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As we enter the single digits of Twelve Days of Dimfuture, I feel I should add a wee bit of a disclaimer. I am not really a comics reader. I read my share of comics as a kid, but I could no more studiously collect an entire series of comics as a kid than I could manage to watch the sequential run of Firefly when Fox put it on the air. (For those who don’t get the joke: there was no sequential run of Firefly on Fox.) I pick up a few comics now and then, mostly Alan Moore trade paperbacks or Jim Lee titles with lots of boobies on the cover, but in general, comics collecting is not something I’ve ever gotten into.

As such, most discussions of modern comics continuity tend to go over my head. In general, I know just enough to complain — I know that Doctor Doom is a badass Latverian dictator, and not a yuppie doctor who spends all his time murdering gynecologists, for example. I know the origin story of Spider-Man from reading the original Stan Lee / Steve Ditko comics from the sixties and seventies, but ask me about the fundamental differences between Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, and I’m fairly likely to give you a blank stare. I’m also unaware of the difference between the Green Goblin, the Hobgoblin, and possibly the Pizza Noid, as well as the subtle nuances that separate Venom from Carnage, Ultimate Carnage, Penultimate Carnage, or Posthumous Honorable Mention Carnage. While my ignorance has prevented me from having meaningful conversations about comics with my funnybook-collecting friends, it’s also liberated me from what would otherwise be a million exhausting fanboy arguments.

When it comes to Batman, however, I know what I like. Of the comics I collected in my youth, a considerable share of them were related to Batman somehow. Batman was, and is, my favorite superhero, mostly because he doesn’t have any super powers — just smarts, money, and a lot of gadgets. He’s like Bond without the casual sex. While I’m generally rather iffy on Frank Miller’s work in general, I can say without reservation that the moment in Dark Knight Returns when Batman outsmarts and defeats Superman is some hot shit indeed. So it should come as no surprise that I’ll take any opportunity to see Bats on the big screen — except, of course, the Adam West movie, and that’s only because it was before my time.

What Came Before: Needless to say, the sordid history of the Batman movies could easily comprise its own twelve-part series of increasingly incoherent rants. I caught them all in the theater — with the notorious exception of Batman & Robin, but I feel no remorse whatsoever about that. (I later caught it on video, and deeply regretted every rubber-nippled second.) A comprehensive history of the cinematic indignities done to Batman over the years goes far beyond the scope of this article, but we will touch upon some of the key points in the interest of history.

While it hasn’t dated all that well, Batman ‘89 was a huge deal when it came out. Prince had not yet changed his name to an incomprehensible symbol, Jack Nicholson was at the height of his popularity, and, for one brief moment, it seemed like Robert Wuhl was going to be a huge star. The only Batman that the world had seen, big screen or small, was the campy Adam West Batman, complete with the iconic BAM! and SOCKO! and so forth. The stylish, moody vision of Tim Burton (culled liberally from Miller) was unlike anything audiences had seen before. As a rabid Batman fanboy, I had a truckload of doubts about the movie prior to seeing it. Mister Mom as Batman? Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo doing the soundtrack? What? What are you doing to me, Tim Burton, director of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure? I anticipated nothing short of disaster.

Fortunately for me, I was dead wrong. While Batman ‘89 didn’t blow me utterly out of the water, it ended up being a pretty decent Batman movie, with great art direction and a stellar collection of Batman gadgets. I could even forgive the egregious Prince musical number in the middle of the movie. I still remember, to this day, listening to The Larry King Show on the radio, where King was interviewing Robert Wuhl. A caller phoned into the show to say exuberantly, “please bring back Jack Nicholson for Batman Part Ten!” Oh, Pollyanna.

I was a little less thrilled with Batman Returns, which seemed like less of a Batman movie and more of a Penguin movie. Returns started the trend of making the Batman movies more about the villains than the hero, which is where things started going wrong for me as a viewer. Also, in terms of Batman villains, the Penguin is pretty low on my list. (Granted, as Burton stepped aside to make room for Joel Schumacher, we plummeted to rock bottom on that list very quickly, but we’ll get to that in turn.)

Call me mercenary if you like. I don’t really care that the Penguin’s parents didn’t love him. I don’t want to get to know him as a person. And there certainly isn’t any amount of exposition that’s going to make the Penguin credible to me. The same goes for Catwoman and her muddled, preposterous origin story. I knew in the first reel, as Batman fought a horde of rampaging clowns to the tune of madly galumphing Danny Elfman tuba hits, that I wouldn’t be enjoying this installment quite as much as the first. And I didn’t. Batman Returns does have its merits, but they all have to do with me liking Tim Burton’s style of direction, and very little to do with Batman. Again, we hit upon the emerging theme: Batman movies in which the titular character becomes increasingly less visible.

And so we enter the hazy Schumacher years. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t remember a whole lot about Batman Forever. I remember that Val Kilmer was bland and forgettable, and that every time Chris O’Donnell came on screen, I wanted to yell “D’ARTAGNAN!” in a shrieky falsetto. (At the time, Disney’s The Three Musketeers was only a few years in the past, you see.) Jim Carrey, of course, was as acidic and headache-inducing as he is in nearly every movie he stars in. I’m willing to accept that Carrey has done a few good roles, and that there are times when his brand of cartoon antics work for me (such as in The Mask, for example). But were I ever to compose a list of things I’d like to see in a Batman movie, watching a Spandex-clad Jim Carrey whoop and thrust his pelvis would not appear on it.

Then we have Harvey Dent / Two-Face, who, through the power of movie magic, changes from Billy Dee Williams to Tommy Lee Jones, and also changes from Two-Face into The Joker. Apparently, featuring a physically and psychologically scarred villain who flips a coin to make murderous decisions was too complex and arcane for Schumacher, so he merely instructed Jones to cackle and shriek as much as possible. (We weren’t getting enough of that from Carrey already?) When Batman Forever came out, I’d just finished reading Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum, which handles Two-Face elegantly and simply. Seeing how easy it was to get right made Forever’s botching of this relatively simple villain even more unforgivable.

Really, that’s about as much as I remember about Batman Forever. I’m sure it might have a redeeming value or two, but I’m damned if I could say what it is at this point. The same goes for Batman & Robin, the movie that brought the series to a perverse, disappointing full circle: from Adam West to George Clooney; camp to drama to very bad camp. I’m not going to talk very much about Batman and Robin, because there really isn’t much to say — the film is unspectacularly awful, failing at even being memorably bad. I think the high point for me was seeing Deep Space Nine’s Rene Auberjonois as a doctor at Arkham Asylum — in the last five minutes of the picture.

And so, leaving behind a trail of tired jokes about “chilling out” and so forth, Batman and Robin sank the Batman franchise for the next eight years or so, with only the (admittedly excellent) animated series to tide over faithful fans of the Dark Knight.

Then came Batman Begins.

Why This Bat Has Nine Lives: As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m dubious about any remake or “re-imagination,” especially if it’s something I suspect I might like. As such, I held out very little hope for Batman Begins, and neglected to follow the hype, merely assuming it couldn’t possibly be good. The memory of Batman and Robin, with its flying surfboards and homoerotic zooms on plastic buttocks, still lingered too vividly in my mind. I had no idea who Christian Bale was. The new Batmobile seemed ridiculous. What little I learned of the backstory worried me even more. Batman trained by ninjas? Liam Neeson playing a wise old teacher yet again? Katie Holmes? I anticipated the worst, and saw the movie in theaters only reluctantly — and came out absolutely on cloud nine.

Although there’s certainly something to be said for low expectations, there is more to my love of Batman Begins than merely being pleasantly surprised. Begins has everything I ever wanted in a Batman movie, and more besides. The story is solid; whatever magic Kool-Aid David Goyer drank before penning Begins, I wish he would have also had some before writing Blade Trinity. The origin story is elegant and efficient, delving into Bruce Wayne’s psychology without being overindulgent or pretentious. The villains are relatively down-to-earth (by comic-book standards), and even the more fantastic elements make at least a vague stab at a pseudo-scientific explanation. (Also, since I know it will come up, let me get one thing out of the way right now. I’ve heard the endless criticisms questioning the “realism” of the water-evaporating microwave weapon, and I have only one thing to say about it, which is that Superman and Batman occupy the same fictional universe. If you can believe that a man from an alien planet can fly, but not that a fictional microwave weapon can operate in defiance of known physical laws, then there is no help for you.) And yes, the new Batmobile is awesome. I’m not completely sure why Batman has to murder his lumbar region by sticking his head between down into the wheel wells (that looks really uncomfortable), but hey, I guess that’s why I’m not in the paramilitary vehicle design field.

In terms of cast, Begins trumps all its predecessors — yes, even the one that had Walken in it. Christian Bale is an excellent Batman, and an even better Bruce Wayne (I found Keaton a dubious Wayne at best, and the less said about Kilmer and Clooney, the better). You can’t go wrong with Michael Caine, no matter how hard you try (well, maybe a little wrong. I did see Jaws: The Revenge, after all.) Morgan Freeman, though dangerously close to being overexposed at this point, is fun to watch as the delightfully named Lucius Fox. Begins even has Rutger Hauer, for Christ’s sake. How can any movie with Rutger Hauer in it possibly be bad? (Incidentally, if you would have asked me how any movie with Rutger Hauer in it could possibly be bad a year before Batman Begins came out, I would have just pointed you to Crossworlds or Blind Justice, said “that’s how!” and sat back smugly, confident that I had just scored some kind of triumphant point.) Even Katie Holmes is only moderately objectionable, although I can’t watch her now without thinking of a phrase a friend of mine uttered while watching the movie with me: “That makes my mouth slanty!”

I’ve noticed that I usually end these articles with something like, “well, this movie’s not perfect, but I like it anyway,” but I’m not going to say that about Batman Begins. Is Batman Begins perfect? As far as I’m concerned, shit yeah, it’s perfect. It has action, intrigue, humor, tons of style, and Gary Oldman. The worst thing I can say about Batman Begins is that Oldman utters the line “I gotta get me one of these,” a phrase I think should be unceremoniously retired from the cinematic lexicon forever. Christopher Nolan did what I thought was utterly impossible: he banished the fruity specter of Batman and Robin from my consciousness forever. He made me love Batman again. And for that, I can never thank him enough.

Favorite Moment: “I have got to get me one of these!” Sorry, only kidding. Although there are far too many moments in Begins that I love to pieces, I would have to say that Bruce Wayne confronting the bats in the cave is by far my favorite moment. It’s one of those brief moments in a movie where the music swells and my heart beats just a little faster, and I never get sick of it.

Twelve Days of Dimfuture Trivia Track: Batman Begins is one of three superhero movies on this list. A fourth, Spider-Man 2, initially ranked rather high, but was cut in favor of some older films. So now you know what the rest of the list doesn’t include: Spider-Man 2!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 7:30 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.