Batman - the plot thickens

I still haven't recovered from quite how bad the last Batman film was. 

So I went back and watched the first 2 films again and came to a rather surprising conclusion. 

With the benefit of hindsight it's pretty obvious while "Batman Begins" is pretty much perfect the rot actually set in with the next film in the series.

Plot-wise  "The Dark Knight" is a mess. At the time of it's release that largely went unnoticed due to it featuring the best of Batman's foes, The Joker.  This was hyped because Heath Ledger did a pretty good job in the role which, unfortunately turned out to be his last which ofc ended up in hype overdrive. 

The two things that are worst plot-wise are:
- Joker spends much of the film acting as a glorified, if rather psychotic,  mob hitman. He only starts to get really interesting at the end once he is done with the mob and he makes it clear he believes himself to be Batman's opposite and that Batman created him this way. Strangely watching the film again I liked the final "boat" scene much more than first time through, this was the "real" Joker at work. 
- Harvey Dent/Two-Face just fails. The transformation is unbelievable and just feels like its been tacked on to give the film a reason for Batman going on the run to bridge into the last film. This is total fail. Reasoning is "Harvey killed some policeman, but he is meant to be a good guy so the people can't know. So Batman must take the fall" Er??? 
>>> With all the chaos going on that night it would have been easy to finger the Joker as responsible
>>> The film couldn't bring itself to show Two-Face killing a woman. So at least one policewoman knows the truth. 

(Other terrible thing was the casting of Rachel. Thank God she was killed midway through.)





 

Armstrong Drugs Cheat

Good day due to some bad news. Armstrong wont be contesting the charges against him.

Nothing to do with the rubbish about him being tired and not getting a fair hearing. It's simply the only way he can escape with any credibility. 

Sad thing is he will get away with it, the vast majority of those who know about Armstrong know little about cycling and will buy his martyrdom act.

Still its good news. Whatever eventually happens with Armstrong the facts are that cycling is cleaner now than it has ever ben  he can be held to account so much later should act as a deterrent for those tempted to screw it in future. 

Some related links 

Paul Kimmage interview Landis


Full list of Armstrongs doping history

The Dark Knight Fails

Saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.  Huge disappointment, utter rubbish. Takes near 3 hours to mash up tired story of evil baddy out to destroy whole of Gotham forcing Batman out of retirement so he can save the day and fake his death so he can retire again (and presumably rinse and repeat next time the studio needs to make some money)

Typical rubbish scene - Hundreds of police armed with batons charge building filled with defenders all carrying automatic weapons.  And win??  

Most memorable moment. Bomb is going to go off, so ofc has a hackneyed timer. It shows 15 minutes to go. I will forever recall my heart sinking at the realisation there is so much time left.

With benefit of hindsight its pretty obvious now that this series failed to learn from previous ones (most notably Tim Burton but also recent Spiderman).

Third/final part is always going to be the hardest to pull off so it makes sense to save the best villain for it.  For Batman this is, by a country mile, The Joker. 

So previous film should not have featured Joker, his role could equally well have been done by, say the Riddler.

Final film may then have been worth watching. 

Something else it could have done would be borrow from the The Dark Knight Returns. Another hackneyed old plot from the "Rises" film is how rookie cop turns into Robin. Way more interesting would have been if Batmans absence had been filled with vigilantes who differ from Batman in being more willing to use violence. (alluded to in Rise when Cat kills Bane). So Batman fights 2 foes, evil Joker creates and evil he has created himself.

Then his death at end becomes way more interesting. Its not just so he can go and drink martinis in the sun. Its acceptance that people need to look after themselves not rely on some super being to make everything right.  Fine sentiment, but leaves hanging the question of whether people really can live up to and desire this???