Sunday, July 03, 2005

Movie Review: Batman Begins

What made Bruce Wayne become Batman? How does he afford all of his expensive equiptment? How did his parents die? These are the questions that you may have pondered on. Luckily, the answers are revealed in the film Batman.
On an entirely differenct subject, I saw Batman Begins last night. I'd heard it was "the best Batman film yet" and other nonsense. Who is spreading these utter lies? How did, exactly, the myth get started? Alright, Begins isn't the worst Batman film yet. It's better than the last couple that have come out (Batman Forever, Batman & Robin), but that isn't saying much.
Plot-wise, the movie kinda sucked. The directing was good, but you can tell some horrible hollywood types got all up in that script. A train is heading super fast through this city as the villan and hero engage in action packed battle in the speeding vehicle. OH NO! What's more is a horrible nuclear device with abilities of destroying the entire city is on the train with them as they battle. The villan's entire reasoning for doing this is just to arbitrarily destroy the city, of course. Wait a second! Isn't this idea horribly cliche? In fact, didn't the last action/superhero movie have this exact scene in it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure they did that in the most recent Spiderman movie. Also, just to be super-annoying to Batman fans, let's make a plot where the villan's master plan is to gas the city with some horrible chemical he created..... JUST LIKE IN THE FIRST BATMAN FILM. Is this 1984? Why do people not remember the recent past? Doe's anybody remember Tim Burttttttooonnnnn!???? Did his films go down the memory hole?
Also, this film is going in a completely different direction than Tim Burton's Batman. In the first film, the Joker kills Bruce's parents when he is a small-time gangster, Jack Napier, who is fed up with following orders from the mob. Napier later becomes the Joker and Bruce recognizes him by his death mantra, so to speak. I assume there will be more Batman films taking their own path. Afterall, it is a highly grossing movie, which means big sequel money.
There are many aspects in this film, main the script and overall plot, that suck a bit. The directing isn't bad, nor the acting, nor the music, nor the set design, nor the cast.... wait, no the music sucked, the sets of Gotham City were a disgrace and a mediocre cast permeated the film. Burton made the Batman we know on the screen. There really is no other choice. He understood how to adapt the darkness of Gotham and Wayne himself onto the screen like no other. People say "Batman Begins is better and darker than the others!" Once again I stand with my belief that Burton's Batman Returns has gone down the memory hole. Does nobody remember how fucking awesome that movie was? Burton defined the modern super-hero genre and certainly the dark super-hero genre. Gotham City was horribly corrupt and way darker in Returns, trust me, or rent it yourself. In fact, the city was so corrupt in Burton's Batman films that they didn't even have to mention it verbally to the audience every ten seconds.
One last thing: Never trust a Batman film that doesn't use the score of Danny Elfman. His amazing abilities for musical theatrics and dark audio ecstacy are nowhere to be found in Batman Begins. The film is therefore regarded as Hollywood trash as far as my ears are concerned.
It my own self-appointed duty to tell you all to skip the $9 theatre charge for Begins and go out and get yourself a copy of Returns for $8 on dvd. You, the public, have obviously forgotten about Burton's films, so it will be just as good as seeing a new movie. Plus, afterwards you can go out and spend that extra $1 on gifts for your loved ones.

I Haven't Posted About My Life Recently, So Here:

To-day I burnt myself on two fingers. Well, one finger and a thumb. Also, seconds before writing this entry log, a mysterious spider dangled inches infront of my very own eyes as it appeared to float down towards my keyboard. Apparently, there is a spider web in the light on my ceiling directly above me. I killed it. I had no other choice.

Friday, July 01, 2005

Movie Review: Canadian Bacon

Micheal Moore is famous for his work in the documentary field, but he also has directed this live-action comedy, Canadian Bacon. John Candy stars as the American average joe that likes to sit back, watch TV, have a cold one and have faith in the flag. Meanwhile, the new President of the United States is loosing popularity despite the fact that he is the first President not to get us into a war. In fact, this is why he is unpopular. Advisers tell the President that a phony war has to be drawn up to get the population patriotic and supportive of him, while at the same time, starting the weapons factories up again for economic growth and job production. Indeed, one of the main reasons people are fed up with the President is that the factory workers have no where to work when there is no war. At first, the White House calls the Russians to see if they want to start up a fake cold war all over again, but they decline. After much deliberation, it is decided that propaganda and secret operations will manufacture an evil empire for the U.S. to battle; Canada. Candy, being a very patriotic citizen, falls for the whole thing and puts together a small anti-Canadian militia to help out Uncle Sam. The government now realizes that it put together something out of their hands. There isn't enough time to explain the other details of the plot, but one nice element to the story was that it stuck out as a Micheal Moore version of Dr. Strangelove.
The film is very much put together like a cheesy, half-assed kids film that would amuse a middle-schooler on a sick day, but nevertheless, there is a lot of truth and insight into the overal basis for the plot. It is very, very much a Michael Moore film, but it isn't that entertaining and you don't learn anything from it. If you are a big fan of Moore, you might want to check this out, otherwise you should just stick with his documentary work.... or just watch Dr. Strangelove.