Max Power Teams-up with Burton’s Batman: Part the Second

As I stated in my last installment, Nolan’s epic vision, (and let’s speak plainly, it is an epic) is grounded in realism or at the very least cloaked in a storytelling that feels to our brain like realism. If we really want to split hairs it’s about fifty to sixty-thousand miles north of realism with its neutron bombs and ninja-terrorists. I digress. Clearly our boy Chris was going for something hyper-serious and filmic to the teeth.

On the other end of the spectrum, Tim Burton was telling the story of a superhero. His films were depicting the adventures of a man firmly rooted in the pulp tradition that spawned him. In the lore of Batman, his love interests were either fawning socialites waiting to be rescued or femme-fatales, with an emphasis on the fatal. He could have a boy sidekick, a rocket car, a rocket-submarine, a rocket-rocket, a life-size T-Rex and an enormous penny; all stashed in his subterranean hangout and regularly dusted by his English butler. Batman can be expected to snap a drug dealer’s wrist Monday and then find time to make Superman feel stupid on Tuesday which is when I assume the Justice League comes together for game-night and Batman just absolutely wrecks ass at Clue. Batman the superhero is not bound to any one genre and better than any character in fiction he can cross from the fantastic (punching parademons with electrified gauntlets) to the more mundane (dangling a crooked cop off a high-rise in search of a kidnapped child).

Tim Burton gave us a Batman that lived in the cardboard boxes of Happy Meals and on juice glasses destined to become collectibles. Namely, the Batman I grew up with. Fan-boys who opine about the perfection of Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series would do well to remember that it was heavily influenced by the Burton films. Oh and if we can’t agree that Timm’s Batman is the absolute perfect Batman in any medium, then we should probably part ways here. Also as a result, I now hate you. But if we are restricting this debate to the realm of live-action feature films, than I must argue that Batman Returns gave us what is arguably the best Batman film to date. (Please understand that my definition of Batman is a superhero that fights crime and therefore that is the character model I come to see when I watch a film about a superhero crime-fighter)

Over the past few years I have made it a point to watch Batman Returns every Christmas, usually in a double bill with Die-Hard.  Yearly viewings began to impress upon me something I had felt but never before articulated. Simply put, Batman Returns offers us a damn near perfect representation of Batman. Gone is the strange inclusion of pop music and the wonky characters of the previous outing. The legwork of establishing the world was done in the bombastic yet flawed Batman. Now, Burton is allowed to offer us a dark, Christmas fairytale in a gothic city of stone and snow.

Burton has taken a lot of heat by a faction of the fan-base for not really understanding the character while Nolan is genuflected to as the savior of all things bat. I think Burton had a better grasp on the notion that Bruce Wayne needed to be Batman and was at best impatient and at worst uncomfortable actually being Bruce Wayne. An absolutely perfect Batman moment occurs early on in Returns when the Bat-Signal is first lit. The signal is reflected down into Bruce’s study by various spotlights positioned on Wayne Manor until it reaches Bruce. For this scene Burton bathes Bruce in shadow, portraying him as a brooding, lonely soul, but as soon as that light hits him, he is born again, as we imagine he is born anew each time the signal is lit.

 

Burton understood that there was pathology at work in Bruce and that being Batman was the only healthy outlet for him. For Batman there is no cure for his pain, only treatment. The treatment is to stalk the criminal underworld and to protect the innocent. Bruce‘s pain cannot be cured, only held at bay; Batman is the medication for what would otherwise be a terminal illness. Nolan saw the Batman as a curse, something Bruce needed to endure and then ultimately get out from under. He envisioned that there would be peace for him when his work was done. Doesn’t this effectively limit him to his conflict with the League of Shadows? Didn’t the Joker thoroughly prove that there will always be another threat? Burton understood the idea of the rogues gallery; there will always be another threat. Portrayed by Keaton, we see the classic Batman dynamic at work; Bruce is but the mask Batman wears in the day and there will always be a need for The Batman.  

Returns also shows us a Gotham that belongs to Batman. When things go awry, the commissioner and the mayor both immediately turn to Batman as though he were the city’s one man SWAT team. When the Penguin successfully frames the Batman, Gotham is shown in a real state of terror because they have seemingly lost the man on the wall keeping the forces of chaos at bay. The confidence and authority Batman brings to each of his confrontations with the Red Triangle Circus gang is invigorating and since this was before every action scene needed to be filmed with a shaky-cam and cut against five other scenes taking place simultaneously, I can’t recall an action set-piece where Batman comes off better. This is the Batman that has planned ahead, that has three moves for every one of yours.

This rare sequel is also elegantly, a film of juxtaposition. Both hero and villain are orphans yet rather than have his parents ripped from him as Bruce did, The Penguin was exiled instead by his parents. Bruce became a freak as a result of being orphaned; Oswald Cobblepot was orphaned as a result of being a freak. Another nice duality is Keaton’s Bruce Wayne being positioned against Walken’s Max Shreck in a battle of the billionaires each fighting to preserve or establish their vision of a future Gotham. Perhaps, the best oppositional dynamic is that of Selina Kyle and Catwoman. Pfeiffer ably walks the tightrope of this role showing us a victim, a predator and somewhere underneath both, a comingling that could lead to a whole and healthy woman if only fate and circumstance would allow.

If I were to run a list of what was right with this film, I could triple the size of this article. I will admit that some may feel The Penguin is too jokey and just a retread of what Nicholson was doing. While others may find the villain’s ultimate scheme with rocket bearing penguins a little foolish. But melt it down to its core and what do you have? An exiled misfit, so broken by his mistreatment at the hands of the world that has now twice spurned him, he is happily willing to snuff out the life of every one of Gotham’s firstborn sons and then some. As the film races to its end all the threads weave together; a doomed romance, a victim’s revenge and a city’s fate decided by individuals it neither accepts nor fully understands. This is a film about people so broken that not only will they not fully integrate into society, but they cannot even fit with other misfits. Only Batman in accepting that his trauma has marked him for something special can take peace in knowing that he stands out society so that he can protect it.

In closing, I will say this vision of Batman so deeply appeals to me because I do not want a Batman who wants to be free of the burden of protecting me. I invested my hopes and child-worship into him because he so willingly gave everything to make sure no child or parent suffered the fate of his fractured family. Nolan has done something special with his films and honored a character we all love with a worthy interpretation of him. Understand though, that is all it is, his interpretation. It is not the ultimate offering of Batman; it is not the final say. Ask yourself, a man who dresses up like a bat, lives in a cave, has a rocket car, a boy sidekick and can spend his weekends on a satellite orbiting the earth with demigods, how real do you want that to be? Be very careful with the realism you court, because real can often times be another word for mundane.

Max Power

Contributing Writer

Did The Dark Knight Rises Sink?

The Dark Knight Rises is an epic finish to a nerdtastic trilogy, but it’s not without fault. Out of the three movies, The Dark Knight Rises has the weakest story and situations that felt lazy. The climax, though action-packed and worth the price of admission, felt like it was torn straight from the pages of a comic book. It feels out of place in a trilogy so meticulously grounded in reality.

My biggest issue with The Dark Knight Rises was that it leaned too much on its predecessors in order to make the movie work. Batman Begins was a standalone movie. It didn’t set up a sequel and the story was contained to one film. The Dark Knight was another Batman adventure, but you didn’t need to watch Batman Begins to understand it. The Dark Knight Rises relies on events from those two movies in order for the film to work. Unlike the first two movies, you need to know about Harvey Dent to understand Bruce Wayne/Batman. You need to know who the League of Shadows were and what role they played in Batman’s origin. The Dark Knight Rises drags because of it. It calls back to both previous movies. It doesn’t explain things because it hopes you remember them. In essence, the story isn’t as self-contained like the first two.

I hate to say this, but the script wasn’t as sharp as I hoped it would be. Don’t get me wrong, the dialogue was great, but I felt things happened for convenience. For example, I didn’t like how characters magically knew when to show up in a scene. How did character X know character Y was under the bridge? And how did character Y know that character Z needed help at that precise moment when he was all alone? Pretty random and it broke the scene for me. This happened a few times. Also, some dialogue felt like it was wedged into the beginning so they could get the emotional response the filmmakers wanted in the end. It felt out of place and would have fit better in Batman Begins.

I didn’t see it on an IMAX screen the way it was intended to be seen. A good chunk of the movie was shot on 70mm film and for me, this slowed things down. IMAX is about four times bigger than regular film. The cameras are clunky and cannot be hand-held due to their size. They have to be on tracks or attached to a helicopter. I don’t think the average movie-goer could see this, but I could tell which shots/scenes were in IMAX. The action was slowed down. Fist fights weren’t as impactful as they should have been. They seemed slow and choreographed to me. I think I know why. With IMAX, you have to spend a few hours setting up a shot just to get a few seconds of footage. When the shot is complete, you have to spend a few hours moving the camera to set up another shot. There isn’t a lot of time to waste when filming like this. You can’t be as flexible as you might wish to be. I’m sure the filmmakers took careful consideration when setting up these shots, but to me, some of the action came across to me as tired and slow because of it.

Also – I’ve been here before. The climatic situation. The weapon. The villain’s purpose. Wasn’t this in Batman Begins?

But I’ll push that aside because I did like the movie. It’s better than Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and, most importantly, Batman & Robin. So what did work in the movie?

“…as a man I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting.” – Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins

This line from Batman Begins is most important when watching The Dark Knight Rises. This was the theme that carried the movie along. If you break the man, you also break the symbol. And when that happens, the villains are able to run loose without any opposition. What does it take to break Batman? How far can they go in breaking Bruce Wayne down? Where do you strike hardest to inflict the most pain? The answers to these are what make the movie interesting. 

What rogue in the Batman cannon is capable with inflicting this much pain? Bane, of course. Bane doesn’t have much back-story here, just the essentials to get you up to speed. Bane is a monster that wears a face mask over his nose and mouth, and has the muscular structure of the Hulk. He is brutishly strong. He is there to break Batman anyway possible. He is cunning too. He can out-think Batman. He’s usually one step ahead of him. And when he’s not, he can go toe-to-toe with the caped crusader and come out on top. This gives something Batman needs to rise up against. It helps us cheer him on throughout the movie. We want Batman to overcome Bane because he’s such an ominous and powerful villain.

Anne Hathaway portrayed my favorite Catwoman to date. She was smart, dangerous, and able to protect herself against Bane and Batman. Like all villains in the Batman/Nolan universe, Catwoman is smart and able to take care of herself. I liked her sketchy nature. But there is a big problem with her. Catwoman, while a pleasure to watch, was just “in” the movie. She served no purpose to me. If you cut her scenes out, the movie wouldn’t suffer. Nothing was at stake. It might have been better if they went with The Long Halloween version of Catwoman where she was the illegitimate daughter of Carmine Falcone (Tim Wilkinson in Batman Begins). That could have given her a reason to bring down Batman. Instead they didn’t, and Catwoman was just a burglar.

Finally, Christian Bale has been one hell of a Batman. He has given Bruce Wayne three personalities; all seem very real and plausible throughout this trilogy. His Batman is menacing and real. The public persona of Bruce Wayne as a billionaire playboy was spot on. No one in their right mind would ever suspect this is Batman. Then there is the real Bruce Wayne. One marked by the tragic death of his parents. This is the Bruce Wayne only Alfred sees. It’s the one we’ve been rooting for since the beginning. 

The ending is as perfect as I expected from Christopher Nolan. I had a giant nerdgasim when I saw it on screen. Fanboys everywhere will, or should have, rejoiced in what they saw. Maybe it was little forced and wrapped up too nicely. I can see that argument. Personally, I was hoping for more of an ending open for interpretation like Inception. But in the end, as I’ve said, it’s a perfect end to the trilogy. I just wish the rest of the movie was at that caliber. As a whole, this trilogy will go down as one of the best “comic book movies” arcs ever made, and The Dark Knight Rises will be held up only because it’s a sequel to The Dark Knight (the greatest movie of the superhero genre). Overall, this fanboy gives The Dark Knight Rises three Batsigns out of four.

Jason Wasulko

Contributing Writer
http://www.jasonwasulko.com/