Batman Begins (Ka-Shing! Ka-Shing!)
Movies in kiddie vision.
Given my state in life, the time I watch new film releases is when they get pressed and distributed as DVDs. Of these, it's mostly the ones that get viewed and deemed in the judgment of their first purchasers to be slated for donation to the Lyons Library, where I then rent them for free.
What better movie to rent than Batman Begins? I heard that this one was exceptionally good in the long line of Batman movies. I own a copy of the granddaddy of them all, Batman - The Movie, that campy classic from 1966. (I realize that's not the great-granddaddy of them all, which would be the 1940s vintage serials, but here I digress.) I liberated the DVD of my childhood TV friend from its unworthy temporary resting place in the Wal-Mart $5 clearance bin of shame, mixed in with low budget horror and fight films with the boxes in Spanish. My kids love that movie. You pop it in, skip the opening title sequence with the bad guy running past the words, and right away Batman and Robin are flying the batcopter over a trouble spot at sea. It's all great for my kids, bright and colorful as a comic book. Nothing that gives you too yucky a feeling to show them like the way they did up Danny Devito as the Penguin with the flesh rotting off his face in the remake.
That's the Batman movie they've come to expect. So I popped in Batman Begins and it starts up with some poor men in shabby clothes warming themselves outside on a dusty lot near some run down concrete buildings. They might be ruined buildings in a tank battle, or a prison, or in the shopping district downtown in some commie country. I have no idea. I'm watching this in kiddie vision, which is something like watching a foreign film without subtitles. There is much kiddie environmental noise in the room. You can see the action on screen and hear sounds but can't make out words.
The men on the screen are exchanging hostile words. No one is in a Batman suit. That's bad for this audience, which is rapidly growing restless.
One mean looking man shouts, "I am the DEVIL!"
Interruption. "Daddy, is that man really the devil?"
"Um, yes. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think so."
The men are punching each other. No one is in a Batman suit.
"Daddy, did he lie?"
I'm trying to hear something from Batman Begins besides I am the devil. Put this kid's fire out. Quick.
"Yes."
"Daddy, why did he lie?"
"Um, because he's bad. Very bad, son. Bad guys lie." Hey, this is a teachable moment. "Only bad guys lie. Don't every lie, kids."
"Daaaa Deeeee..."
"Yes?"
"Is he a bad guy?"
"Yes. Very bad." I'm inadvertently talking like Dan Aykroyd.
The scruffy men are punching each other. Batman isn't swinging in on a rope and joining in or anything. The devil's really taking it in the face. Then I take it that Batman's dressed down in his civvies, the scruffy guy in the dirty trenchcoat who's beating the devil guy's face in.
Next there's some narrative, a scene change, and we have two guys in trenchcoats fighting each other with samurai swords. Ka-Shing! Ka-Shing! That quieted the room a little. They stop and converse here and there then go back at it with the ka-shing. Looks like a whole lot of movie ripoffs rolled into one here. They've got the dark trenchcoats of The Matrix, the dueling pupil and master of Highlander, and Liam Neeson in this scene looking to mine eye like he walked right off the set of Star Wars Episode I and picked up a samurai sword. That's all lovely, but there's still no friggin' Batman in this movie!
The romper room audience timed out. Most of them walked out to make mischief in the back room. By the time I quell that, there's one last kid still holding out, and he's asking a zillion questions about the scene now showing; by the visuals I recognize that it's boy Bruce Wayne's parents getting shot in slow motion in front of his eyes. Ugh! The next scene is a youthful Bruce at stately Wayne Manor conferring with Michael Kane as Alfred the Butler, driving home the point that all this is now his.
Bong! Time's up. Last audience member gone after a half hour in and still no hood and cape. It reminds me of the old SCTV bit of Count Floyd, hosting Monster Horror Chiller Theater, the howling vampire playing up tonight's feature as "really scary". Inevitably, it would end embarassingly anticlimactically.
Batman Begins is back in the Lyons Library. Show it to your big kids.
Given my state in life, the time I watch new film releases is when they get pressed and distributed as DVDs. Of these, it's mostly the ones that get viewed and deemed in the judgment of their first purchasers to be slated for donation to the Lyons Library, where I then rent them for free.
What better movie to rent than Batman Begins? I heard that this one was exceptionally good in the long line of Batman movies. I own a copy of the granddaddy of them all, Batman - The Movie, that campy classic from 1966. (I realize that's not the great-granddaddy of them all, which would be the 1940s vintage serials, but here I digress.) I liberated the DVD of my childhood TV friend from its unworthy temporary resting place in the Wal-Mart $5 clearance bin of shame, mixed in with low budget horror and fight films with the boxes in Spanish. My kids love that movie. You pop it in, skip the opening title sequence with the bad guy running past the words, and right away Batman and Robin are flying the batcopter over a trouble spot at sea. It's all great for my kids, bright and colorful as a comic book. Nothing that gives you too yucky a feeling to show them like the way they did up Danny Devito as the Penguin with the flesh rotting off his face in the remake.
That's the Batman movie they've come to expect. So I popped in Batman Begins and it starts up with some poor men in shabby clothes warming themselves outside on a dusty lot near some run down concrete buildings. They might be ruined buildings in a tank battle, or a prison, or in the shopping district downtown in some commie country. I have no idea. I'm watching this in kiddie vision, which is something like watching a foreign film without subtitles. There is much kiddie environmental noise in the room. You can see the action on screen and hear sounds but can't make out words.
The men on the screen are exchanging hostile words. No one is in a Batman suit. That's bad for this audience, which is rapidly growing restless.
One mean looking man shouts, "I am the DEVIL!"
Interruption. "Daddy, is that man really the devil?"
"Um, yes. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think so."
The men are punching each other. No one is in a Batman suit.
"Daddy, did he lie?"
I'm trying to hear something from Batman Begins besides I am the devil. Put this kid's fire out. Quick.
"Yes."
"Daddy, why did he lie?"
"Um, because he's bad. Very bad, son. Bad guys lie." Hey, this is a teachable moment. "Only bad guys lie. Don't every lie, kids."
"Daaaa Deeeee..."
"Yes?"
"Is he a bad guy?"
"Yes. Very bad." I'm inadvertently talking like Dan Aykroyd.
The scruffy men are punching each other. Batman isn't swinging in on a rope and joining in or anything. The devil's really taking it in the face. Then I take it that Batman's dressed down in his civvies, the scruffy guy in the dirty trenchcoat who's beating the devil guy's face in.
Next there's some narrative, a scene change, and we have two guys in trenchcoats fighting each other with samurai swords. Ka-Shing! Ka-Shing! That quieted the room a little. They stop and converse here and there then go back at it with the ka-shing. Looks like a whole lot of movie ripoffs rolled into one here. They've got the dark trenchcoats of The Matrix, the dueling pupil and master of Highlander, and Liam Neeson in this scene looking to mine eye like he walked right off the set of Star Wars Episode I and picked up a samurai sword. That's all lovely, but there's still no friggin' Batman in this movie!
The romper room audience timed out. Most of them walked out to make mischief in the back room. By the time I quell that, there's one last kid still holding out, and he's asking a zillion questions about the scene now showing; by the visuals I recognize that it's boy Bruce Wayne's parents getting shot in slow motion in front of his eyes. Ugh! The next scene is a youthful Bruce at stately Wayne Manor conferring with Michael Kane as Alfred the Butler, driving home the point that all this is now his.
Bong! Time's up. Last audience member gone after a half hour in and still no hood and cape. It reminds me of the old SCTV bit of Count Floyd, hosting Monster Horror Chiller Theater, the howling vampire playing up tonight's feature as "really scary". Inevitably, it would end embarassingly anticlimactically.
Batman Begins is back in the Lyons Library. Show it to your big kids.
posted by Kevin Gleeson at
12:16 AM
|
1 Comments
Links to this post
