***Note: this post reveals plot points in the Dark Knight Trilogy movies so if you haven't seen these movies yet you should probably reexamine your life and ask yourself why you're alright with just throwing it down the drain by not seeing some damn good movies! You have been warned***
So if you ever met me you’ll know
right off the bat that I love Batman. (hmm, unintentional pun in there) He’s
awesome, there’s nothing Batman can’t do! NOTHING!
Recently he handed each and
every other member of the Justice League their ass back to them with a big old
Bat-bow right on top of it, THAT’S how awesome Batman is! I still believe to
this day that the Batman Animated Series is the best carton I have ever
watched. And for the longest time if you asked me what my favourite movie was
I’d say Batman Returns. But then Joel
Schumacher got his hands on it and everything went to shit. It was as if
producers didn’t know that handing over the biggest badass hero of all time to
a flaming homo would create any problems.
So when, seven years ago, I heard
that they were making a Batman reboot, (incidentally this was around the time
when the term “reboot” first started being used, it was this film and The Hulk
that sparked it. Basically they needed a euphemism to say “we fucked this
franchise up so much that we’re just going to start again!” also known in the
world of children as a do-over or a take-backsies. Then the rest of the studios
just sat around and looked at each other and said themselves: “I didn’t know we
could do that!” and immediately called every writer they knew to start writing
newer versions of shitty movies they made! But I digress) I was understandably
hesitant. You see I’ve already painfully learned my lesson about not trusting
studios when they say “trust me, this one will bet better!” from the Star Wars
Prequels. Not to mention the fact there things I was worried about: the
Batmobile didn’t look right, and stroke victim Katie Holmes was in it. But
after watching that movie I discovered two things:
1 Batman is still amazing and can
still do anything
2 Christian Nolan is probably
Batman
The resulting trilogy produced
three outstanding films that complement each other beautifully. However
throughout the film I noticed several things that left me going “wait a
minute…”
1 Batman stands up for his
principles by completely betraying them
At the beginning of Batman
Begins, Bruce Wayne travels to China or Nepal or where ever to learn from the
League of Shadows. Which he’s told is an ancient group bent on exacting justice
on the world. He’s there for what we can assume is a while. However at no point
between learning to fall through ice or how to get hit by sticks while standing
on poles does Bruce ever bother to ask: “Hey, so what do you guys do exactly?” When he asks what they
plan to do with a murder they caught, the only response he gets is “Justice.” But doesn’t think to
follow up with more questions like: “what do you mean justice? That cage he’s in is
pretty small; don’t you think that’s cruel and unusual punishment? Why are about fifty guys up in the middle of
nowhere just to jail one criminal? What do you guys do again?” I guess he was
late for his falling through ice class and didn’t have time to get into details.
So finally its graduation day for good old Brucie and as a gift he gets to
decapitate the criminal they have.
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| Seriously, what did you think we've been doing all this time? |
This is where we as an audience learn that
Batman will be a hero who will always refuse to kill because that will make him
as bad as the criminals. So to escape the people he just spent months living
with and learning from, (but apparently never what it is exactly they do) he kills
everyone.
Wait—what?
Yup! So against killing a
murderer, Bruce throws a red hot poker into the store of gunpowder. Chaos in
sues and fake Ras al Gul is dead through Bruce’s DIRECT actions. Now sure maybe
some of the other people in the place managed to get out. But you can be damn
sure that it wasn’t any of the guys Bruce knocked unconscious when they
attacked him! So we’re looking at a body count of at least 8 or more. Oh yeah,
what the hell happened to the murderer? You know; the guy who started this
whole fight? The one that Bruce refused to kill because he was better than the
League of Shadows? Once the fireworks start to go off, we never see him again.
It’s safe to say that no one else in the league bothered to help him get out
and since Bruce was too busy helping Liam Neason we can only assume that he
died in the explosion. So again, as a DIRECT result of Bruce’s actions, the
very person he refused to kill is now dead. Well at least you have the entire
League of Shadows hating you!
2 Batman lets two criminals free
Later in Batman Begins, Batman
discovers a plot to poison the city of Gotham’s water supply, ran by Scarecrow
in Arkham Asylum. If you don’t know what Arkham Asylum is, go ahead and kill
yourself right now, I’ll wait…
So now that everyone without
purpose in life is gone I can remind you that Arkham Asylum houses the
CRIMINALLY INSANE. So Batman is in this place looking to save Katie Holmes (no
idea why though) when the po-po shows up. Batman’s screwed right? But you’re
forgetting the first thing we learned about these movies! Batman cool as a
cucumber passes off Katie to Gordon and then sneaks out the back. And by
sneaking out, I obviously mean blowing a huge fucking hole out of some inmate’s
cell! BLAM!
Hold up!
Batman, you know that you’re not
the only one who can walk out of giant holes in walls right? Other people, like
those two inmates that were sitting there watching you leave for example, could use
that hole too! I know that you’re in a bind, but wasn’t there a better way of
getting out of there without bringing a couple of (and I cannot stress this
enough) CRIMINALLY INSANE convicts with you? Sure later on in the movie all the
inmates at Arkham were let out but Batman didn’t know that at the time, and if
he did he should be doing everything he can to prevent that from happening. And
it’s not as if Batman didn’t notice the inmates, he even takes the time to give
them a courteous salutation before he blast his way to freedom… and I guess theirs
as well.
3 Batman gives the Joker some
alone time with his target
The Dark Knight is about comic
books’ greatest villain doing what he does best: fucking shit up! In his
campaign to create chaos, the Joker says he’s going to kill three people, one
of them being Harvey Dent. Now the Joker at this point has already proven that
he’s not just blowing smoke, he actually delivers. And true to form, dispenses
the other two people like it ain’t no thang. For Dent, the Joker even goes to
the added courtesy of showing up in person to complete his hat trick. Luckily
Batman’s already there (as Bruce Wayne) so he can calmly knock Dent the fuck out,
stuff him in a closet, and bar the doors so he can’t get out.
Now I know what you’re thinking,
this should be the moment where I question what’s going on, seeing as how
Batman shouldn’t have known that the Joker is after Dent. You know, because he
was busy at a party when the police found the clues indicating who was going to
be targeted and the other two were killed within minutes while Batman was,
again, at that same party, begging Katie Ho- oh I guess it’s Maggie Gyllenhaal
now- to have sex with him. That would seem strange, but I’m pretty sure that
Batman is also a Jedi so the force must have told him.
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| Apparently there's a talent/attractiveness trade off to these things |
Anyway, the Joker shows up and
starts asking for Dent. Batman starts to put the kibosh on the Joker’s plans but
then: KERBLAMO! Joker drops Maggie right out the window! Batman literally
swoops in to save her, (and that bitch STILL won’t put out!) and then… nothing.
Nothing else happens.
Say wha?
So Batman just leaves the Joker
alone? Where Dent was? Not to mention all the other innocent people that were
there, that the joker will probably threaten, beat and murder to get
information out of. So what? The Joker just lost interest in his plan and went
home? Did he let himself out, or did Alfred show him the way? Maybe even get
him a cab? Don’t bother looking around, like in that closet which for some
reason has a metal rod jammed between the handles! Eh I’m sure everything
worked itself out; you know sometimes the best thing to do is do nothing.
4 Batman unleashes hell,
apparently
In the final movie of the
trilogy, Batman’s new foe is Bane; and as Alfred explains it he was “born and
raised in hell on earth.” Now that may seem like a cute metaphor, but what
Alfred is describing is the worst prison in the entire world that houses the
worst criminals ever. This is where Bane comes from. It’s essentially a pit that
they throw prisoners in to forget about them. This may seem like a nice anecdotal
piece of backstory for Bane but the description comes in handy later when,
after breaking Batman’s back, Bane leaves him there.
After a quick punch to the spine
by an old man instructed by an even older doctor with a morphine addiction that
doesn’t speak English (accept inexplicably later when he needs to give Batman
some plot changing advice) Batman is good to go for an escape attempt. The only
way out is to re-enact old school Prince of Persia and climb a wall and jump a
gap. (If you’ve ever played it, then you’ll know how stupid frustrating it is!)
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| Pictured: Batman escaping prison |
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Once Batman is safely out he’s off to conquer the world! But not before he
tosses a rope down to his new found buddies so they too, can get out!
Pause.
How, again, did Alfred describe
this prison? “Hell on earth?” So these people would probably be pretty
dangerous right? And I’ll bet they’re also pretty pissed off they were just
thrown into a stone pit to die. I’ll bet they would want to get revenge on a
society that just abandoned them. And seeing as how they were the WORST
criminals in the world I’ll even bet that they know some pretty horrific ways
to do just that!
Oh well, they won’t be in Gotham,
so it’s not really Batman’s problem. Fuck you, rest of the world!
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| Exactly! |
