do
elsewhere in his "future"). Though, the ninja training did
work for me, as well as the general bulking up. Further, the
back-story of Alfred and Bruce's relationship was well written, and
carried out. The love story was not too shabby either, though
one now wonders what happened to Rachel after these events?
Great work explaining where Batman gets his "wonderful toys", and
why some things came to be (such as the Batcave and Batmobile).
The visuals were good and the action was also great.
On the downside, I found some of the suspense just wasn't
there. It was hard for me, an avid viewer not comic fan, to
understand exactly who this Scarecrow was and what exactly he was
doing and why. The climactic final fight scene on the train
was almost laughable with the slow paced fighting, and poor dialog,
in my opinion. On top of that, we have Gordon (the always
great Oldman) driving the Batmobile parallel to the action and then
shoots out the track allowing the water vaporizer to take a
trajectory precisely where they were trying to keep it from going...
Before this, Batman was standing right by the machine and instead of
trying to shut it down, he moves past it allowing it to run
releasing the fumes as the train continued on while he picks a fight
with the new villain. But for me, this was not the most
unnerving aspect. For me, it was unnerving to have a fifth
installment change established facts of the same events and
characters from previous movies: The death of the parents had been
established outside of a movie theater, with popcorn falling, and
the gunman being none other than Jack the Joker. Now, it was
outside an opera by some unknown, and later murdered gunman.
Secondly, at the end the Joker is leaving his calling card on
victims, when he had yet to be met by Mr. Wayne and unceremoniously
dropped into the vat of acid. Other than that, I had no big
gripes and had a rather enjoyable experience at a summer
blockbuster. An improvement over the last two Batman's. 8/10
|
|
