Sunday, August 31, 2014

Things That Annoy Me About Each of the Batman Movies

Batman (1989):  Michael Keaton's "You want to get nuts?  Let's get nuts" line.

Batman Returns (1992): Christopher Walken not doing anything Christopher Walken-like.

Batman Forever (1995): Most of the coolest stuff getting edited out.

Batman and Robin (1997): The entire fucking movie.

Batman Begins (2005): Christian Bale's raspy voice; training scenes that take up half the film (tie).

The Dark Knight (2008): That scene in the courtroom where the mob guy misfires his carbon-fiber gun and Harvey Dent not only spots it as made in China, but suggests that next time, "I recommend you buy American."  The scene (and much of the China plot that follows) not only capitalizes on the anti-China sentiment that was rising around the mid- to late-2000s, it serves as a hokey call for moviegoers to buy American goods rather than their poorly made Chinese counterparts - a shameless political ploy that's going to date even more terribly than Marty McFly's Japanese boss in Back to the Future II.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Gotham's citizens rising up against the wealthy.  While working-class revolutions are nothing new, the timing of Gotham's attack on the rich with America's post-recession awareness of the gap between rich and poor can't possibly be coincidental, and should thus be read as overtly political (which the series stooped to in the China relationship in the previous film).  The problem here, though, is that the film portrays Gotham's revolution against the rich as ridiculous, destructive, and corrupting for everyone involved, particularly in the courtroom scene where the Scarecrow sits atop the towering heap of desks like something out of Kafka.  When the common people rise up against the rich, the scene suggests, they do so nonsensically, without bringing real structure to their new order, since they can only sentence rich people to torturous deaths for the crime of being rich.  This in turn implies that any time the masses rise up against the rich or try to change the world they live in, the result will be anarchy, since no sensible alternative to is ever presented onscreen.  The film implies, therefore, that changing the status quo is wrong, that the grievances of the masses are petty and not worth taking seriously, and that order can only reign as long as the rich keep power for themselves.  Not cool.

No comments: