Ok nerds, you need to realize the truth – The Nolanverse Batman trilogy was a high price call girl/good looking whore. Said whore’s only mission was to take your money and laugh in your face. She made you feel good. She was everything you wanted her to be.
Fake.
The disciples of Nolan will tell you Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises were the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of comic movie franchises. They will babble on about the realism. They will wax poetic about the cast of characters and the sublime acting. They will yell at angry nerds who write blogs to the contrary and label him a troll, or hipster, or contrarian or anything they see fit because someone said ill of the Prophet Nolan, hallowed hype be thy name.
The real truth is they love 2 things. How it looks, and Heath Ledger. Sure they like the supporting cast. Class acts for sure. But let me whiddle it down for you. Batman Begins was good. Very good. With a few minor gripes (a bat summoning boot thing? really?) it was grounded in reality, good plot, good villain and Batman was the star of the show.
And that was where it began to fail. Because it stopped being a Batman story. Maybe it never was. They became a Bruce Wayne story. His struggle. His emotion. His….well fuck it. I don’t care.
I am sick and fucking tired of ALL the modern Batman movies, from the Burton, to the Shumacher to the Nolan, having the caped crusader go all emo and basically give up, for a girl. That is NOT Batman. Don’t Believe me? Vikki Vale, Catwoman, Chase Meridian, Julie Madison and Rachel GODDAMN Dawes, both versions. Oh, and Catwoman again with a lil Talia al Ghul on the side.
Thanks Hollywood. Thanks Nolan. Thanks for making the comic dark vigilante all Toby MacGuire for a girl. But I digress.
The Nolan version of Batman is beautiful. It should be. It was filmed great. But when you start throwing the ridiculous crap in there, you can ignore a few things. Hey, it is a comic movie after all right. But how much is too much?
TDK:
- The bat voice was moronic. Everyone knows it. Some asshat tried to tell me it was because Batman was a force of nature. Seriously. “Grrr Where is Rachel Daaaaaawes?!!”
- Bruce Wayne, with the help of Fox, rents out the Russian Ballet and goes on his yacht. You know, for an alibi. Then jumps overoard in plain sight, and hops on a seaplane. THEN, Batman goes into communist China (illegally), kidnaps a Chinese citizen (who left America on a legal visa/passport), and drops him off at Gotham central. Really. So China was cool with that? So Gotham cops said “Hmmm…well shucks, since he is here and all, might as well question him, State department won’t mind.” Oh, and do you think Batman perched on the C-130 seats, stared at everyone and his bat voice say “I’m Batman. More peanuts please. What’s the in-flight
movie?” for the 13hr flight back? Love that Nolan realism. - Eric Roberts and Michael Jai White’s ‘academy performances’ as mob bosses….sigh
- Lucius Fox has the gall complain about cell phone sonar after supplying Wayne with tech and gear to perform vigilante justice for years AND assisting in the illegal kidnapping of a Chinese national.
- Harvey Dent and his oh so quick heel turn to Two face. A point of contention. Some folks really like this contrived plot device. And the burned face was less than ‘real’. Kinda cartoony.
I could go on and on. But, i just wish people would admit the truth. THEY LOVED THE JOKER AND THAT WAS IT. Ledger was great. Blew it out of the water. Deserved his accolades and his Oscar. But, that didn’t make the movie! One shiny beacon in a plot holed riddled crap feast wrapped in REALISM. Ugh.
TDKR:
- Lord, lord lord. The Bane voice. Sweet Jesus. A British German Bond villain. Come on, Nolan. Now you are just fucking with me on purpose, aren’t you? You are literally just shoveling shit at me and expect me to accept it because the movie is pretty.
- Lemme get this straight. Bruce quit 8 years ago because of his broken heart and bum knee? He was Batman for maybe 18 months! WHAT THE FUCK?!
- Wait, did Alfred just give Bruce the Good Will Hunting speech? The one where Affleck tells Damon the best part of his day is when he hopes Damon has just up and left and found a better life? Really?
- Miranda was Talia the whole time huh? So, why didn’t she just blow up Gotham at any point she was CEO?
- A magic knee brace.
- Bane brakes the Bat. Put’s him somewhere in Drka-Drkastan, and leaves him with a doctor. Said doc hangs Bruce in traction, a few pulls ups and push ups and he is 100% again huh? MATALO MATALO BULL SHIT!
- JESUS THE BANE VOICE. ‘Gotham is yours! Take it!’ He was going to blow it up anyway, why wait 6 months?
- How the FUCK did BW get out of Drka-Drkastan wearing only prison clothes and get back to Pittsburgh…ummm Gotham? How did he get in? Wait, what…did he really waste a shit load of time spreading gas or something flammable around to lite up the bat symbol?
- Holy Shit, Miranda was Talia and she LITERALLY stabbed Bruce in the back.
- Bane really didn’t see the GIANT motorcycle with cannons that can only shoot the way the cycle is facing roll up and point at him? Leaving Bane, the baddest man you spent 2 hours hyping up, to die in a punk bitch mannor. Ugh.
- Seriously? Could you mention the auto pilot being broken again? I don’t think the audience heard you the first 6 times.
- So Bat’s carried a nuke out of the city, got out, and out swam the blast, and radiation huh?
See, this is the crap that keeps me up at night. The crap that I cannot stop seeing. The emperor’s new clothes suck. They are rife with bad writing and piss poor points that everyone just ignores.
You see, a buddy of mine once said, when watching these flicks, “When Batman is on the screen, he is the least interesting thing.” And damned if he wasn’t right.
Sometimes i think the Bruce Wayne movies, NOT Batman, were a joke between the Nolan brothers and Goyer. A bet they made to see if they could throw really god awful b-movie, paint by numbers plot at the audience and they would accept it. As long as it looked good on imax. A damnit, they were right.
You’ve been fucked, and you allowed it to happen.
That being said I own all three on Blu-Ray.
Angry Nerd 