Yesterday when I put the movie in I started talking about how much I dislike Batman Begins. True, I really dislike it. In fact I much prefer the early 90s Batman series to Batman Begins. I love love love Batman Forever. I went through a period where I watched it about once a month. I know that many think it is a bad movie, and granted it is pretty bad, but that's why I like it so much. It feels way more like a comic book than Batman Begins. Batman Begins is so average in style and substance I was very disappointed.
So as I was going on, complaining about Batman Begins, I began thinking about reasons Batman is not just a normal comic but one of my favorites (up there with Sandman and Watchmen.) Batman is dark. Batman feeds into my love of Gothic and horror. Since I can remember I've been in love with horror stories. Batman is supposed to be DARK; the original Batman was dark and it was only with the Comics Code Authority did he become that campy nananana Batman.
But what makes Batman scary? What makes good horror? In Neil Gaiman's "The Doll House," Clive Barker writes an introduction that describes two kinds of horror. One, and most popular, is a seemingly identifiable world that the reader can to relate to, that then is opposed by a foreign, and usually dangerous, force. The original Batman was more of this variety but by the 80's with Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns"- Batman became a second kind of horror.
According to Clive Barker, this second kind of horror is a world that is all foreign and usually dangerous. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and The Killing Joke are two of the best comics I've ever read. These stories are entirely chaos and wonder. They are truly scary. Then I realized what makes Batman stand out to me, it is a psychological thriller. Almost every character has serious issues. The villians are so rich. (Don't get me wrong, there have been some bad villians though.) Of course I am specially interested in the Joker, he is so complex!
Let's get back to the point now that I've shared why I like Batman. Batman Begins is not complex. It is very average in my opinion, not very dark at all. It felt like a regular action flick that threw Batman in there. So I thought, "Man I want to see something like Memento meets Batman." Then I found out Christopher Nolan actually directed the new Batman series. lololol
How disappointing.
The Dark Knight on the other hand, was better. Significantly better than Batman Begins. I think a huge part of this is because of Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. He actually based his Joker on "The Killing Joke" and "Akrham Asylum" so he was the Joker I wanted. But, think of how far they could have gone with that. Take a way a few explosions and get more involved with Joker. Heath locked himself up in a room for a month developing that character- didn't you want to see more? Pick his brain, see his inner struggles and dreams? Now that Heath is gone that will never happen, but I wanted to know the Joker he became. He developed and created. The movie was still good though, I acknowledge that. The two trains of convicts and of civilians who have the ability to kill the other to save themselves was a high tension moment. The copious goons dressed as scary clowns was creepy. Harvey Dent was explained fairly well and his development was coherent. I hope we hear more about his coin dependency in the next movie. Bane will be in the next one too, he looks really well done.
I might have confused some since I love the early 90's Batman but want a psychological thrilling Bat-story. The early 90's have a real Gothic aesthetic I like, but are not intellectually stimulating. But I forgive that because they are goofy and don't take themselves seriously. The current Batman is a serious series that are still not stimulating. The plots are mildly complicated but really average. If you are going to make Batman serious, give justice to the complex levels of the dark drama that is the Caped Crusader.
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