The Dark Knight Returns: Once more we look into the heart of darkness
Yes, it’s very close to the opening night of The Dark Knight:
When the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, opens on July 24, Hollywood pundits expect it to break all box-office records - as well as attracting more female viewers. It arrives in a blaze of publicity of the most unfortunate kind, thanks to the untimely death of Heath Ledger in January.
It’s been much hyped, of course but that’s part of the charm – or the horror, if you are allergic to bats and the Hollywood Dream Machine. There is, to paraphrase another, quite successful movie, Something About Batman that will ensure that millions and millions of people will go watch the movie as soon as they can, whatever expectations or misgivings they will have.
It’s an interesting story in itself, of course: How Batman evolved from yet another weirdly dressed Superhero with a (rather irritating) side-kick into this weird Dark Knight, who is closer to psychotic than angelic.
From the first comic books, to the first TV shows; from the first Hollywood movie to this next one, the stories grew and the villains came and went, while the character of Batman kept evolving, until the whole journey, as the title of this piece suggests, became a Joseph Conrad type journey into The Heart of Darkness (or, to stick with Hollywood, like a costumed version of Apocalypse Now, where the hero and the monster are part of the same picture, so to speak.)
Anyway, if we ignore the comic books and TV shows for the moment, so far we have had five Batman movies. Chronologically, they are:
Batman (1989)
Batman returns (1992)
Batman Forever (1995)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Some of the above got good reviews, some less so. Especially, ‘Batman and Robin’ was reviled, while, thanks to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman more than to Michael Keaton’s Batman, ‘Batman Returns’ is still many people’s favourite.
All movies have had their problems: Sometimes the female lead was terrible (Kim Basinger, anyone?), sometimes the villain went into pantomime overboard (Danny DeVito and Jim Carrey respectively as the Penguin and the Riddler) and in most of these movies the backgrounds and gadgets were more impressive than the actual story lines.
Still, and apart from ‘Batman and Robin’, all of the movies had something in them that made watching them thoroughly enjoyable. (Oh, to have been of a certain adolescent age when Michelle Pfeiffer strutted that stage and licked that face…!)
Anyway, while I was reading that Times article I linked to above, I was, not for the first time in my life, hit by the following thought:
You know how, at times, you truly loathe a certain song, book, movie or painting and how you are absolutely convinced that it is the most terrible and tasteless one ever made? Well, whatever song, book etcetera you hate the most, there’s someone out there who just knows it’s the best thing that was ever done by anyone in the whole wide world.
I admit that this is a more infuriating than sobering thought but it’s true, nevertheless – and the next question is an obvious one, of course. To whomever has read this far, the following:
What is your favourite Batman movie – and which one do you really hate? Who was the best (and the worst) hero, villain and love interest?
Moreover, if that’s what turns you own: What were the best gadgets, the best songs, the best painted or computer generated sceneries?
I have to say that I am looking forward to all (or any of) your reactions.
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