In the case of Batman Begins, there was some real life stuff we had to endure before we could enjoy the movie. I'm not going to get all Knowles-ian on you and tell you about my BMs and how that may have influenced my state of mind, I'm just going to tell you how movie going in this country can kind of suck.
Even though there were posters for Batman Begins all over the subways and such, we had a hard time finding a theatre playing the film. Odd that. So we sit down near the front, we got there a bit late y'see, only to find that our legs don't so much fit. Not cool. Luckily, there's a balcony (how long has it been since I've been in a movie theatre with a balcony?), so we grabbed some seats up there. Our legs fit and everything. Then the trailers started. Another way you could say that, and have people understand your meaning, is to say "The lights went down.", except they didn't. Not up there in the balcony. So that wasn't so nice, but I can understand why they did it (or didn't do it, whatever). We were so busy wondering when they were going to turn down the lights we didn't notice how callipygian the sound was. Ever do that thing with the 2 soup cans and a piece of string? Me neither, but I imagine the effect is very similar to watching Batman Begins in the balcony of that theatre. The other reason why they left the lights up was so that the mother with the screaming child could see where she was going. Not baby. Child. Fucking screaming five year old piece of shit child.
Batman Begins, War of the Worlds and Danny the Dog ain't child appropriate. Says the guy who was raised on raunchy comedies and vampire films. You can show kids whatever the fuck in the privacy of your own home, but don't sully the shared privacy of the movie theatre with your kids' stupidity.
But the kid gave us the kick in the ass we needed to move to somewhere better. There were seats along the ramp leading from the balcony back down to the floor. We sat there. Much better. The movie had been playing for about five minutes by this point. Bruce had just gotten out of prison and was looking for Ras. I don't know why, what Liam Neeson said to convince Bruce to join him. Couldn't hear a damn thing.
That's how my Batman Begins experience began. I still ended up really digging the flick. That's impressive. It overcame poor lighting, shit sound and a screaming little fucker.
This is easily the best Batman film I've seen. Better even than that one with the Anti-Shark repellent.
Why?
Well, as my shark-repellent joke nicely illustrates, Begins is the first film to really take Batman seriously. I know Burton's Batman was dark and serious and noir and all that. But it wasn't really about Batman, nor Bruce. It was more about Burton and the Joker. I still really like that movie, I'm not slagging it. I like that 'Batman' was not an origin movie. Just like I love how Batman Begins is.
I love that there is not Batman in Batman Begins until halfway through the film. I love seeing the evolution of his suit, the expanding of the arsenal. I love Lucius Fox. Maybe I should just make a list of things I really liked about the film... nah. It all ties into this one thing: they played to Batman's strengths. Raimi also does this quite well, he knows that Peter Parker is the lovable loser and you need to show him lose to make the Spiderman stuff seem even more exhilarating. Batman is fucked up. You need to get in there, in Bruce's head. And this film did. Batman is noir-y. Begins out noirs Burton. I love the way Batman fights in this film. For the most part. Because he doesn't fight. He freaks his prey out until they make a mistake then he takes them down. I never got sick of seeing badguys just getting yanked screaming up into the air. I wish I could tell what was going on in the actual 'fight' scenes though. Not near as bad as that Bourne movie, thank goodness!
I also really liked the Batmobile. I didn't like how Batman didn't seem to fussed about causing all kinds of accidents and collisions. He's not a killer. Some of those cops cars got pretty fucking crunched.
But those are pretty minor quibbles. My main gripe with the film is how 'neat' it is. I don't like how everything inter-relates. (Oh yeah: *SPOILERS*) Some comic book geeks didn't like the Joe Chill stuff. "Joe Chill should never be caught! That's what drives Batman! He feels guilt over never catching his parent's killer." I think we can all agree that that is bullshit. Batman does what he does so that what happened to him won't happen to someone else. I like that Bruce Wayne was going to kill Joe Chill. I like that. I don't like that Bruce's parents death wasn't random, that there was a conspiracy. That struck me as being overthought, overwritten. I also could have done without some of the one liners, mainly during the Batmobile chase scene.
And I could have done with a lot more Katie Holmes nipple. That was good stuff.
The villains were good. Everyone was good. (Well... Katie Holmes didn't really have much to do, but: NIPPLES!!!) I especially liked Gary Oldman. One of the guys I saw the film with is a big Oldman fan, after the film he asked who Oldman played. That's how good Oldman was.
The last thing I should mention, I guess, is the effects. I liked 'em. The fear drug stuff looked like it was torn right out of Arkham Asylum.
Well then... I took longer than I meant to and only ended up talking about one of the films. At least it's a start.
PICTURE TIME!!!
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