Re: Christian Bale is Batman FYI, resident buzz-kill and all-around drag New Yorker film reviewer David Denby poo-poo'ed all over it last week. Which probably means I'll love it.
Re: Christian Bale is Batman Interview with Christian Bale on NPR's "Fresh Air." I was initially taken aback by Bale's accent, but not for the reason you might think. During the entire interview, he spoke in a dead-on American accent. I thought, "He's from Wales. Why does he have an American accent?" When Terri Gross asked him about his accent at the end of the interview, he told her that he gets so ingrained in the accent of the character that he's playing that he continues to speak with that accent when he does interviews about the character.
Re: Christian Bale is Batman The movie hits theaters today! Though I may not be able to see it for a few more days. -G
Re: Christian Bale is Batman I hated it. Strongly. It's probably not as bad as I found it, but too much is being made of its purported innovations (realism, psychological complexity) and not enough on the fact that it royally sucks.
Re: Christian Bale is Batman The Onion (whose movie reviews are very good, imo) and the NY Times both gave it very good reviews. I only skimmed them because I don't like spoilers. Actually -- I'm going to place an [R] in this thread title . . .
Two Words: AWE SOME! I don't see how anyone could not enjoy this movie. If you expect neon bat nipples, this isn't the movie for you....
Re: Christian Bale is Batman 8:30pm, right here. I did like the movie. It was an enjoyable action flick with some smarts to it. It is easily the best Batman movie to date. Very little clowning around, and no Prince soundtrack ****************. What I enjoyed is that the movie works for both fans that know some of the storylines before you hit the theater and for casual fans looking for that summer action flick. Of course, most of the movie is about the "making" of Batman, and didn't waste time on all the background for the bad guys. I felt that the moviemakers believed me, the movie watcher, to be intelligent enough to not need all that filler material. Overall, 3 of 4 stars. I don't get this whole Katie Holmes deal. Besides her bad teeth, crossed eyes and her rather flat overall on screen presence, did we have to see her hard nipples (twice) at the end? One more thing. When you get older and especially when you are dating a guy more than twice your age, it may be time to drop that whole Katie thing. Kate is the name of a woman. You aren't as cute as you think you are, Ms. Thang. I didn't totally dislike her in the role as she seemed pushy and driven enough, I just don't get her appeal. It for sure was nothing and I mean nothing like those other Batman movies. I liked the fact that Batman didn't need to be a clown and have the best one-liners. Leave some (and not many overall) to Alfred. During the action/fighting, nothing is wasted on the next catch phrase or the play on words as someone gets the crap knocked out of them (yes, campy Mr. Freeze, I am talking about you). I like how possible other villains were setup for any possible continuation of the series and the early and close relationship Batman and Gordon established. It seemed to work. I didn't feel like I wasted my money, and it was a better experience than Star Wars: Ep III. The only bad thing is that I may be all superheroed out and don't really have that much desire to watch the Fantastic 4 or that Sky High Disney movie. When is too much, well, too much?
I agree that the fight scenes had a lack of focus, Ghost. I felt like the fight scenes relied on fast-cut editing WAAAAY too much, and thusly, the movie suffered. It wasn't a bad movie, it was entertaining. I'm definitely not an action movie kind of guy, but I expect much more out of fight choreography these days. I didn't feel like I was watching a battle, I felt like I was watching a music video, it was too hard to keep track of.
I saw it last night. Thought it was very very good. Much better than the original three. That being said, I agree that the fight scenes were poorly done. Things were cut too quickly. But I still enjoyed it. The best part of the movie IMHO were Morgan Freeman's character and Alfred. Some of the conversations between them and Bale were great. Bale did very very good as Bruce Wayne as well.
While noticed the same thing, I took it as the deception used by Batman. The editing was used to help create that feel. In the close-hand to hand combat, the film did jump too much. I'd guess they were covering some flaws. Anyway, I don't know why he disappeared during the car chase (and probably could have gotten away) to only turn the lights back on and look to be chased again. I thought the Scarecrow could have been more scary. It looked like the same face used in the newer Mummy movies.
Yeah it was tight; Goyer really captures aspects of the Miller-type Batman; only thing missing is the detective aspect, which is the main thing Ra’s Al Ghul traditionally calls Batman…“detective.” Hopefully Batman’s nature as “The World’s Greatest Detective” is expressly explored in the next one…oddly, we’ll not have the origin backdrop to understand from where those detecting skills came…only the “action,” fighting skills…an omission that didn’t, in the end, substantively reduce my enjoyment of the film…it was good.
I guess they touched on it when he gave the assistant DA the pics after he saved her. We could expect to see more after he gets the batcave up and running. For real Batman fans, we saw in the first movie that the guy who would become the Joker was the guy who killed the Wayne parents. In this one, it was some other guy? I noticed in a link provided here on a previous page that this Ra’s Al Ghul guy was introduced in the early 1970s. If so, did they do some back stories on his relation to a young Bruce Wayne and his development or are there various versions of the beginings of Batman? I guess the basic idea of having his parents killed is central, but does this movie take liberties from there?
If I recall my Batman lore correctly, this movie actually got it right in regards to who killed Bruce Wayne's parents, that being Joe Chill. The Micheal Keaton/Jack Nicholson movie that claimed the Joker killed them was the one that took liberties to fit their story. I'm not sure about the Ra’s Al Ghul stuff though I just got back from seeing it and I loved it. By far the best Batman movie, and for me it was the best movie of the "Super Hero" genre.
I loved it. They got all the basic elements right. Yeah,some of the fight scenes were a bit choppy, but having Batman just show up out of nowhere was done to great effect. The scenery was awesome, Tibet looked cool, but Gotham looked fantastic, not like the unrealistic and corny Tim Burton Eery Theme Park. I really enjoyed spotting so much of the Chicago skyline used, some recognizable Waukegan locations, and I do believe that some of Arkham Asylum was one of the Loyola buildings with digital elements "painted" onto it. I thought it was great. I really liked the lack of oneliners. I don't need Batman cracking funny in the middle of bustin skulls. Michael Caine did an excellent job doing Alfred, and he provided a little light humor here and there, just like the comics. Scarecrow was great. Morgan Freeman as the Q type character was a nice addition. How weird is it to see Gary Oldman playing somebody likeable?!...been a long time, if ever, really. The Batmobile, while not the sleek car so many are used to seeing, did look incredibly like the one in Frank Millers Dark Night masterpiece. I liked what they did with the Ras Al Gul character. In the comics he is the only foe to know who Bruce Wayne is and the only one to show up in the Batcave, and one with a definite respect for Batman...as long as he's not messing up his plans... so I liked the way they tied him into this one. It was really nice to see the excellent character of the Batman get a top notch movie treatment. Too bad this one is coming after those other cinematic turds done in the 90s. It should have been done like this in the first place.
Between this film and Kingdom of Heaven, does anyone else think Liam Neeson is heading late-career Orson Welles territory? Are disaster movies in his future?
[result]How in line with the classic Batman character was it for him to let R'as die, instead of saving him to stand trial?[/result]
I am officially a nerd, because: 1-I'm going to answer Mottermans question 2- I'm going to do it in a result [result]It wasn't that untrue to the comic, quite a few times these situations came up, but usually with Batman agonizing over it for a few frames, which is hard to pull off in a film...perhaps a nightmare sequence over it in the next one would be a nice touch. It's kinda hard to handle bat's 40's era morality for a movie audience increasingly desensitized to killing and exaggerated violence for the last 40 years or so.... and if you know the Ras character you don't assume him deceased [/result] I was a bigtime comic book collector/dork/Batman-fan as a kid.
There is an (R), so I will guess that since Bruce already saved him once and didn't actually kill him, things just kind of evened out. He was also talking ******** about his parents. I was going to add that since you didn't see a body, who knows if the guy died anyway.