It turns out we had a coupon for a free movie ticket, so last night after my haircut, Liz took me out on a date to see the new Batman flick. It had its problems–Nolan’s action sequences are not well shot and are largely incomprehensible–but overall I quite enjoyed it. Christian Bale ranks as my second-favorite Batman actor (voice actor Kevin Conroy is still number one in my book). Katie Holmes is utterly exchangeable for any other actress, but Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are delightful and perfect, and Gary Oldman is nicely cast in the “Tom Skerritt is too old for this part” role. I was glad to finally see Ra’s A Ghul, probably my favorite Batman villain, on screen, though I again prefer the animated series’ version, voiced by David Warner. The movie isn’t campy in the slightest; it’s dark, gritty, and moderately intelligent–a huge improvement over the past handful of Batman films. Not the greatest thing ever, but certainly worth a trip to the multiplex.
Tonight will make two date nights in a row, as we have tickets for Allah Made Me Funny.
- Mood:date-tastic
3 responses so far ↓
I thought Dr. Krane was awesome. They found the creepiest pretty boy to play him, didn’t they? I always thought The Scarecrow was a rather mediocre villian, but in this movie I was twitching every time I saw him.
I did like how they didn’t make it feel like a comic book movie - it didn’t feel like “Attention! Here are the three standard cannon villians we will be fighting this time!”
Still… I found some of the dialogue depressingly standard and, I dunno, Christian Bale just didn’t seem to brood well… his acting seemed to drop off every time he put the cowl on.
and by the way, I think the title “Batman and Allah” could be a damn interesting short story. Hrm… ponder ponder…
Kevin Conroy rocks as the voice of Batman. I could not get into the new Batman cartoon, partly because Conroy isn’t doing it, and partly because it just sucks. I am a bit skeptical about Bale as Batman, but I’ll see for myself soon enough.