Interlude Of The Bat
My attempt to solicit a pithy comment from one of my few and precious readers (by referencing her in laudatory fashion in a post that was tangentially related to a host of issues she's quite interested in) failed, but instead she wanted to know my thoughts on the Michael Keaton / Tim Burton Batman and how those two movies would rank in the ordering I provided below. The ranking is reproduced here:
Batman Begins
Iron Man
Spider-Man 2
X-Men 2
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 3
Hulk
The Incredible Hulk
X-Men
Based on memory of my responses to Batman and Batman Returns, I'd rate the former around X-Men 2 and the latter around Spider-Man 2 or Iron Man; reflection leads me to believe that if I were going to watch them right now, I'd probably knock each one a slot or two down. I'm not that big a fan of Tim Burton's schtick at the end of the day, and I'm pretty sure that if we're grabbing from childhood memories of Batman-on-screen, I'd take the acclaimed and semi-legendary animated series from the early 90s and probably put it up there with Iron Man. It was REALLY good.
Aside from thinking/remembering that I'd prefer the aesthetic of the Christopher Nolan movies to the Burton ones, by memory I also feel like Batman Begins is trying to push the concept as far as it can go within the confines of an origin story; unlike Iron Man, it's not simply passively suggesting questions by virtue of the subject matter, it's actively engaging with them. Because of his human scale - and the primarily human scale of his rogue's gallery - Batman is a lot easier to grapple with on an intellectual/philosophical/dramatic level than most other superheroes, because there's that much less to overcome in trying to take the concept seriously. I'm not putting this well; Iron Man took the concept fairly seriously while also having fun with it (and Batman Begins certainly had fun with itself) but it would be tonally difficult for most superheroes (I actually think Iron Man is an exception along the lines of Batman) to really engage with whatever latent philosophical or psychological material is available because they also have to sell you on the outsized fantasy of the whole thing. Batman Begins, to my mind, suggested an approach that was much more ambitious in terms of pushing the potential of the character-on-film to its limits, and I hope that The Dark Knight will make good on that promise.
Batman Begins
Iron Man
Spider-Man 2
X-Men 2
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 3
Hulk
The Incredible Hulk
X-Men
Based on memory of my responses to Batman and Batman Returns, I'd rate the former around X-Men 2 and the latter around Spider-Man 2 or Iron Man; reflection leads me to believe that if I were going to watch them right now, I'd probably knock each one a slot or two down. I'm not that big a fan of Tim Burton's schtick at the end of the day, and I'm pretty sure that if we're grabbing from childhood memories of Batman-on-screen, I'd take the acclaimed and semi-legendary animated series from the early 90s and probably put it up there with Iron Man. It was REALLY good.
Aside from thinking/remembering that I'd prefer the aesthetic of the Christopher Nolan movies to the Burton ones, by memory I also feel like Batman Begins is trying to push the concept as far as it can go within the confines of an origin story; unlike Iron Man, it's not simply passively suggesting questions by virtue of the subject matter, it's actively engaging with them. Because of his human scale - and the primarily human scale of his rogue's gallery - Batman is a lot easier to grapple with on an intellectual/philosophical/dramatic level than most other superheroes, because there's that much less to overcome in trying to take the concept seriously. I'm not putting this well; Iron Man took the concept fairly seriously while also having fun with it (and Batman Begins certainly had fun with itself) but it would be tonally difficult for most superheroes (I actually think Iron Man is an exception along the lines of Batman) to really engage with whatever latent philosophical or psychological material is available because they also have to sell you on the outsized fantasy of the whole thing. Batman Begins, to my mind, suggested an approach that was much more ambitious in terms of pushing the potential of the character-on-film to its limits, and I hope that The Dark Knight will make good on that promise.
posted by medrawt at
19:31
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