FROM RADAR ONLINE: Can a perfect movie have grievous errors? I SAY YES, and I get to answer questions like that, in such a fashion, because I am now pretending to be a film critic, something I haven’t done since Rex Reed went on vacation like two years ago and I reviewed Snakes On A Plane, which is a shame really, because wouldn’t you really have preferred Rex review it? “THESE SNAKES! BRING A BARF BAG! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE MOVIES TODAY!” Can you see the posters? “REX REED: “GOD SNAKES, NATURE’S WORST ANIMAL!” I fucking love that guy, even though I was really mad at him for a while over his review of Funny Games. Except the 30-minute rant I got from him after that Wachowski Brothers (SIBLINGS?) latest movie was amazing. He kept talking about “Southern salads” and color palates. By which he meant like, the Jello-based salads. Anyway he didn’t review Batman (OH wait, he totally did! “Preposterous, unnecessary”!), even though he was at the screening with me, as were Dan Kois and Dana Stevens, both rather adorable. Dana has mastered the art of summer dressing, which you wouldn’t know if you read her film reviews on whichever thing she writes for. Is it the Slate or the Salon? Who knows! I can’t tell them apart anymore. Salon has all that stuff about Hillary Clinton, that’s how you tell. Hey so Batman, or as he is awesomely called in the movie, The Batman. I think they do that because the populace of Gotham realizes they don’t know Batman. They are just describing the guy who dresses up like a bat. So he is The Batman.
Here are some incredibly awesome things about the awesome movie.
1. No flashbacks to The Batman’s parents getting killed! WE ARE OVER THAT. THANK YOU DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN. That shit is asked and answered!
2. Gary Oldman is the exact opposite of the scene-stealing character actor and it is really great. You keep thinking, “Hey, that’s Gary Oldman!” Because you’d have no way of knowing and he is really wonderful and even sort of demure.
2.5 You know Anthony Michael Hall is in this movie, right? YUP.
3. Aaron Eckhart looks just like he does in person, which is to say, really hot. He has the most incredible hair on his forearms. It is really something. When you see him in person, which has happened to me THREE (3!) times this year, you think: Gosh, yes please. You are like a slab of Canadian ice cream. He is good for this movie. There is nothing to complain about with any of the actors really. It is a motherfucking acting fiesta.
3.5 I never really liked the work of that sad, doomed Heath Ledger guy. Never got it. You know what? I saw A Knight’s Tale. It sucked. In this, he is the greatest thing since the invention of cheese.
So here are my two major (only?) complaints, which are:
1. The Batman’s “The Batman” voice, which is crucial apparently to his element of disguise because he is really Bruce Wayne (HA SPOILER), is a little over the top! It is like they looped it all and then ran it through Garageband and then ran it through Logic and then there was some sort of “Crazy Rasp” setting that they turned up to 11. It’s sexy, don’t get me wrong! The Batman is hot. He just talks a little bit like a Vietnam war vet on the corner with a $5-million audio system backing him up.
2. It happens in the first ten minutes of the movie, so it’s not A SPOILER. There’s a really wonderful opening sequence in which that actor appears, whose name I can’t remember, but he was like in some Todd Haynes movie or something and also he was on the T.V. in something? I am looking it up on IMDB. HA, WILLIAM FICHTNER. I love him. He was in Invasion! And Armageddon! He has crazy cheekbones.
So at the end of this sequence of action, which I will not describe or SPOIL IN ANY WAY, a criminal disappears into the streets in a vehicle disguised among a fleet of similar vehicles! The problem is, this vehicle has been parked messily through the wall of a building for the last ten minutes, and then when it is driven out of that building, no one notices, including the people on the street who are walking by and being all “la la la.” See, maybe I’m just a noticer. I notice things in real life (IRL!) like things that are stuck inside other things suddenly leaving. But then I am smarter than the common Gotham resident.
Those are my only two (2) complaints about this freakin’ awesome movie. It is so awesome, I am going again as soon as I am near a movie theater. And you know, I never see stuff in IMAX, cuz the last thing I saw in IMAX was The 300, and you know, I happen to like fully-stuffed leather codpieces and sweaty man thighs and things like that? But NOT THAT BIG. Not THAT CLOSE AND LARGE. I was all “BRING A BARF BAG” a la Rex Reed because IMAX makes me seriously bilious.
Except I will absolutely go see The Batman in the IMAX, because, what’s to say, it is so awesome. I will see it again and again. I will watch it with my children. I will pray that the DVD release has an EVEN LONGER version. Also in case no one has mentioned it yet? The score is wonderful. It is beautifully, beautifully scored. There are at least two 20-something minute sweeping, carefully-constructed, gorgeously-paced sequences tied nicely together by the scoring and I am extremely appreciative of this.
My God was this Batman movie ever good.
By Choire Sicha
[...] Okay, so it’s not a couple of hot chicks at the mall. But it certainly IS Halloweeny and who among us perhaps overenthusiastically theatrical adults hasn’t seen this expression on the face of a budding drama critic? Seriously, everybody’s a critic, even the ones who still wet the bed at night. And I’m looking at you, Rex Reed! [...]