Just saw Batman

[Vedius Pollio]

Thoughts:

Best comic book movie I've ever seen. It maintains the illusion of reality much better than any Marvel movie. Why?

1. There's no fake-looking Gotham, like in the older Batman movies. This Gotham looks like a real American city. (No funny shaped buildings, or enormous Atlas-type statues like in Batman Forever.)

2. If you take a few random minutes out of a Marvel film or a pre-Nolan Batman film, it wouldn't be mistaken for anything other than a superhero film. This film feels like almost exactly like a thriller, only with a superhero element to it.

3. There are no magic potions, radioactive spiders, hover boards, machines that turn people into living sand, alien symbiotes, wacky experiments, laboratories that glow green... (Characters like Poison Ivy just don't work a film like this.)

4. No Robin.

5. No Harley Quinn.

6. The reporters are more understated. In a Marvel movie, the journos are inextricably linked to the hero's cliched moral struggle. (They feel like a chorus in a Greek tragedy. In Nolan's film the journos are completely professional, however. No anchorwoman begging: "Who will save these poor refugees?" and prompting Iron Man to go to Afghanistan.)

Things I didn't find very realistic:

How can Two-Face's injuries be explained by a gasoline burn? The left side of his face is almost skeletal. Still, better than anything in a Spiderman movie.

[Aeridus]

I thought it was acid splashed on his face during a court case, not gasoline.

[Vedius Pollio]

SPOILER!!!!

In the movie, the joker kidnaps Harvey Dent and his girlfriend and puts them into two separate buildings, each full of gasoline drums rigged to blow. They have a radio between them to communicate. Dent is tied to a chair and accidentally falls on his side, knocking over a drum. The gas soaks the left side of his face and he catches on fire when Batman rescues him. His girlfriend (Rachel Dawes, not Glinda as in the comics) is killed in the other building. This drives him insane.

Looks to me as if they've turned the Batman series into another Saw.

EDIT: oddly, the left side of his suit is just singed, even though his face has, like, nineteenth-degree burns.

[Halo299]

Thoughts:

Best comic book movie I've ever seen. It maintains the illusion of reality much better than any Marvel movie. Why?

1. There's no fake-looking Gotham, like in the older Batman movies. This Gotham looks like a real American city. (No funny shaped buildings, or enormous Atlas-type statues like in Batman Forever.)

2. If you take a few random minutes out of a Marvel film or a pre-Nolan Batman film, it wouldn't be mistaken for anything other than a superhero film. This film feels like almost exactly like a thriller, only with a superhero element to it.

3. There are no magic potions, radioactive spiders, hover boards, machines that turn people into living sand, alien symbiotes, wacky experiments, laboratories that glow green... (Characters like Poison Ivy just don't work a film like this.)

4. No Robin.

5. No Harley Quinn.

6. The reporters are more understated. In a Marvel movie, the journos are inextricably linked to the hero's cliched moral struggle. (They feel like a chorus in a Greek tragedy. In Nolan's film the journos are completely professional, however. No anchorwoman begging: "Who will save these poor refugees?" and prompting Iron Man to go to Afghanistan.)

Things I didn't find very realistic:

How can Two-Face's injuries be explained by a gasoline burn? The left side of his face is almost skeletal. Still, better than anything in a Spiderman movie.

that reminds me, i still need to see spider-man 3.

I think Harley Quinn could work well in a movie like this because it could make her a much darker character than what we are used to, but i can't hold it against them for leaving her out.

-halo

[Aeridus]

Ah, so they changed things around a bit for his origin, I see.

Well, if all goes well I'll probably be seeing this on Friday with my coworkers.

[Vedius Pollio]

Thoughts:

Best comic book movie I've ever seen. It maintains the illusion of reality much better than any Marvel movie. Why?

1. There's no fake-looking Gotham, like in the older Batman movies. This Gotham looks like a real American city. (No funny shaped buildings, or enormous Atlas-type statues like in Batman Forever.)

2. If you take a few random minutes out of a Marvel film or a pre-Nolan Batman film, it wouldn't be mistaken for anything other than a superhero film. This film feels like almost exactly like a thriller, only with a superhero element to it.

3. There are no magic potions, radioactive spiders, hover boards, machines that turn people into living sand, alien symbiotes, wacky experiments, laboratories that glow green... (Characters like Poison Ivy just don't work a film like this.)

4. No Robin.

5. No Harley Quinn.

6. The reporters are more understated. In a Marvel movie, the journos are inextricably linked to the hero's cliched moral struggle. (They feel like a chorus in a Greek tragedy. In Nolan's film the journos are completely professional, however. No anchorwoman begging: "Who will save these poor refugees?" and prompting Iron Man to go to Afghanistan.)

Things I didn't find very realistic:

How can Two-Face's injuries be explained by a gasoline burn? The left side of his face is almost skeletal. Still, better than anything in a Spiderman movie.

that reminds me, i still need to see spider-man 3.

I think Harley Quinn could work well in a movie like this because it could make her a much darker character than what we are used to, but i can't hold it against them for leaving her out.

-halo

Oh, she'd work. The Joker's gang in this movie are all schizophrenics from Arkham. But I don't want to see her grunged-up like ledger.

[Halo299]

I don't want to see her grunged-up like ledger.

...I do

[Evilpika]

I don't want to see her grunged-up like ledger.

...I do

Grungy Quinn does have sort of a ring to it.

[Vedius Pollio]

3. There are no magic potions, radioactive spiders, hover boards, machines that turn people into living sand, alien symbiotes, wacky experiments, laboratories that glow green... (Characters like Poison Ivy just don't work a film like this.)

Joker doesn't fall into a vat of chemicals? Damn. I mean, I already heard that they skip doing an origin story for Joker, but when I first heard about this movie, I'd hoped it would start with him as Red Hood. Oh well.

5. No Harley Quinn.

I like Harely, shut up. =( She's a show stealer, though, so it's perfectly understandable leaving her out of the film so as to avoid more plotlines/backstories.

How can Two-Face's injuries be explained by a gasoline burn?

No acid!? =o It's not like it was "magic acid" in the comics. It was just regular acid, and he went crazy all on his own. Dang.

Two-face's appearance has varied in the comics from just a discoloured left face to a heavily scarred face to a face with big chunks missing. The Two-Face in the movie has big chunks missing. Gasoline doesn't do that, and any acid that did that would eat through the glass phial.

[Detective Clem]

I, too, was not satisfied by the "gasoline on the face" Two-Face backstory. I also was not happy with the things that Batman was able to do on his motorcycle. The regular-ish motorcycle movement was cool enough, it was my dad's favorite part of the film. [spoiler]No need for the wheels to rotate around an extra axis, and the turning around on a wall bit kind of took away from the rationality of him falling over after not running over the Joker.[/spoiler] Overall, best movie I have ever seen in the theater. I am planning on going back, so that I can see it in the IMAX, which was sold out when I went the first time.

[Vedius Pollio]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, it was turpentine, not gasoline.

I'm not sure if I liked the new two-face. The previous two-faces wore clashing suits. Eckhart's version is just burnt on one side, with a burnt coin.

[Ghastly]

Just saw it myself last night.

Best. Joker. Evar!

[WangyJohn]

4. No Robin.

Now I want to see how they're gonna pull that one off.

[Halo299]

4. No Robin.

Now I want to see how they're gonna pull that one off.

I could do without Robin actually.

I saw the movie Saturday and i really liked it. I think the people who made the trailers did a great job of showing us how cool the movie was going to be without showing the entire plot.

-halo

[MistressMaggie]

Actually, according to Wikipedia, it was turpentine, not gasoline.

I'm not sure if I liked the new two-face. The previous two-faces wore clashing suits. Eckhart's version is just burnt on one side, with a burnt coin.

in previous versions, two-face lived longer than a day as a villain. It takes time to sew clashing suits together. The burnt clothes would presumably have been at the hospital.

I didn't think that this one was as witty as the first though, although it did have its moments.

[Vedius Pollio]

The joker could have given him a clashing suit. And I don't get it why they killed him off so quickly. I hope he returns in a future film...

[WangyJohn]

http://mitchclem.com/mystupidlife/80/

[Vedius Pollio]

I didn't think that this one was as witty as the first though, although it did have its moments.

Yeah, would totally be gay for scarecrow.

[Ghastly]

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS



The best thing I liked was that they didn't kill off The Joker at the end of it. The Joker's "You Complete Me" speech where he says he envisions him and Batman doing this over and over again forever was spot on. One very much defines the other.

[Epiblast]

First, I'd like to echo VP's comment and say that this is probably the best movie based on a superhero comic I've ever seen.

SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

The joker could have given him a clashing suit. And I don't get it why they killed him off so quickly. I hope he returns in a future film...

I believe they killed off Harvey Dent/Two-Face so quickly because having the contrast of dead "White Knight" that Gotham needs to look up to vs. living "Dark Knight" that Gotham fears but unknowingly needs is important to the ending and keeps with the film's primary conceit of the hero we "need" versus the one we actually have. That said, I was still kind of annoyed by his death, as I would also have liked to see more Two-Face action in another film.

The best thing I liked was that they didn't kill off The Joker at the end of it. The Joker's "You Complete Me" speech where he says he envisions him and Batman doing this over and over again forever was spot on. One very much defines the other.

Yes, very much. They are the yin and yang of their corner of the DC-verse's dao. That, and the Joker just plain kicks too much ass to die.

Oh, and I'm sure those who are into that sort of thing picked up the slashy overtones...