| Comments on Tuesday 21 June 2005: |
| Lots of people have been posting one-line positive reviews of Batman Begins and/or Mr and Mrs Smith recently. I can only assume there's some horrible subliminal trick in them to make people say nice things without actually remembering anything about the movie, since normally people would say more than just "it was awesome" or, as was in several instances the case with Batman, "it was awesome except that the fight scenes did that thing movies keep doing nowadays where the camera is in too close". I imagine both movies emphasised this 'good memory of the movie' trick by being really bloody boring for the first half, and then getting better (though still not good), thus making people feel positive about it before they leave the cinema. Now, when I heard that about Batman fights being shown from too close up, I imagined something like this:  Which is a pretty annoying way to show fight scenes, but bearable. What the movie actually did, however, was more like this:  (Images mangled from this quite amusing thing.) If it had been a good movie apart from the fight scenes that might have been okay, but no, it was a really boring movie that might have been redeemed by having decent fight scenes, if it had had any. To be fair to it, I did enjoy, near the end, that (oh no, spoilers!) the Scarecrow is beaten by a normal woman with a tazer after he prances around her for a bit going "look at me, I'm scary", but I was rather hoping to enjoy a Batman movie for Batman being cool, not for the fact that he was upstaged by a random woman and policeman Gordon. Really I should have known not to see it after there being so many vague positive reviews, and then seeing the trailer which for some reason considers Batman asking "does it come in black?" about a potential batmobile to be the height of wit. Because, ha ha, I'm Batman, and so I'm a poncy goth, you see, and want black things. Mr and Mrs Smith wasn't quite so bad; the action was watchable, at least, but to make up for that being quite good, there was instead a whole lot of badly mumbled dialogue and people talking over each other. So the best thing I can say about that is that at least brghrbmlemble. But the ending is rghblrghm throatwobbler mangrove. [11:09] |
| someguy |
| im so glad batman doesn't have those "pow"-"bang"-"tssum" sorta animations you know..hey this is a great site..and your surrelestic quote generator rockz..im using it too.. chao |
| Nameless |
| Hey the pow bang bap annimations were what made the batman TV show bearable when I was 7.... I do have to say though the TV Mr. Freeze was the better of the two. |
| RavenBlack |
| The TV villains were the best in every instance except possibly the 'dark' cartoons. The movies have all sucked (except the oldest one that was just a feature-length of the TV ones). |
| Blal |
| *spoilers (sorta)* Ha I liked the end where batman is like "dont panic.... youve been poisoned" thats one of the most panic inducing lines ever... especially when you also happen o be hopping rooftops in a tank going 15000 mph being chased by cops and crashing through stuff... with explosions... hell id panic without the poison |
| RavenBlack |
| I enjoyed that he was doing that to someone who was supposed to be about to die from too much fear. Oh hey, you're dying of fear, quick, let's put you in the most scary situation possible, that'll help! |
| James |
| I'd like to register a complaint: you aren't discerning enough in your movie reviews. You fairly reliably like things that I don't, so that's a point in your favour, I'll conceed, but you have the ill grace to universally pan both movies I like and movies I can't stand. How am I supposed to reliably cease thinking and cede my capacity for opinion and independant thought if you other people insist on being so unrealiable? If you keep this up, I'll form an opinion of my own, just you watch! James |
| RavenBlack |
| You're reading my reviews wrong, obviously. You aren't supposed to be able to just agree or disagree with whether I like a movie - the thing is whether you agree or disagree with *why* I don't like a movie. For example, I know that when I complain that a movie is slow-paced and full of padding-music, that won't bother most people because everyone else liked Lord of the Rings, but if I ever say a movie has too many explosions and fights then *nobody in the world* will like it. I'm usually fairly specific about whether my complaints are of pacing or scripting or camerawork or directorial things (or, in the case of Batman, all of these), so you just need to know which you're more sensitive to, and in which direction, and you'll be able to use me as a measure. Just as I know that if Verlaine ever says a movie is slow-paced then I will hate it with all my spleen. |
| kilo |
| i don't know what's more annoying, a hack "review" of a great film like Batman Begins or this James guy holding out hope for the movie reviews on this site! Don't you know there are real places to read about movies? try rottentomatoes.com |
| RavenBlack |
| Hooray, I'm a hack *and* not a real place. |
| becca |
| i just enjoyed the picture that the batman image came from. where did you get that little comic anyway? p.s i too often feel like the only one who didn't love lord of the rings |