Who would win in a fight? Captain James Kirk versus Captain Han Solo?
There is a lot of nerd debate between which is the better series, Star Wars or Star Trek, but let’s break it down to the real brass tacks. Obviously Kirk and Solo are the coolest characters from either series, and as they are both Captains the question is who would win in a fight?
I think I need to break it down to two different sub questions: fist fight or gun fight. Unfortunately we don’t have many examples of Han Solo’s hand to hand fighting ability, while Kirk seems to excel at it. I seem to recall Solo being pretty worthless in the rescue from Jabba until he got a blaster in his hand. On the other hand, he got that scar on his chin somehow. However, I think Kirk would prevail in a straight up fight, at least if he has enough room for a couple of shoulder rolls.
In a gun fight I think I will have to go with Solo. He is a practiced marksmen and quick draw expert, and does not hesitate to pull the trigger as Greedo found out when Han shot first. Also, blasters are way cooler looking and sounding than phasers.
Milienium Falcoln versus Enterprise I’ll save for another day. The Falcoln image I got from Dave’s Star Wars tshirt collection.
Jason
Total Recall Review
Kind of worth recalling.
Total Recall does something I haven’t really seen a remake do yet: in spite of being pretty much the same story as the Schwarzenegger 1990 film (with some fairly big differences that don’t really have any bearing on the story), with a lot of the scenes shot almost identical in form and structure, and with exactly the same betrayals and major plot points, it manages to deliver an entirely different feeling and yet still enjoyable film experience.
It all boils down to style. Arnold is the king of camp, over the top action (just look at his clips from from the upcoming Expendables 2) and left an indelible comic mark all over the film. The writers of the original Total Recall seemed to have understood this and wrote to his strengths. The remake lacks all that campy humor (and while there is humor to be had here it is almost all exclusively call backs to the 1990 film) but makes up for more action and to be honest a more compelling and believable protagonist. What does that mean in terms of your viewing pleasure? If you want camp go rewatch 1990. If you are happy with a decent action film (albeit a little shallow) than you will enjoy this film.
Of course, like most movies that come out these days this film is rife with problems, and being a bitter soul I will enjoy listing them in detail. For one thing the director (Len Wiseman-the entire Underworld series) must have been blackmailed by the art director and CGI company because every shot is packed full of everything possible in a futuristic movie to the point of absolute distraction. It’s like if Godzilla ate an entire flea market and then vomited it all over the sets from Bladerunner. There is so many people, dystopic futuristic slums, and gigantic moving Hellraiser puzzle boxes that I often found myself trying to discern the character or action point I was supposed to be paying attention to. This problem was aggravated by the directors obvious love of thin, waifish brunette females (just like in another series he has done) as the evil bitch and helpful sidekick looked like sisters and were nigh impossible to tell apart, especially when they were wearing almost the same outfits. A red scarf or green t-shirt might have gone a long way.
I can also say that while was impressed by Colin Farrell (Phone Booth, Alexander, the New World) as Douglas Quaid/Houser, I felt most of the supporting characters were a little tepid and two dimensional. I don’t think this was a reflection on the acting so much as mediocre writing. Even the great Bryan Cranston (Drive, Breaking Bad, Red Tails) as President Cohaagan was cartoonishly over the top. He would have fit right in with the Arnold version, but felt disjointed and out of place here.
Finally, this film still suffers from the same issues that plagued the 1990 version in that the whole movie is based around an evil plot so complex and prone to miserable failure that it makes calculating the square root of -1 and the last digit of pi look simply by comparison. What if one of the 14,000,000 guys trying to kill the main guy accidentally succeeded? Was the final goal such a huge priority for the organization that they risked the life and sanity of the greatest operatives of all time, not to mention dedicating what must have been thousands of man hours to accomplish it? Plus a bunch of security guys who got scragged. Aren’t there like 83 less dangerous, complicated, or expensive ways to accomplish the goal? While the camp humor element behind the 1990 version masked this issue nicely, this movies secret desire to take itself seriously makes these questions much more prevalent and distracting. (Get Real image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category)
The story. This is another film where I can say rent the original and you more or less know it. There are a few spoilers coming when I talk about the story differences so SPOILER ALERT. Substitute the chemically desolate surface of the Australia for Mars. Great Britain is now Earth, and instead of a rocket to Mars there is now a super subway called The Fall that goes through the center of the Earth (I’m not going to black hole them for this, but the science behind this is pretty stupid. The core of the Earth is estimated to be 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and that plus the pressure would crush any attempt to do what they did here. Unless they have some kind of force field (and there was no other evidence of force fields anywhere else in the film) I sincerely doubt they would have any material on the planet that would survive this. On the other hand, if they did have some kind of force field they would have had pretty much unlimited power in the form of geothermal energy). Great Britain is the elite of modern society, and the unwashed masses all live in Australia. Other than that the movie pretty much plays out exactly the same. Douglas Quaid is a lowly factory worker who goes to Rekall and has a false memory of being a spy implanted. The process awakens his real memory of being a spy. His life is a huge fabrication, his wife spends most of the movie trying to kill him, and they even repeat the scene where his former best friend tries to convince him that the whole thing is just a figment of his fractured mind.
The stars. If you take this film as a stand alone film and don’t get wrapped up in comparing it to the original it’s actually pretty fun. Two stars. I liked Colin Farrell as Douglas Quaid. One star. I always like Bill Nighy (Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows Pt 1, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Hot Fuzz) and Bryan Cranston is fun to watch even when I find his character kind of dumb. One star. The two females (Kate Beckensale-Underworld, Contraband, the Aviator and Jessica Biel-the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 7th Heaven, the Illusionist) were in a serious contest to see which was easier on the eyes (Jessica Biel won in my opinion, but it was a close thing). Lots of inside call backs to the original Total Recall, including an extremely brief but highly appreciated appearance of the three breasted whore. One star. I happen to like dystopic future visions. It much more looks like what I think we will be living in. One star. The battle droids, while obviously shoved into the film in order to maintain the PG13 rating, were all pretty cool. One star. Pacing was actually really good and tight. One star. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The jumbled up nature of the scenes and the similarity of some of the characters made a lot of the action actually hard to follow. A lot of the camera work looked like it was done just to be impressive without actually having a specific point it was trying to deliver. One black hole. This film labored under the curse of PG13 in a big way. Robots were all horrible dismembered while humans had the gentle grace to die bloodlessly from bullet impacts the left no passage. One black hole. While Douglas Quaid was pretty cool, a lot of the other characters were little more than talking plot devices. One black hole. The complexity of the evil plot was the one part that did not survive the transition from 1990 to 2012. One black hole. One of the coolest things about the 1990 film is they really left the question of the actual reality up in the air, and while they tried to do that here in the beginning there was a scene that kind of hurt that idea a lot. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad, and to be honest much more than I expected from a classic movie remake. If you are a fan of sci fi action I can definitely recommend this one for you, and the screen is so jumbled up I think you need a large screen just to sort out what is going on. It looks like they did not bother with 3D, which I think was the right move. Just too much going on for you to track. Date movie? Probably not. Very geeky, very guy movie with the added problem of showing her a story where the entire romance is a false construct based on massive lies. Not exactly the thing to put her in an amorous mood. Bathroom break? I am having a hard time with this. The pacing of this film kind of makes it hard to identify a less worthwhile portion. There is some filler from the first act but you shouldn’t need the bathroom there. I guess if you have seen the 1990 version you could skip the scene where the protagonists best friend tries to convince him the whole thing is a mental fabrication. It plays out pretty much exactly like it did with Arnold.
Thanks for reading. I apologize for not seeing Step Up Revolution on Tuesday and writing a really bitter review for it, but I just couldn’t motivate myself to get out of the house for that. I will try to see it or something else this weekend. I have the big Star Trek show coming up next week and am kind of scrambling to get that done, but once that is complete I will focus on more movie reviews. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have a comment on this movie or review feel free to leave it here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The 15 Best Star Trek TOS Villains
Se we are about a week away from heading off to the amazing Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas and I literally couldn’t be more excited. I have been watching old episodes on NetFlix and more than a few times have caught myself humming the fight theme song (if you don’t know what that is odds are you really shouldn’t even be reading this blog).
To say I have Star Trek on the mind lately is a bit of an understatement and last night while watching the Galileo Seven it struck me how many super cool villains and aliens they managed to create without the benefit of CGI or even a real budget. I did some research but found that every list out there for Star Trek villains is cluttered up with all the TNG and DS9 villains, which in my opinion is kind of prosaic. Saying that Q is super cool or the Borg is an evil race is like saying ice cream tastes good or chewing on broken glass is a bad idea. Also, it seems like every list can’t seem to get away from the idea that the villains from Nemesis or First Contact were something more the cliche filler. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to compose a list of the greatest villains from the the Original Series.
Actually, this isn’t so much a stretch. If you take into account the fact that the writers were coming up with these guys without the benefit of 50 years of science fiction to fall back on these aliens (plus a few humans) are amazingly cool. I also give them credit for writing a depth that, in spite of more movie resources, seems to be missing from a lot of modern Trek villains. All the images, by the way, are from the Star Trek T Shirt category.
15. Mugatu, from A Private Little War. A space yeti with a unicorn horn, spikes growing out of it’s spine, and poisonous fangs? The only way this guy could be any cooler is if he could play the banjo and his farts cured cancer. He’s only at number 15 because in the episode he really had a minor role, but OMG awesome.
14. Evil Kirk, from the Enemy Within. I know I listed this episodes as one of my worst for TOS and I stand by that belief. However, even I have to admit crazed, super sweaty cheesy lighting Kirk was pretty damned cool.
13. The Vians, from the Empath. I know these are pretty much the same guys from the Cage and the Menagerie, but here instead of creating fantasy worlds to get Captain Pike to mate with a super hot girl they are using torture and death to get a girl to pretty much kill herself. If you really think aliens are above cruelty and vivisection you need to go watch Fire in the Sky.
12. The Earps, from Spectre of the Gun. Plus Doc Holiday. These guys really had the whole menacing “impending doom” down to a science. I have a few humans on this list, although technically since these guys were projections of the Melkotians they really were aliens.
11. The Buffalo, from the Man Trap. I can honestly say as a kid this was the grossest thing I had ever seen to date (I have since seen things that would probably cause all your internal organs to explode, but will save that for another post). Also, the suckers on the fingers were an extremely nice touch.
10. Evil Spock, from Mirror Mirror. What in the universe could possible be cooler than Spock? How about an evil Spock, with no moral hesitation to kill people? Plus I think the beard was a really good look for Nimoy.
9. Charlie Evans, from Charlie X. This poor kid. All messed up with super powers. I just watched this episode the other night and his fate always makes me sad.
8. The Cheronians, from Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Say what you want about Star Trek, but subtlety is not one of it’s defining characteristics. When Gene Roddenberry has a point he wants made he tends to do it with a sledgehammer. However, as a parallel for human racism these two were pretty much on the mark.
7. Anton Karidian/Kodos the Executioner, from the Conscience of the King. Maybe it’s because he was playing a Shakespearean actor and I always find those guys impressive, but this guy really gripped me. Human, I know and therefore boring, but still very cool in my book. Of course it could be said that the real villain was his daughter.
6. The Horta, from the Devil in the Dark. I can honestly say this was the one episode that scared the living crap out of me at age seven. The Horta was so freaking terrifying I had a hard time watching it. Of course, looking back on it as an adult I can see it looks like a reject from H.R. Puffinstuff, but I will say this is a perfect example of the show getting as much as possible out of no budget. This episode actually showed what could be accomplished with excellent use of lighting.
5. Harcourt Fenton Mudd, from Mudd’s Women and I, Mudd. I actually got into a debate with a guy on this character. I will admit he is a cheesy as it gets, but there is something in his rapscallion, amoral approach to life that really appeals to me. I wish I had his panache and savvy. I also think the crews treatment and interaction with him, especially Kirk, was really entertaining and well done. Also, he was the first man I ever saw wearing an earring.
4. The Romulan Commander, from Balance of Terror. I listed this as my all time favorite episode in my list of best TOS shows, but honestly while the Romulan commander was amazingly cool I don’t think he was the best villain. However, he definitely was one of the best and was probably the villain I most connected with.
3. Ruk, from What are Little Girls Made Of? It’s freaking Lurch in space! Lurch who is both willing and capable of killing guys! How can this be anything less than awesome??? Also, I was 6’4″ as a Freshman in high school and have always had a bad habit of looming over people. One of my nicknames back then was Lurch, so when I saw him on Star Trek I was extremely happy.
2. The Gorn Captain, from Arena. I’m actually kind of disappointed in myself for my choice for numbers 2 and 1 as they are so obvious. I hate being obvious. However, the Gorn captain is so cool he makes my bones ache. Big, bad, and tough as hell. He kicked seven kinds of hell out of Kirk every time they encountered each other, only to fall to Kirks underhanded and scheming trap using black powder weapons. “Guns don’t kill aliens. Starship captains armed with spikes do”.
1. Khan Noonien Singh, from Space Seed. And the next most obvious choice. I know. Boring boring boring. However, Khan was truly an amazing villain. It just goes to show what happens when you combine a great, well written character with an amazing character actor like Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino. What a great villain.
Well, that’s my list. Feel free to comment here if you feel I missed a good one, or if you think I might have given too much credence to one (I expect to hear about Harry Mudd shortly). I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this. I had a lot of fun writing it. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu, and be sure to read any of my other Star Trek, movie review, or dating advice posts here. If you have an off topic question or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. I might see a movie tonight (cheap night at the theater down the street) so look for a review tomorrow. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Who would win in a fist fight? Captain Kirk versus James Bond?
I have no idea why this one came to my mind. We are getting ready for the Star Trek convention and Dave has been gushing on about how Kirk is better than Picard, so I guess I was wondering how he would do against the great 007, James Bond.
It’s an interesting question. Kirk has of course mastered all the shoulder roll related martial arts the galaxy has to offer. He is the veteran of numerous fights not only against humans but aliens as well, and he must have learned something every time he got his ass handed to him by Spock.
On the other hand, James Bond is the consummate spy, trained in all the deadly arts. Not only that, but in a weird way he is way smoother that Kirk. Also, it is written into Kirk’s character that he upon occasion loses, whereas Bond pretty much only lets himself lose when he wants to hear the villains doomsday plan. I don’t think he can lose an honest fight, except maybe against Jaws.
I think I’m going to have to give this one to James Bond. He has mowed his way through any number military men, and I don’t think Kirk has the style to beat him.
The Kirk image I found in Dave’s massive Star Trek t shirt collection.
Jason
Who would win? An Imperial Space Marine Dreadnaught verses ED209?
So I saw some guys playing the new 40K yesterday and that got me thinking about it again. I also picked up a book on the Iron Hands, who if you know 40K you know are really into Dreadnaughts. Thus I come to this question: Who would win in a fight between a Dreadnaught and en ED209?
Honestly this one seems pretty obviously in the favor of the Dreadnaught. Centuries of battle experience, super human reflexes, and a large variety of weapon options just give it the flexibility. However, for the sake of this fight let’s say it was not equipped with any missile launchers, lascannons, or any other good long range vehicle killers. It think it this case it would still win, but would take a beating as it moved up to the ED209. If you recall the ED209 had some mini missile launchers and it’s main guns seemed bolter sized. However, I believe that once the Dreadnaught got up close enough it would be able to beat the ED209 into scrap with it’s power fist. Not a lot the ED could do with no arms to speak of.
The image I got from Dave’s movie t shirt collection. There isn’t much he doesn’t have, although I’m still waiting for his 40K tees.
Jason
The Watch review
Worth watching IMO.
I know I’m definitely going against most of the other reviewers out there and my own general inclination by saying I kind of liked this film. It had it’s issues for sure, and if I were less favorably inclined towards the cast might have taken a more severe approach to the review, but in general I found it fun and entertaining.
I have seen a number of other reviews liken it to a sci fi Tower Heist and I think that is where the line gets drawn. If you enjoyed Tower Heist the odds are you’ll enjoy this film. If you did not enjoy Tower Heist then no amount of humor will make this film watchable for you.
That’s not to say some of the gripes I’m reading are not legitimate, because they are. This film is infested with plot holes, extremely low brow humor, and story points delivered in bulk from Cliche’s ‘R Us. To say this movie is derivative of other films is like saying a footprint is derivative of a shoe. If you are looking for new ideas, great script, compelling story, or great special effects keep on walking. However, if you like rated R humor that does not rely on excrement jokes and enjoy Ben Stiller than by all means stop by and sit a spell (101 minutes, to be exact).
This film is the quintessential (a less upbeat reviewer might say regurgitated) alien invasion film (Mars Attacks image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category). Evan (Ben Stiller-Tower Heist, Tropic Thunder, Zoolander) is the manager of the local Costco and loves the podunk town he lives in. The night security guard is horrifically murdered and he takes it on himself to form a neighborhood watch. He is joined by a few flowers of the cliche character garden: Bob (Vince Vaughn-Wedding Crasher, Dodgeball, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), a suburbanite dad with a high school mentality and a 16 year old daughter with whom he fights all the time; Franklin (Jonah Hill-21 Jump Street, Superbad, Moneyball), a sociopathic gun nut who dreams of being a cop; and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade-mainly the I.T. Crowd and if you haven’t watched it yet go ahead and stop calling yourself a nerd) a recent transplant from the UK who wants to be more involved in the community.
The boys start patrolling and trouble arises between Evan, who wants to find the murderer, and Bob who wants to just treat it like boys night out. A series of oddball incidents lead them to the inevitable conclusion that they are being invaded by aliens and that some of them walk among them in human form.
Honestly, that’s pretty much it. The rest of the film is more or less comedic filler. They find an alien device that is pretty cool. Stuff gets blown up, cliche’s get ground like cayenne pepper, and the low brow humor takes a side trip down Stupid Lane in the last 10 minutes. The end.
The stars. I was honestly laughing, and so was most of the audience. Two stars. I am a fan of pretty much every main character actor in here, especially Richard Avoade. I thought they all delivered a decent performance. One star. A couple of the recurring gags were worth the effort. One star. Overall a fun time watching. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Either the writers have collectively never seen an alien invasion film and really thought they were coming up with something new and cool, or they just didn’t really give a damn. One black hole. Some oddball plot holes and continuity issues, as well as the inevitable alien issue of the aliens being unkillable death warriors at the beginning and then falling over to a Super Soaker at the end. One black hole. Cliche-a-rama, and I’m not just talking about alien invasion cliche’s. One black hole. When the alien weakness is revealed it is so painfully obvious that Seth Rogan and the rest of the writers were stoned when they thought of it I could smell the pot smoke. One black hole for literally dropping face first into the gutter. The special effects seemed to waver back and fourth between decent CGI and rubber suit a go go. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a final total of two stars. Not the best movie I’ve seen, but at least I didn’t want to drown myself afterward. In fact the last couple months have not been too bad for films. Most of the are at least mediocre. Should you see it? Sure, if you liked Tower Heist and Attack the Block, which is what this movie is the illegitimate offspring of. However, this movie gains nothing for being in a big theater so consider Netflix (in fact, I can pretty much guarantee this film’s viewing success if you have the forethought to arrange for alcohol and/or wacky tobaccy before watching it). Date movie? Meh. Not a lot really going on to get her excited, if you know what I mean. Too nerdy and goofy by half. Bathroom break? Nothing in this film really requires viewing to maintain the story continuity, but if I were to pick a moment I’d say the time Evan’s wife tries to seduce him with candles and a teddy. Not a lot of story happening there.
Thanks for reading, and I apologize for not getting more reviews out there. I have been super busy with Comic Con and now I have to get ready for the huge Star Trek convention I am attending in Las Vegas. On a side note, if you happen to live in Vegas and are or know a cute nerd girl who wants to earn some money working at my booth August 8th-12th (2012) feel free to email me at [email protected] (you can also email me with movie questions or suggestions). If you have comments about this review or movie feel free to post them here, and be sure to follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Who would win? Peter Griffin versus Homer Simpson?
I have done a few of these who would win posts and they are kind of fun. For the most part I go with traditional combat characters but for today I am going to roll with a more comical fight: Homer Simpson versus Peter Griffin.
Now, they are both pretty stupid and quick to violence, but Peter has a certain canniness and homy wisdom that I think Homer is missing. I think if this were a more James Bond style fight, with all kinds of plots and devices, I would give it to Peter.
On the other hand, let us not forget that Homer was at one point a professional boxer, and at another point had a job having a cannon ball shot into his stomach. He can definitely take a punch, and in some circumstances Peter is more than a little wimpy on things like barked shins and so on. Almost to the point of being a little bitch IMO. I am going to have to give the regular fist fight to Homer.
This image I grabbed from Dave’s TV Show T shirts. I love this episode.
Jason
A dumb question from the new Spider Man movie.
OK, I finally got around to seeing this film, and a couple things struck me as painfully stupid. I’m only going to as one tonight, as Dave keeps wanting me to post more frequently, but this one is bugging the hell out of me.
Here it is. Peter Parker walks into the very high security OsCorp building, complete with some serious security guards, and manages to convince the receptionist that is is some foreign guy. Is she so dumb that she never thought to check an ID? Especially after he seems vague and confused as to the whole intern thing? Then, a few minutes later another guy shows up who probably has legitimate ID and they frog march him out of the building. At that point Peter is more or less free to roam the building at will and defeat hi tech security in order to get into the radioactive spider room. How stupid do they think we really are? This is just dumb.
The Spider Man picture I pulled out of Dave’s Marvel T Shirt collection. I am a fan of those old school images.
Jason
A dumb movie question from the Dark Knight Rises
So based on Dave’s review and my own love of Batman I went as saw this yesterday. I enjoyed it a lot, but there was one point that bugged me during the film and has been bugging me ever since.
By the way, big spoiler coming in so if you have not yet watched the film better bail out.
Anyway, at one point Bruce Wayne is at the bottom of a prison pit. The only way out is to climb up the pit wall and make some kind of jump or something. They tie a rope around his waste so he won’t die when he falls. He then has to attempt the climb over and over again.
Here’s the question. If there is a rope that goes all the way up to the top of the pit wall why didn’t he just climb up the rope? Or just use the rope to walk up the wall in relative safety. They even did that in the 70’s Batman movie. For that matter it looked like the rope was on some kind of pulley that a big dude held the end on. Why didn’t they just pull him up to the top? Dumb.
The image I got from Dave’s Batman t shirt collection. He has a lot of them.
Jason
The Dark Knight Rises Review
A film of many surprises.
This film did indeed surprise me in many ways, both positive and negative. There were aspects I expected to suck that exceeded all my expectations. Then there were aspects I thought were going to rule that ended up sucking. There were also stealth surprises, in that aspects of the movie I had no opinion of one way or another jumped up and bit me on the ass.
The big positive surprise was Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I have said several times that I didn’t think she could really play either the Cat or Selina Kyle. I didn’t think she had the role in her. I could not have been more wrong. She inhabits the role like she plans to raise six generations of Hathaways there and more or less dominates every scene she is in. Her portrayal is superlative and I honestly will have a hard time seeing anyone else in the role. Also, I have always had a thing for her (even when she was doing garbage like One Day I found her a real turn on) and no matter what she is doing in this movie she is dead sexy.
The big negative surprise was Bane. I really expected to like him as a villain but honestly found him to be really kind of boring. He suffers in comparison to the Joker in the Dark Knight of course, but even without that bar to hold up I would have found him boring and two dimensional. His plan seems vague and a little pointless, and he just doesn’t have the dialog and compelling nature of even Two Face or Scarecrow from the other movies. He more or less translates as slightly better than a muscle bound thug. (Bane image courtesy of the Batman T Shirts)
One of the surprises that really caught me off guard was Bane’s voice in the movie. Somehow they made him sound suspiciously like Alfred Pennyworth with a mouth full of loose gravel and spoken through 100 yards of steel pipe. It was really, really disconcerting. Honestly the whole time I felt like his voice had been dubbed over, really robbing his dialog of any import or strength. Plus I spent about half the time trying to understand what the hell he had just said. I’d like to not say “I’m not saying the voice doesn’t work but…” but honestly, that’s exactly what I am saying (without the but).
I have seen other critics call the story and plot ludicrous and to be fair to them, it pretty much is. The story borrows but from but does not really tell the stories from Knightfall, Breaking the Bat, No Man’s Land, and a half dozen other Batman comic story lines and as a result fails to tell one complete story. It definitely feel fragmented, convoluted, and lacking in continuity. Months of movie time are covered in the space of a few minutes and very little motivation is given for any of the supporting characters to do pretty much anything. Excellent supporting characters such as Catwoman or Alfred disappear for huge swaths of time only to reappear when the plot needs them. However, I saw the Batman Marathon at the local Regal and saw this movie after watching Batman Begins and the Dark Knight and I can say that while TDK is a brilliant story with amazing character interaction Batman Begins is ludicrous with a capital L. Ra’s al Ghul’s plan, if you recall, was to spend months injecting a fear causing hallucinogenic into the water supply and then microwave it into steam to cause the city to self destruct and teach the world a lesson or something. It doesn’t get much hokier than that.
That being said, the story does seem to lack focus and drifts from story to story, even reprising Ra’s al Ghul in order to give Bane something to do. This is a mistake in my opinion. Bane was always much cooler and more interesting in the comics when he just had a personal axe to grind with Batman. If you read my (brilliant, IMO) post on why The Wrath of Khan is the best of the Star Trek movies you might see what I mean. When the bad guy’s plan is to blow up a city (or the world) Hollywood seems to think we are going to somehow be personally connected to the story and feel some kind of kinship for all the people threatened. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is we connect with a specific character in the movie and feel more involved when there is some kind of personal vendetta going on. This is one of the many reasons the Dark Knight was so cool. Joker wanted nothing more than to screw with Batman. The threats to the city were incidental. When I watch a movie I want to feel like I’m Batman fighting to save my life, not one of the squirming millions of unwashed masses he is trying to protect.
All that being said, this movie is definitely worth watching. It drags at places, and you will feel every one of the self indulgent 164 minutes (mostly in your numb butt and full bladder), but visually stunning and the action is pretty damned good.
I’m not going to get into the story too deep as I expect pretty much everyone reading this to watch it and don’t want to hand out any spoilers. Sufficed to say Batman has been in hiding for eight years since taking the blame for the death of Harvey Dent. Bruce Wayne has been a recluse until Catwoman pulls him back to reality by robbing his safe. There is a lot of complicated, convoluted non-action in the first 45 minutes until Bane finally takes over the city No Man’s Land style. All hell breaks loose, and Batman is more or less broken. Stuff blows up. There is a massive riot. More stuff blows up. The end.
The stars. Batman movie. Two stars. Comic book movie. One star. Catwoman was pretty damned impressive, not to mention uber hot. One star. Almost all the supporting characters delivered at least a good performance, if not great. One star. Visually stunning. Expect to see some technical Oscars for this one. Two stars. While the pretty much used canon as a doormat, they tried to keep all the characters except Bane true to themselves. One star. I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a really good choice to introduce as a new character, and his role added a lot to the story. One star. The action was pretty impressive all around (not to mention brutal), especially any fight between Bane and Batman. One star. Overall entertaining as hell. Two stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes. Long, long movie with non-action portions that seemed to really mire the plot down. Pacing could have been tightened up a lot. One black hole. The main villain was pretty damned boring, which I am going to ascribe to breaking too far away from canon. One black hole. Bane’s voice. One black hole. The story was very much overly convoluted, with myriad sub plots that seemed to go no where. Too much source material in my opinion. One black hole. Some off putting continuity issues, and characters that disappeared for a while. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of seven stars. Decently good, and well worth watching. I will put this one on par with Batman Returns but well below The Dark Knight. It is a good ending to the trilogy, but I honestly did not walk away with the sense of satisfaction I had hoped to have. Should you see it? Absolutely. Spend a few extra bucks on IMAX. This is a must see for any Batman fan and a should see for everyone else. Just don’t expect to be riveted to the seat by a Heath Ledger like performance. Date movie? Only in the sense that even women should see this film. There is nothing going on here that will encourage her to take off her clothes with you, and having you geek out next to her might actually hurt your chances. See it with your friends IMO. I think you will enjoy it more. Bathroom break? Pretty much anywhere in the first 45 minutes would be fine, but if you are looking for a time later in the film I would say any of the the first two climbing out of the pit attempts. You will know what I mean. Not only is Nolan joining the “excitement through repetition” crowd but that whole sub plot adds absolutely nothing to the story except for more continuity issues.
Thanks for reading, and sorry I couldn’t gush more about this film. It was good but not gush-worthy. Worth seeing for sure, but honestly I don’t think I am motivated to see in in a theater a second time. I’d actually rather go see the Avengers again. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Feel free to post comments about this movie or review here. Any off topic comments or suggestions can go to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
