Verdict: The Original Batman Films

The Original Batman Films

This week I go back over the old Batman movies because... well I got all the films on DVD and it seemed like a good idea. So lets all look at them all separately, starting with:

BATMAN:

Wow, is it just me or is the quality of Circ Du Soleil really going downhill

Tim Burton's first film was quite an interesting experience, going in I knew that I would inevitably compare the film to The Dark Knight (In a mirror of the Heath Ledger problem). But from the start my fears were immediately allayed. Batman is a very different movie to Knight, while they both are dripping with grit, Batman  does it in Tim Burton's usual fashion where it is so stylised you don't know how to take it is it so far gone in a self-knowing ironic way, or is it serious? I'm still not one hundred percent sure but I'm leaning toward the later. Anyway in this film the title character was played by Michael Keaton (an actor who I haven't seen much of) and it was a really strong performance, not quite the terminally unhinged performance Bale brings, rather it is one I found more enjoyable to watch as he moves through his times as Bruce Wayne with a self saddening glide, as though he is troubled by the unfortunate duality he leads. While as Batman he is akin to smoke, there one minute and gone from site the next, it reminded me a lot of the Batman in Arkham Asylum. And now to address the thing that concerned me the most.... The Joker. Let me explain, I think that Heath Ledgers Joker could be the single greatest character portrayal I have seen in all my experience, so I was hesitant to compare the two men, however Nicholson's Joker proved to be a different beast, rather than a self assured man who  only wants to show everyone how mad they are, Nicholson's Joker was just there for 'te LOLz' and I want to go along with it in that fun spirited sort of way. It wasn't without it's flaws though, the Joker was like the one splash of colour in the otherwise dreary city and while sometimes that could be exiliratingly funny, but there were too many occasions that it felt out of touch with the rest of the film.

BATMAN RETURNS:

hmm... I think we're doing it wrong

I feel as though I can't add much to the first tow aspects of my previous review here, Burton was still Burton and Keaton was still good. It is the change in villains that really sets this piece apart, with the superhero laws of movies demanding two villains we now get the Penguin, as a spurned freak who only wants vengeance despite the direction of Max Shreck, and Catwoman a nebish office worker turned sexual goddess thanks to some cats. Lets start by letting the cat out of the bag:

So in this film Catwoman acts as the principal love interest toying with Batman and trying to get Bruce Wayne into her Batcave. I think this character is a lot better built for Burton's trademark style as she can fit in with the darkness and the light, as reflected by her personality. The Penguin also works really well, being played to the point of grotesque by Danny DeVito (Whose back catalogue I now want to raid) once again the character fits better with the scenes he finds himself in and clashes less than the Joker. So in the end I rate Batman Returns higher than Batman, but not quite up to Nolan standard

BATMAN FOREVER:

"If I could just reach my Bat Orgasm spr.. Ahh there we go"

And now we enter Schumacher ville, I promised a friend I would enter this as I would an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. So keeping that in mind lets begin with the villains. Dressed in colourful clothes and fancy purple make-up Tommy Lee Jones is Two Face and if done right I would have nothing wrong with this, however because the film seems so determined to harp on about duality and his bloody coin I felt as though old Face was a bad choice as a villain, if they had just had him as a homicidal lunatic who determined people fate with a coins, so with out the whole DA back story I would have like it a lot more. And then the other villain is the Riddler played by Jim Carey in good old Jim Carey fashion, and I honestly thought I would never say anything like this but.... This version has killed all other versions of the Riddler as I don't think any others will work. The Riddler is the perfect villain for this campy style Batman, he is hilarious and the right level of unhinged to get it across with out clashing with the overall message of the thing. As for the directing, the world Schumacher creates is the nice blend of colour and darkness to make it interesting to watch the cinematography at least. Now if you are wondering why they mix colour with darkness, the big wigs at WB wanted the Batman series to become more family friendly and thus sent it to Schumacher to kiddy-ies so this is meant to be the easing process, with the next film being the full fledged cam version. Darkness you say? But the villains were bright colours and lights? Ahh well that's where Batman comes in, Val Kilmer isn't quite up to the same standard as Micheal Keaton and when he speaks it is like I can see the puppeteer putting his hands up his ass and making the motions, but as the Jokers colour clashed with the darkness of Batman then Batman's darkness clashes with colour of Batman Forever. And Robin was not needed, seriously Batman could have easily taken both of them out, and he pretty much did, so aside from holding a few storylines together I would have cut Robin.

BATMAN & ROBIN:

The movie a lot of people seemed to think they were watching

... Okay I don't know why this requires a review, either you've seen it and didn't mind it or you want to tie Joel Schumacher down to the railway tracks and set moustache twirling Justice on him.  So as far as I'm concerned this movie was just bland, there was nothing about it to set it out as good or memorable and nothing in there like say.... large robot testicles to make me want to hate it. So why do people hate it, well I think that rather than it being the "WRST MVIE EVAR!" it is more what it represents. This movie was the thing that killed the Burton franchise, gone was the dark and brooding Batman of the Burton days, now we had George Clooney and his crotch shots, I mean could you imagine if in the next Batman film Hippy man was made the villain, it would completely tarnish everything that has come before, including Heath Ledger's performance. No this isn't Transformers 2, so I can't hate it, but here is someone who can:

Summing up:

So the whole lot were a steady progression from above middle, top, below 1 and at the middle point, so the Verdict?

Verdict:

Verdict: Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon

Another week, another verdict. This week I look at the geek overlord Joss Whedon and whether his recent catalogue matches the cult of personality.

History:
The young Joss was born to father and fellow writer Tom Whedon, he had a love of Monty Python, films and writing. After writing scripts for TV-shows such as Roseanne and Parenthood, he then moved into a brief job as a script doctor (Note: He worked on Pixar's first film Toy Story in this capacity) before returning to television to create the hit TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse. He has recently been secured as the director of Marvel comics upcoming Avengers movie.

Thoughts:
Okay because there is more than one show I am judging him on, I'm going to look at all of them separately.

The cast of Firefly... Crowned geek gods one and all

Firefly was Joss Whedon's Space Western Drama that only lasted one season. The problem with the show was a poor timeslot and mishandling by FOX. I thought the show itself was really good, it managed to make relatable and interesting characters regardless of which episode you watched as well as imbuing them with humour. The show rightly enjoys a cult status now as fans (known as "Browncoats") get together to act out elaborate staging of their own adventures in Whedon's 'Verse'. The thing about Firefly is that it is frustrating, not the Davies kind of frustrating where brilliance can be crushed under mediocrity, but the kind of frustration where something that is good goes unfulfilled. Yes I know he tied it all up with Serenity, but aside from a couple of invested character deaths I didn't feel anything for that movie. However I don't hold that against him because having that unfulfilled universe allows literary geeks (like me) to fill in the blanks ourselves (see the outbreak of RPFirefly forums)

The Doctor is on the Rise

Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog on the other hand was a piece genre smashing brilliance, taking a superhero story and not only flipping it to make the villain the protagonist, but also embedding it with some wicked humour and music! Seriously it was this on it's own  that made me like Whedon and it was Firefly and his writing experience that allayed fears for the Avengers. The fact that I not only feel empathy for the Geek who considers himself a joker with a conscious, but also laugh when the same guy breaks into song is something really rare to find on the internet. Yhea that's right, not only is it awesome but Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog has also broken away and proven to the TV fat cats that you don't need their healthy swag of money to make something profitable and well loved.

Stompity stomp stomp

Summing Up:
So, I wonder what I think of Joss? He has been a constantly stellar writer and continues to make, and be put in charge of some hot geek properties (*cough* Avengers), so yeah this one is easy.

Verdict:

Verdict: Russell T. Davies

Russell T. Davies

So I was writing on the Hugo awards last night and I touched on my views on Russell T. Davies, and I realised that while I had easily ladled him in my dislike category I had never justified the decision, so in order to make you all understand and because it is my 50th post and thus special I'll now deliver my Verdict on Russell T. Davies.


History:

Considered one of Davies better shows... supposedly

Russell was born Steven Russell Davies on 27 April 1963 in Wales, his mother suffering a reaction to a morphine drip suffered a phsycotic episode not long after his birth and was institutionalised.  With a fairly normal drama childhood the young Russell moved into writing and penned the acclaimed Series Queer as Folk, Bob & Rose and The Second Coming. He is most known for helming the revival of Doctor Who in 2005 and creating the spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. At the beginning of 2010 he left Doctor Who  in the hands of Steven Moffat, he continues to watch over and write episodes for the spin off with his new series Torchwood: New World take up a fair chunk of his time.

Thoughts:

A terrible monster from new Who and a Pepperpot.

I'm not going to claim to have any knowledge of Mr Davies non-Who related work so it is entirely possible that Queer as Folk  is the greatest series in the history of mankind and it would completely change my views on the man if I saw it, but I'm here to focus on Who so here comes the pain. Mr Davies will always have a place in my heart for reviving Doctor Who and his over-watch of the seasons has maintained a fairly enjoyable experience all round. The problem I have is that his writing can be so brilliantly frustrating, so hit and miss that I can't in good conscious look forward to anything he does. While he has written some great episodes such as Midnight and Waters of Mars that look at the subject of unseen fear and horror and the inner-most psyche of The Doctor makes me marvel at the way that the subject matter can be twisted. The problem is that for everyone of those episodes there are two Journey's End and The Last of the Time Lords, episodes where not only does science fiction gain the level of magic but he takes to wanking off his fan base with such gusto that one has to wonder if he has missed out on his perfect career. To take The Last of the Time Lords as a demonstration of the first one, where the previous season ender Doomsday set up a good solid device to allow transport between realities and a marvellous use of 3D glasses in order to clear up the massive building mess that Russell had created but in The Last of the Time Lords, The Doctor is revived from a gollum like state by the power of thought...

David Tennat's audition for the role of Doctor Manhattan... to many clothes.

WTF? I get that the arch-angel network connects the minds but how can the Doctor draw power from that? He isn't The Destructor from Ghostbusters who became the 'Stay Puff Marshmallow Man', and so as far as I know The Doctor can't just click his fingers and find a plot convenient way to get out of the situation, a way has to be properly weaved in and made available to the audience whilst staying hidden from their sight, see Amy's Choice. The other major complaint is the excessive ammounts of fan wank, take for example the End of Time Part 2. Now the End of Time Part 2 had a total running time of  71 minutes, one of the longest DW episodes ever, but about the last 20 minutes of the episode isn't needed, after the Doctor throws his tantrum and rescues Wilf he could have just limped back to the TARDIS and regenerated, but no, Davies has to go back over each and every companion this Doctor has had and give them an unbearably happy ending, Martha and Mickey get married, Donna gets married and the Doctor gives her a lot of money and Rose gets a nice smiley moment with The Doctor, and for some strange reason we go to a descendant of Nurse Redfern, remember her she was in that 2-parter 2 bloody seasons ago! But to head back to the proper companions for a moment, there will be people out there who call me a bit of a Grinch because 'Doesn't  David, have my babies, Tennant deserve to have a nice ending', and yes I would agree with that and this episode would be fine to do it... if we hadn't had the same thing one and a half years ago! Seriously Journey's End ended with the same sort of all smiles ending as the companions (except Donna) all walked off happy and fulfilled, so what was the point doing it again?

"We've reached the Journey's End, Having a laugh inside the TARDIS, thought it didn't make much sense, It's always nice to see them Daleks" - Chameleon Circuit

That last part has reminded me of a single instance reason I dislike Davies, the retcon. At the end of Doomsday Rose and The Doctor were separated by dimensions and one could assume she was beyond return, but peoples hearts all over the world broke as The Doctor was unable to tell Rose he loved her. It was sad but poionient that as much as The Doctor is a necessary force of the world you must keep your distance personally because he just causes destruction. As sad as it was I respected Davies for doing it. But then he went and made it so Rose gets her own personal human Doctor because she is the bestest companion or something. And it destoryed the message he had conveyed so well in Doomsday.

Thanks Seduff for the image

Torchwood seems to deliver a different style, where people die and tragedy strikes often, for that reason I look upon Children of Earth as a better Who finale than any of his real Who finales.

Summing Up:
So what do I think? Well he isn't a bad writer if he lays off the fan love and was more reasonable in his endings, but because of the forced smile ending he seems so determined to strong arm into everything, I have problems with him.


Verdict: