The upcoming “The Dark Knight Rises” has many movie lovers in hysterics. They can’t seem to stop oohing and aahing over the trailer and singing the praises of the most recent Batman franchise. Amidst all this ruckus, I have to bring some sanity back here.
I’m a rabid Batman fan. Have been for most of my life. I’ve done my duty and run through an obscene number of DC comics and have read all the famous (and not so famous) story arcs in the Bat universe. So you can say that I “get” Batman. I know what he’s all about. Sure, it’s unrealistic in so many ways but it’s an awesome fantasy. A normal human being able to achieve the things he does. It just gives you a high.
But Batman movies? Not so much. I always found that they pretty much suck big time. I respect the character of Batman too much to see him mutilated. Which is why I hate the recent Batman series by Christopher Nolan. What surprises me is that everyone raves about them as if they’re the awesomest movies ever made. Sure, they’re probably better in comparison to the Joel Schumacher version, but that doesn’t make them good. In fact, I find them awful. And here’s why:
Batman’s Appearance – The “Helmet”
I hate Batman’s appearance in Christopher Nolan’s universe. There are so many things wrong with him that I don’t know where to start. He’s not menacing enough. He just looks like a funny guy in a suit. The suit itself is a horrible wreck, looking like a clumsy piece of armor rather than something flexible that can be moved easily in. And before the fans start shouting “It has to be realistic!”, let me assure you that Batman as a concept isn’t very realistic at all. But more on the “realism” aspect later.
He’s not scary. At all. Just look at his “mask”:
That’s a helmet! He doesn’t look in the least bit scary. His mouth and lips are “squeezed” into a gap, making it bunched up. No wonder Bale talks with his lips parted so often! Next up – the eyes. Why, oh WHY can’t Batman movies make the eyes white like they are the comics? Dammit, this guy actually has makeup on his face around his eyes. MAKEUP! It makes me want to cry when I see what Nolan has done to my favorite comic book hero.
For reference, here is how Batman’s cowl should look like:
See the difference? Now that is scary. THAT is a sight I wouldn’t want to see at night swooping down at me. The guy in the first picture? Some loony clown on drugs wearing a costume. Pchaah!
Crappy Armor – Horrible Cape
I don’t even know where to start. I mean look at that suit. It’s a bunch of disjointed pieces fitted together haphazardly. It’s not uniform or elegant. It just looks shoddy. There we go again with that whole “realistic” mantra that Nolan loves to try and inject into this character. Please Nolan huh? Go make movies of Superman or something and leave this guy alone – please.
Batman’s cape has always been part of his effect. And yet it does nothing for him in the movie. It doesn’t even merge in color with the main suit! It’s a deeper shade of black that ruins the “solid” effect of night that is Batman. It breaks the illusion that this is one gigantic bat – almost supernatural. Instead, it tells us that this is just a costume worn by a guy for unknown reasons – since it’s clearly not scary. Here’s a nice shot of the real Batman style:
Let up with the voice huh?
We all know that Bruce Wayne disguises his voice as Batman to make it scary as well as to keep his identity secret. Works great in the Batman animated series, so why can’t Nolan give us a real crackling voice huh? In various media, Batman’s voice has been compared to “stepping on broken bottles”. In some comics, Batman literally uses his voice as a weapon to scare criminals into submission whenever he can.
And once again, Nolan turns Batman’s voice into a joke. You can barely understand squat of what he’s saying. It’s obvious that his voice is fake and put on. And coming from that squished out mouth of his, it just makes you want to puke. Someone needs to tell Nolan’s Batman to shut the fuck up.
The Batmobile
Ok – I get it. You were trying to compensate for the “blue lighted” batmobile in the Joel Schumacher movies. But come on! That’s not a batmobile – that’s a tank! Where’s the “bat” in it? It’s not stylish, it’s not elegant. It doesn’t make a statement. And remember that Batman is all about style. That’s why we really like him so much. More about that in the “realism” section.
Gotham
Gotham city is an integral part of Batman. It provides the setting, the atmosphere and sets the mood of the comics. It’s even called Gotham city for a reason. Because it’s gothic. Nolan’s Gotham is a ghastly departure from what Gotham should be. Where are the soaring cathedrals? Where are the gargoyles? Where is all the goth? He’s just gone and turned Batman’s city into Chicago! What the hell was he thinking?
Here’s is Nolan’s Gotham – aka Chicago:
And this is the “real” Gotham:
Poor Fighting Style and Posture
Everyone knows that Batman is one of the greatest martial artists of the DC universe. He’s the master of hundreds of fighting styles. He’s agile, knows his reach with mathematical precision and conserves the minimum amount of energy and movement while fighting.
And yet, Nolan’s Batman fights like a thug. There’s the scene in a pub which I cringed while watching. He’s like a boxer, even taking up a stance to fit. He looks ridiculous:
Notice by the way, how his cape is of a darker color than the suit. It doesn’t mesh. It breaks the continuity and looks just like just another piece of cloth. Not a part of him. It just looks funny. Here’s how it should look:
Notice how the cape drapes, how it “merges” into the cowl. Also see how Batman covers up his eyes. It makes him look scary instead of just a guy in a suit. Remember how cool Ironman’s mask looks when his eyes light up? Why the hell can’t we have the same thing for the bat?
Fake “Realism” in Nolan’s Movies
I’ve saved the worst for last. Nolan and many of his fans excuse all the above mistakes by saying that this is a “realistic” take on Batman and Gotham. I call bullshit on that claim. Because even as depicted, Batman is horribly unrealistic. You want realistic, get rid of the cape. It hinders you, can get caught on stuff, and you can trip over it. The marginal utility of being able to slow your descent and hide some stuff in it is heavily outweighed by the disadvantages. Even Nightwing has remarked that a cape cramps one’s style too much.
But yet we keep it. We have to keep it. Why? Because it’s about image. Because it makes Batman what he is. It’s about style. It’s about maintaining the atmosphere. Even Nolan can’t get rid of the cape without destroying Batman. Moral of the story – this is a comic book. Style and atmosphere trump realism. And I’m just scraping the surface here. Superman is in Batman’s universe as well! Talk about aliens and unrealistic in the same breath?
Spare me the junk realism please. Give me something that for once stays true to the comics. Two great movies I’ve seen that replicate the mood and the style of their respective comics perfectly are “Watchmen” and “Sin City”.
Can we please have a Batman version of “Sin City” for those of us who appreciate what Batman is really about? We’ll gladly leave the Christopher Nolan’s fans at the altar alone.
at least it ends here…
In reply to Sushubh
I know right? Thank god!
Hence, why Tim Burton’s Batman will always be my favorite. :)
In reply to RenKiss
I prefer that one a lot – though I have some nitpicks there too, but nowhere near as many as with Nolan’s rendition.
I am not a fan of the Batman comic which is maybe why I loved The Dark Knight. I thought it was one of the best movies I’ve watched in the past few years – granted Hollywood is really going through a dry spell and producing all manner of crap, but I loved that movie. I think it was saying something profound about how society needs not only heroes but villains as well. In a way, the star of that film was Heath Ledger as The Joker but I didn’t dislike the portrayal of Batman, for once I got what he was about and I think there was a lot of darkness to his character. That I guess is because I’m not a fan of the comic.
Funnily enough, many years ago, when someone was showing me around Chicago’s financial district they told me that Gotham City had been based on Chicago. So I guess that perception has been around for some time. Though when I tried to google it just now, it appears it was more based on New York than Chicago.
Thanks for alerting me to the arrival of the sequel. Clearly babyland has been more pervasive in my life than I realised.
In reply to The Bride
Which reminds me – I gotta write a post regarding babyland. Thanks for bringing it up :D
And yeah – these Batman films get to me because they’re a departure from the comics. It’s as if they’re two completely different characters, sharing a similar name. And that’s like a desecration to me!
Wonder how I would have felt about them had I never read the comics…
For a change I really liked Dark night (neither Batman begins nor I will like the next crap) not because of the hero (Batman/Bale) but for the fantastic portrayal of the villain (Joker) by Heath Ledger. I watched it twice just because of him. What a performance? For my money, this performance is on par with Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Hannibal Lecter)
In reply to Sagar
Gotta agree that Heath Ledger’s performance of the Joker was marvelous. I loved it!
Thank you for calling the bluff that is Nolans realism. Even if he did achieve a higher level of realism, it would not matter. His job as a filmaker was to adapt, or even build upon or to explore, the character and the world of Batman (and if he did not want to do that job he should have created an origional property). If he wanted to inject some realism into Batman that would have been fine, but that would have meant rising to the challenge of staying true to the characters as well as making things believeable.
Allowing an audience a chance to suspend disbelif is a challenge inherant to the creation of fiction. Nolan is not breaking new ground here. Rather, he is ignoring the very characters that should be his primary focus. Sadly, by ignoring the interplay between the real and the fantastic Nolan has forfeited the imperative to create new and exciting ways for Batman to look, act or be. Not only does this let Nolan settle for less than Batworthy Batstuff it makes it so all the toys in the world wouldnt add to Batmans charachter.
In the best Batman stories his kit mirrors who Batman is and who he wants to be. And I say Batman because thats who he is. Batman is the name he says when he speaks to himself. Nothing in the films explores or even shows this (except perhaps in a negative sense). Its quite obvious that Nolan is too emotionally detached to tell this kind of story. Other than emotional cheap shots (just look at the terror porn that is the trailer for TDKR) these fims make me feel nothing, while the source material is surprisingly emotional. Batman is not just a man in a suit fighting bad guys. Its why he wears the suit, how he does what he does, who he is and even who the villians are.
Batman is an emotional, archetypical character. While Nolan might not appreciate that, the archetypical forces that are Batman still resonate through his movies. Thats why people like these movies, but the credit goes to Batman (and all the great minds that have worked with him), not to Nolan.
In reply to Will Leach
I agree – Nolan makes out Batman to be just a guy in a suit. That doesn’t scrape the surface of the truth. In many ways, there is no Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is the mask. Can we stop with the love affairs already that we see in Nolan’s movies?
Nolan just doesn’t respect Batman enough. Turned him into a joke.
DC need to stop trying to make multi fim franchises. Plenty of their graphic novels and story arcs are essentially this or that persons take on the characters, even within continuity. I mean they just rebooted their entire fictional universe. They should stop trying to follow Marvel and let each movie stand alone. Sure they might build off one another in indirrect ways, but let each cast and crew just do thier thing for one movie. In a few years let another cast and crew do it thier way. That would even allow you to let old cast and crews get another shot at it if they wanted to, but without sequals or prequals to worry about. Find directors with vision, give them the ball for one movie, and let them run with it.
You’ve decimated this version and the pics you’ve provided are proof.
Personally, and I know I’ll be hanged for this, Bale’s terrible Bat Man aside, I think Ledger was a terrible Joker.
Media propaganda hyped this up to be his greatest role ever, which if you see his previous role, isn’t hard to do. The whole reasoning is because it was his last movie before the wimp committed suicide. Unfortunately in Hollywood you NEVER bash a person who has just passed as it is unethical so of course all of the critics, who these days are more worried about their image and careers than giving solid feedback, would never down him. “Greatest Joker ever”. The same exact thing happened in ” The Crow”.
Source material? Canon? Out the window. There is no instance in the Batman universe where the Joker is portrayed as Ledger does it, and granted, it is the directors fault, but at some point ledger should have said… “Hey, maybe if we…” The Ledger Joker was closer to Jigsaw from the Saw series than he was to Joker. The Joker is a psychopath, not a cutter or emo kid, he is a sadist who is completely consumed by the Batman. There were only 2 notable moments in the entire movie where I saw him emulate the Joker correctly. The “Pencil Trick” and when he appeared in the nurses outfit, which was plagiarized from the animated series. (by the way, Mark Hamil was the best Joker ever, if only by voice.) Because the base of the character, the core, is the JOKE. Every thing he does is about the joke, he makes you laugh till you die. He is OBSESSED with the joke. I didn’t see any humor in Ledgers “Jigsaw games”.
In reply to James Brochey
I like to think that Ledger’s joker was taken from “Joker (Graphic Novel)”. That’s the first thing I thought when I saw him like that. If you haven’t read that one, you really should. It’s a completely different kind of joker.
Ledger’s joker was depicted as being completely insane – in the sense that there was no logic for what he did. He didn’t want money. He just wanted Batman to reveal himself. So there was an element of obsession certainly in his acts. Of course, that has to do with the screenplay and directors not ledger himself…
In reply to bhagwad
Joker was based on Ledgers performance, not the other way around.
In reply to bhagwad
Batman’s movie is from before “Joker”. Joker is from October 2008. The Dark Knight is from July 2008. Most likely Azarello’s view on the Joker was taken from the movie.
In reply to bhagwad
James,
I respect your opinion but find your arguments heavily weak in substance.
First, you can’t really claim that there is a “correct” way to do the Joker. Every filmmaker, artist, etc. should be allowed to martial their own interpretations.
Second, Ledger’s Joker was a psychopath, the original Joker (including Hamil’s) is a psychotic, a delusional man with a tentative grasp on reality. Ledger’s Joker is fully cogent and calculating (a massive difference in profile). You would benefit from actually reading up on the differences. The Joker of Nolan has no goals, he simply is moral nihilism manifested in human form. I like to think of him as a type of Grendel, bent on mindless destruction for the pleasure that comes in the mere destructive act. The entire perversity of his character is that he wears a smile, but lacks joy. Your own idol, Hamil praised this last fact about Ledger’s performance at ComiCon. TDKR’s Joker was joyless, hence the jarring paradox of having a perpetual smile while showing no juvenile happiness. The original Joker was goofy and loved jokes and I loved him for that. Ledger’s Joker was frankly more realistic and psychologically fascinating. Also, numerous critics praised Ledger’s performance on verifiable grounds regardless of pc niceties.
In reply to James Brochey
Thank you! I’m not the only one!
I thought that the Joker was a very one-dimensional, one-note villain. Aside from killing people and causing chaos, he has no real personality, his plans go entirely against his nature as a free-spirited maniac even in the film – the fact that he’s having an army of junkies, flunkies and nutjobs pull of acts of terrorism that a Navy SEAL task force would be lucky to pull off makes it worse – and there isn’t much behind Ledger’s performance. As a few hundred people on youtube have proven, it’s not that hard to speak in lisp wearing make-up. Plus, his look and attitude are cribbed from the far more impressive Crow, starring the far more tragically departed Brandon Lee.
Truth is, the only reason so many people cared about Ledger, who let’s be honest, was a mediocre actor who died of a drug overdose, was Warner Bros marketed the hell out of his performance as the must-see event of the decade, and people bought into it, especially Ledger’s fangirls before they tossed out their Joker shirts in favor of Team Edward or whatever the next fad was. Plus, the fact he won as Oscar is a disgrace – there are living actors who go their entire lives without even being nominated, and Ledger gets one because he can’t count his Tylenol.
Anyway, kudos, you are not alone!
There’s always a risk when you shoot the Bat in broad daylight. That I grant you… the mask, the cape, even the equipment all sort of loses its glamour when you shoot it in the light of day and explain it all. Also, the voice is just inexcusable…
Personally, I thought the brawl-style fighting was a nice touch, given that they showed how Wayne spent time in prisons, beating up thugs. Within the context of the movie universe they’ve established it makes sense. Of course it isn’t gelling with the comic universe – but this is not the comic universe now, is it?
I feel like you are ignoring huge swathes of gooey goodness for a bunch of tonal elements… like you’ve let your obvious love for the comics and for the Burton movies obscure all that is good about this Nolan trilogy.
To wit:
1) They got the characterization perfect. Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Gordon, The Joker (a la The Killing Joke), and I’m conflicted about Ra’s al Ghul but one does not question Qui Gon Jinn. Batman got stiffed a bit because really, after the fear-based fighting in Batman Begins, he doesn’t really use theatrics, and does a lot in daylight. Plus there’s the voice… still, it’s an average rendition of the character, not a really bad one (no nipples, see?)
2) The story arc is an epic and consistent one (Save Gotham from Itself). In the Burton movies, I always questioned Batman’s motivation after he found out the Joker killed his parents and the Joker died. The whole point of the franchise is that Batman finds revenge (against Joe Chill) inadequate and goes on this quixotic anti-crime spree.
3) Batman has always been a combination of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond (without the ladies) with some elements of Ninja-ness for good measure plot-wise. I thought they got that right, especially in The Dark Knight, where the anti-money laundering thing was right in the tone of “Detective Comics”
4) On how Gotham City itself is rendered… I think they went for Al Capone’s Chicago more than the Gotham of the comics. But you know what? It worked for me. I liked how they established really early on (in the scene where a younger Wayne confronts Falcone in his lair) that a “Caped Crusader” can only really be a symbol, not a cure-all. It also gels with the realism thing they’ve got going – and we can agree to disagree on that being appropriate.
Over and over, there’s talk in these movies about how Batman is an idea that is meant to inspire, to make Gotham rise up against all that is wrong with it. He recognizes his own limits, but sets out to become “a legend, Mr. Wayne” nonetheless. That played nicely in The Dark Knight, where he sees in Harvey Dent a chance to retire… and I think we’ll see that refrain become central to how the trilogy concludes.
Not trying to change your mind obviously – one is reminded of that xkcd panel about someone “being wrong on the Internet” :) – but just thought I’d throw some points to ponder at you.
In reply to Hrishi
I think you got it right in the beginning – I want a comic rendition of the Bat. It’s also because I’m jealous of how wonderfully Marvel manages to get their superhero movies right – Spiderman, X-Men, Ironman etc. I keep thinking – if they can replicate the comics, why can’t DC?
I admit that Alfred, Gordon and the Joker are pretty damn good. No complaints there really. But I wonder if I’m going to like how they’ve done Bane in the third movie…Doesn’t look too bad though.
The points are appreciated, and so is the reference to that xkcd panel :D
In reply to bhagwad
“I’m jealous of how wonderfully Marvel manages to get their superhero movies right – Spiderman, X-Men, Ironman etc. I keep thinking – if they can replicate the comics, why can’t DC?”
I don’t think D.C. has done such a bad job. I actually liked Batman Begins quite a lot, and I think I’m going to like “Man of Steel” quite a bit. I just think the D.C. has so far gone so far over into the “serious” drama territory that their films don’t really feel like superhero films. As for Marvel, while I think they’ve managed to get the feel of their heroes right, they’ve also done very serious stories (and no I don’t want to see alcoholic Tony Stark!) Rather I’d like more suspense, and I’m worried that they will feel too obligated to stay general audiences that they won’t tell any of those stories and just keep it light.
i think nolan made the batman character too emotional, resulting the character looks confused and not sure what he should do, too many soul search stuff, i didn’t see him as a badass character, too fragile, batman character should embodies someone who is hard outside as much as inside but many people loved it so who knows maybe i’m wrong