Batman. No, Batman Begins didn’t do it right either and here’s why.

Posted by admin on August 20th, 2007 in Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

If you’re like me, you have trouble compromising a vision of a character or universe you really like. For me, this includes Batman. No, I’m not some nerd who has stacks of comic books stashed in a closet. In fact, I don’t own any comic books. However, I somehow have an immense knowledge of Batman. When Christopher Nolan was tagged as the guy who would revive the Batman franchise (he’s also currently working on the sequel, The Dark Knight), you probably had no idea who he was. I did, and I was disappointed from that day forward. Sure, I had a gleaming shimmer of hope that the guy who made the snore-a-thons Memento and Insomnia might pull something out of nowhere and do it right, but the truth is he didn’t. Whether you agree with me or not isn’t the point, the point is that Batman has an image and essence that has not yet been captured on screen, and when we all talk about how “good” Batman Begins is, we’re only trying to find reasons not to be frustrated about how much they got it wrong.

Batman Begins Got it Wrong

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of talk about how or why Batman Begins messed it up, and with the sequel currently in production, people are falling into the humdrum acceptance they shovel out to all shitty blockbusters. I think studios make false claims about high budgets to hammer in this feeling of toleration and acceptance in people, forcing people to subtly accept that large amounts of money are bet against their opinion that the movie sucks. Cry out against the masses and you’ll get all sorts of retorts like “No, it was dark,” or “It was better than Tim Burton’s,” or “It’s more like the Batman I want to see,” Nobody says “Well who could’ve done it better?” or the even more blasphemous “So you could’ve done better?” because they’re not even sure what they’re saying. Technically, the filmmaking was good, or was it? There’s something lacking. The writing isn’t really “bad” but something about it is just off.

People talk a lot about how Batman Begins is “darker.” Well, putting aside the fact that the adjective “darker” has no actual meaning, they’re partly right, the Batman Begins MARKETING was darker. But as it got closer to the release, and ultimately up to the actual movie, the imagery and tone of the film got less and less dark.

Batman Begins marketing