The Dark Knight is one of the biggest releases of this summer, if not the year. How do you prepare yourself for such a monumental picture? By watching previous depictions of Batman in movies, of course. We’re making our way through ten feature length incarnations of the Dark Knight’s stories, from Adam West to animation. We invite you to join us for the ride as we analyze the good, the bad, and the Bat.
(And yes, we’re actually re-watching all of these old flicks rather than just relying on our memory, so we can honestly evaluate each of them in preparation for The Dark Knight).
Day Eight: Batman: Dead End (2004)
I know I’ve been saying all along that we would be looking at ten “feature-length incarnations” of Batman, and today’s is significantly shorter than that. I haven’t been lying. Along the way there was a change in plans, when I realized the best things to say about The Batman/Superman Movie had already been said in the entries for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Kevin Conroy is awesome, Mark Hamill continues to excel as the Joker, etcetera, etcetera.
Looking for a replacement for the animated feature that would be redundant, I was reminded of Sandy Collora’s awesome fan film, which features Batman chasing down an escaped Joker, only to find himself in the path of another battle entirely. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s worth the eight minutes of your life to check out:
In such a short film, it’s hard to really analyze what’s being done here, but there is some good stuff happening. For one, I love the departure from the rubberized Batsuit that Burton, Schumacher, and even Nolan would rely on for their character. Batman started out with no body armor (that we know of). I like the idea of a built chest covered by a shirt with a bat-symbol on it. It may not seem “real” for a hero who draws gunfire to wear, but it feels a lot more like the early days of the character.
Collora’s Joker has a pretty cool appearance (if you don’t recognize him, that’s Boner from Growing Pains, not to mention the son of Walter Koenig (the original Checkov). I can’t say I like the interaction between Batman and Joker, especially since it reminds me of the Burton idea of Batman and Joker each being responsible for the other’s creation. Still, the “daddy” line is delivered well.
Then, of course, the story jumps the tracks to another genre entirely. While we’d never get a feature film with this kind of story (or at least not a good one), it’s a story that has been explored in the comics, so it’s good that Collora’s short feels like a comic book put up on screen. The writer/director doesn’t try to bring any sort of reality to his version of the character, and winds up telling a better short story than Schumacher did with significantly more resources and the official use of the character.
The Good: It’s geeky fun, and pretty decent quality despite a small budget. Until Nolan brought out his big budget picture, this was the best live action version of Batman to see light in quite a few years.
The Bad: Collora still has a flawed version of Batman, even in only eight minutes. Most bothersome is that the Dark Knight was about to toss out a killing blow before he was interrupted. As I’ve been so frequently reminded while writing this series: Batman does not kill.
The Bat: I love the simplicity of Batman’s costume here. He also has some sort of batknife which I can’t say I care for quite as much, especially in light of what I mentioned above as far as a killing blow.
Final Rating:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Prepare-For-The-Dark-Knight-Batman-Dead-End-9524.html
