So I think a Batman movie came out this weekend...

[seriousfic]

Anne Hathaway is seriously great in this. I was worried that she'd be a bit too young, not because of the actress, but because they were playing Bruce as an "old man" in this (he was in college in Batman Begins, then seven years of training, then BB and TDK in the course of a year, then eight more years of Batmanning--so he's about 35 in this. It's not the years, it's the mileage). But she's just seriously great. Strong without being (too) bitchy, playful and still threatening, every bit the same character as the comics but fitting into the Nolanverse just as much as Joker. Some people are thinking of the Nolanverse going on with John Blake--I don't think the WB is making Batman Beyond: The JGL Years. I'd be much more interested in a Catwoman origin story, since she shows up in this movie fully-formed. And since it would necessarily take place during Batman's retirement, you wouldn't have to explain his deal. Just bring Hathaway and Temple back, give them a big heist movie, maybe throw in the whip... easy.

Miranda Tate is... a bridge too far, for me, personally. I never got why Bruce would jump into bed with her besides her being nice and, obvs, looking like Marion Cotillard, but that just takes away from the Bruce/Selina relationship (which is really well done). I think it might've worked better if they just played Miranda as a friend of Bruce. But still, I suppose it is a nice take on the damsel in distress superhero trope. In this movie, women are either badass villains or badass heroines. No slackers.

I know fanboys are going to take issue with the ending, since Bruce ends up literally moving out of his parents' basement and meeting a girl (had to be said), but it works. Bane identifies himself in this movie as a necessary evil, and I think that's how Nolan sees the Batman. A necessary evil and one that, by the time of TDKR, is no longer needed. The ending is Bruce finally growing the fuck up and putting away the angry child, while leaving a successor to protect Gotham (someone Spider-Man and Superman never did in their "retirements"). A successor who still personally needs "the Batman." It worked for me, even if I don't need to see JGL jumping off rooftops and punching Harley Quinn.

Nolan's Wayne was never the Wayne of the comics. In the comics, Bruce decided to be Batman as a small boy, paying homage to what fandom referred to as the Big Scary Batgod. Nolan's Bruce was directionless and angry up into adulthood, only finding purpose under Ra's al Ghul's tutelage. Comic book Wayne became Batman as a child to fulfill a child's wish – stop all crime forever. Movie Wayne became Batman as a grown man, with a grown man's mission – take out the corrupt men who were making Gotham a hellhole. Comic book Wayne's mission can only end in death or utopia. Movie Wayne's mission ends in Rudy Giuliani's New York.

This was a good take on Batman, it ran its course, let's give another up-and-coming auteur the reins.

Even if you don't like Nolan's trilogy, you've got to admit, it left a talented filmmaker in a position where he can make stuff like Inception. Cool beans.

I’m a little confused by the reading a lot of fans seem to have taken from TDKR, which is that Batman retired from being Batman directly after Harvey Dent’s death. Maybe it’s just me fan-wanking, but I got more this vibe…

Harvey dies. Batman lays low to avoid the police, but continues moping up crime and going after extraordinary threats. The Harvey Dent Act is passed and Gotham’s police force is cleaned up (by TDKR, they’re represented by Foley, who is misguided, but not villainous). Batman is needed less and less over the years, but he still tangles with the Joker and so forth, eventually netting Bruce a debilitating knee injury that combines with the dropping crime rate to “force” him into retirement. This is about three years before TDKR, which comes with the one-two punch of the failed fusion project to drive Bruce into being a real recluse (something I’d say he initially did because he was Batman 24/7, but by the time of TDKR he’s just… no one). All in all, that’s about 5+ years of Batmanning. Not too shabby.

Really surprised by how faithful Bane and Catwoman were to the comics. Bane is both the master strategist and the bludgeon, while Catwoman gets the entire arc from villainess with a heart of gold, to reluctant protector of East End, to full-bore superhero. And, you know, gets that dick. Sorry, bitches, Batman ends up settling down with a good woman. They probably have kids. They probably name them Dick, Jason, Steph, and Tim. They probably adopt a girl named Cass.



Also, I know Bane's "white-washing" was a bit controversial, but it is actually a plot point that Bruce spends part of the movie thinking Bane is Ra's Al Ghul's son. I'm reminded of Wrath of the Titans, where Zeus's son Ares is played by a Hispanic actor with a thick Latin accent. I know Zeus plays the field, but going all the way to Spain for some trim? Damn.

You know, I kinda like the TV show Longmire. It's not as good as Justified, but Katee Sackhoff is good in it. I've kind of come around on the lead character. He seemed like a sanctimonious idiot in the pilot, but after he niced it up some (and compared a marijuana crop to his wife's fatal cancer) (!), I started seeing him as a well-meaning, professional, profoundly out of touch guy. The sort of guy who maybe doesn't understand why his daughter has shacked up with Deputy Starbuck when she could find herself a nice fellow and be a mommy, but so long as his little girl's happy.

Sorry, I just thought we all needed a paragraph to calm down from that Bane thing. I know it's a sore subject, so I'm glad we took the time to chill before making an angry comment.

(Like, I know minorities are underrepresented in these movies, but do you really want the only Muslim characters to be the vicious terrorists who plan on suicide-bombing the city? Like, I know that's in the comics, but, uh... maybe we should just move on.)

Bane's plan made sense to me. After Bruce took a giant shit on the League of Shadows in Batman Begins, they're out to fuck him every which way. That, and they're doing a thorough job of wiping Gotham off the map and "destroying the world" (sorta). Set it up as a "socialist paradise," say if the evil capitalist pigs fuck with them they'll nuke the plan, nuke the place... it looks like the evil capitalist pigs fucked with them. The watching underclass goes into open rebellion around the world. Not that Bane cares if the Communists or Capitalists win--he just wants to throw the modern world back into the Stone Age.

Which is, yeah, pretty much the point. I know with the coincidence of this coming out in the middle of the Occupy movement (after being planned out, like, a decade ago, when we were wearing acid-wash jeans or whatever), politics are on the forefront, but...

A. In the previous movies, they made a point of Batman going after corrupt Uncle Moneybags types who were driving Gotham into the ground, so it's not like he's ever been some avenging plutocrat.

B. Bane isn't actually out to give the people free healthcare or whatever. He's just manipulating them. He's also using the heroes' sins and corruption to do it, so everyone's getting manipulated in his master plan. As much as the "Occupy" members are in the wrong for following him, so are Gordon and Wayne for creating the circumstances that let him fuck Gotham.

One big complaint -- In the big showdown between the cops of Gotham and Bane's army, Batman just kinda... shows up. Even if you can't have him ride a black horse like in The Dark Knight Returns, at least let him lead the charge or drop out of the sky or stomp up to Bane, bitch-slapping henchmen out of the way with every step. I thought we were rising, man.

Also, it was a bit weak that after the big reveal of Gordon's Harvey Dent lie (the circumstances of which are also somewhat stretched), the people of Gotham never seem to be either swayed by Bane or to rise up against him. Folks just seem to be pissy at Gordon for a bit before forgetting about it. Expect fanfic.

Like Terminator 3, TDKR revisits its prequel's conclusions to check its work and show the other side of some previously firm answers. I think it works far better here, since Terminator 2 was a pretty definitive statement by Cameron (and was subverting the first Terminator anyway). On the other hand, The Dark Knight's ending was meant to be a little ambiguous, so I'm more interested in seeing the end result of that than just doing "three months later - Batman vs. the Riddler!" and have the only fall-out be the cops not liking Batman.

Nolan's choosing to go out on top rather than go into a series of diminishing returns. I like that. I wish comics would take a cue from that. Come to a firm conclusion and reboot every ten or fifteen years. Let Bruce and Selina get married, have kids, and find happiness. Then tell a new story where he ends up sacrificing himself to save Gotham and is buried in a shallow grave. Anything but the constant retracing of steps that Didio and Quesada are set on.

Comments

[rebelbyrdie.livejournal.com]

Watching this film was like reading the Watchmen for the first time, at the end a wave of complete understanding and quasi-awe washed over me. I'm not saying the film was without flaws, but there are so many things big and small that clicked into place. There were nods to long time Batman fans (did you happen to see Crispus Allen? Or the far more obvious Holly) and moments that were obviously meant for Nolan-verse only fans (the over-the-top robin mention) There were pieces of Batman Year One, Batman Knightfall, Batman No Man's Land, and The Dark Knight Returns and several others. It was a well-constructed 3 part epic that created a completly differint universe (though Bruce and Selena ending up together is very Earth 2 which leads me to imagine a Huntress tale in the Nolan-verse...oooh) Anne Hathaway was, I emphatically agree with you, wonderful as Selena...and while Michelle will always live in my heart as my introduction to Catwoman, Anne really embodied the charecter well. Dissapointed? Hardly. It wasn't the fan-wank film that some wanted and it may not win an award at the Oscars (Anne will be snubbed and I will write a strongly worded letter about it) but it is a fantastic ending to a trilogy (trilogy in the actual sense) that told us a complete Batman story that gave us grit and spared us Jim Carrey in spandex

[liberty-stewart.livejournal.com]

Wait a minute, did Bruce and Selena end up together? I thought that was just a random woman with Bruce or maybe I'm thinking of Alfred's first fantasy of Bruce retiring?

The women are a big improvement over past Nolan films. My only problem was that Catwoman had awesome action scenes but no back story while Talia had an awesome back story but barely any action scenes. Would it had been too much to ask that after Talia literally backstabbed Batman (or sidestab in this case) that she roughed him up a bit? At least Nolan is on the right track. Now if he can combine these two qualities into one character, then we're good.

I purposely stayed away from forums prior to this movie so I didn't get spoiled, and wasn't aware of the Bane controversy. I don't mind it for reasons you mentioned plus I thought it was amusing Bane sounded like a German.

It's also odd that this is the first comic movie where I really liked what the filmmakers did to the police force. They went from the typical "we're powerless to stop anything" useless comic cops we all know in the first 2 movies to "we're taking our city back" cops in this film. Even though I didn't like Two-Face getting shafted like that, he did ultimately helped the police for the better.