Batman Begins: The Thread

"Silver Surfer", "Ghost Rider", "the Inhumans", "the Avengers", "the Green Lantern Corps", "DR. STRANGE!"

I do think Michael Caine as Alfred is an inspired choice, though, I'll give them that.

See, here's where I have a problem.

the music is weak

In its own bombastic way I do still love the soundtrack Elfman did for the first film, so what are we dealing with now?

CHRIS TUCKER IS THE GREEN LANTERN

(Topher Grace as Schroeder)

Yes, yes, but the really important thing is that there HAS to be a 3-D animated Snoopy that smirks and does a moon-walk in the ads.

A) there's a bit of the cypherish blandness to a lot of the non-big comic properties as a result of their lack of, um, bigness (and by "non-big", I mean the characters in the Marvel / DC universes that serve as the Special Guest Stars in the books featuring the characters that are raking in the hundreds of millions);

B) no doubt the (presumed lack of) success of recent property-born superhero flicks (cf. Blade: Trinity & Ang Lee's Hulk & Elektra & Daredevil) would limit the $$$$ studios want to budget for these type of mid-level things (barring involvement of a Cruise / Soderbergh-type), which would probably relegate such works to Sci-Fi Channel purgatory (HELLO MAN-THING!);

C) in light of the success of The Incredibles, studios will probably opt to "politely borrow" from these mid-level properties in creating their own version of, say, the Silver Surfer, as it's more cost-effective, and the opportunity to sucker in non-comic folk (where the box office receipts really lie) who could give two squirts about the source material trumps the $$$$ lost from folks who feel their favorite character has been slighted and maligned by the Hollywood machine;

D) Characters like Batman and Spidey (and Superman!) have enough substance to them to carry the burden of fifteen bazillion sequels, and as long as quality folk are attached to the making of these fifteen bazillion flicks, I'm all for Hollywood pumping them out like Play-Doh snakes; I don't know that a Ghost Rider or GREEN LANTERN CORPS (eeesh) has that sort of innate substance to be able to justify even one flick worth a damn.

Also, this is soooooo nitpicky, but be careful conflating "super-hero" w/ "comic book", unless we're going to raise our pinkies from our wedgewood demitasses and call the source material for American Splendor and Ghost World "graphic novels".

http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/89/00/12m.jpg

CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER
CHRIS TUCKER IS MR. SINISTER

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/hukl/batspank.jpg

-- latebloomer: Pain Don't Hurt (posercore24...), June 7th, 2005.

to clarify, i was agreeing with his enthsiasm for this:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y298/hukl/batspank.jpg

ihttp://wetmen.provocateuse.com/show.php/christian_bale

Completely Optimistic Batman Begins Anticipation Thread

I'll add Michael Caine to Alex's list of wortwhile characters.

Cilian Murphy was great. Dude looked like one of the Thunderbirds.

Katie Holmes didn't do much.

Katie Holmes was the only actor who seemed to belong at the level of the movie. Everyone else was too good. And Cillian Murphy was just ... sillian.

Making comic-book heroes into 'psychologically understandable' case studies: a dull waste of time. I read my share of Batman when I was ten and never gave a damn about his origins.

(no I didn't read the preceding 1100 posts)

Gary Oldman giving a technically perfect perf in a functionary role in an FX spectacle is what I'd call "over-casting" -- it's like watching him doing Inspector Hound in a school play, only for big bucks. I hope he at least makes another film like "Nil by Mouth' with the haul...

And creating a photorealistic Gotham out of millions of photos? SAD SAD SAD. (those DVD supps can be very illuminating about twisted priorities)

That said,

1. The batmobile shouldn't look like a brisquet
2. I beg Christian Bale to use his normal voice when wearing the suit. The "Batman" voice is ass.
3. Katie Holmes will not be missed.
4. While the stuff I slept through was better than the ones I caught (seriously, how did I nod off EXCEPT for the most mediocre scenes), the script is still overbaked by half. Especially when the mob boss ("you've never tasted desperate!" quoth the raven) or Liam Neeson are around.

Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy were great, though. The childhood scenes were strong too. If they bother to work the kinks out I think the same cast & crew could make a really solid sequel.

Unleashed was definitely better though.

Comic book-based films I'd rather see than yet another Batman abortion:
"Silver Surfer", "Ghost Rider", "the Inhumans", "the Avengers", "the Green Lantern Corps", "DR. STRANGE!"

I do think Michael Caine as Alfred is an inspired choice, though, I'll give them that.

-- Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 June 2005 16:33 (2 years ago)

I am now curious as to what Alex thought of the first two of those compared to Batman Begins.

they made a Silver Surfer movie WITHOUT GALACTUS

wtf

I was talking to a girl who had seen that movie, and I asked her if Galactus was cool in it, and she said yeah and that he's a big cloud or something?

glacts and ss should have their own damn movie series

FTFF

Batman Begins, 0:31:38

http://pentangle.net/holyblade/batman.png

Sheffield United's home shirt, 1991-1993

http://pentangle.net/holyblade/blade.jpg

this was kinda weak wasnt it? some good parts, but too ponderous. and too much shit that seemed to be too much like any other action film rather than a comic book superhero one.

saw 20 seconds on TBS this weekend, wow, didn't even remember Tom Wilkinson's awful part. Soooo dreadful.

Tried to watch this on the plane. First 40 minutes unwatchably terrible (by which I mean, I couldn't actually make myself watch it, I kept fast forwarding to see if it got any better.) As far as I could tell, 20 minutes of ponderous drecky kung-fu dialogue of the sort that can only be enjoyed in 10-second snips on a Wu-Tang Clan record, then 20 minutes of ponderous drecky social-conscience dialogue, then I think Batman did finally punch somebody but I was already so bored that I switched to an episode of "The Big Bang Theory."

http://pantiesupskirtdown.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/your_opinion_counts.jpg

batman returns pwns batman begins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKjra8i2XTw

But yes Returns is the best.

batman returns pwns most superhero movies

batman's Not A Superhero but u know what i mean

The logo for the first movie is still pretty eye-catching. Cropping the sides of the Batsignal was a brilliant idea. It's like "This movie is so big the logo can't even fit on the VHS box".

OTM. one of the best vhs covers ever
http://img0105.popscreencdn.com/158054161_-specifics-batman-vhs-video-jack-nicholson-michael-.jpg

ha yeah

Emphasizing the frame was a clever way to subconsciously remind everyone it will be on video tape.

so the making of batman was interesting. but it seemed to gloss over . . . michael keaton? i mean, the biggest story in the run-up to batman's release was the casting of keaton, over some action-star type. that had to put incredible pressure on the entire project. and it paid-off; he was a comic who showed uncommon depth (like bill murray in lost in translation, those that was a far different type of film, obv.). but until they knew the audience would recognize keaton's greatness in the role, they all had to be living with the weight-of-the-world pressing on them. funny that the making of ignores this key point (and, indeed, mostly ignores keaton entirely).