I also thought it was a very good movie.
One comment: the microwave thingy. If it can vaporize the water supply, why doesn’t it vaporize the water in people, killing them? Ah well, the physics are above average for a comic book movie.
My thought exactly! If it can vaporize water in a subterrainean water main many feet away, why doesn’t the guy STANDING ON TOP OF IT feel even a touch toasty?
Otherwise, superb! Not too many throwaway lines; even the “Do you drive stick”/“I gotta get me one of those!” batmobile-lusting was done well.
Bonus: at my screening at the Alamo Drafthouse, some Bat Conservation International folks were there giving prizes for answering Bat-trivia (about actual bats). I won a T-shirt, book and a DVD. Yay for me!
That was one of the Drafthouses in Austin, presumably? Ah, my spiritual home. I saw it at the Drafthouse here in Houston, which is OK but a pale, pale imitation of the Real Thing.
My question about the microwave thing was where the drug was already in the water, but had to be vaporized and inhaled to activate it. Haven’t people been taking hot showers and boiling this water on the stove for awhile? I also don’t really care all that much. They sold the idea well enough.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. And that if they had been dumping the chemicals in the water supply for days or weeks, there would be a lot of it that had already gone through the water supply and on to wastewater, and there would be a lot of completely or almost completely clean water.
But then after wild guessing, I thought that not everyone would have to be affected by the drug- only enough people that once driven crazy they could destroy Gotham City.
Overall there were obviously some plot holes, but nothing that detracted from my enjoyment of the movie.
I am guessing that there was not a large enough concentration of the drug; they were adding small amounts daily . Didn’t they poured the large canister of it into the water system after Batman busts the place?
I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think its on the level with Batman Returns. It wasn’t dark enough. The villains were waaay under-represented. Me and my roommate ended up arguing over who the main villain was supposed to be (Raz or Scarecrow). I really missed the Gotham City that Tim Burton created.
The insight into Batman’s origins and motivations (no guns, no executions) and gadgets was very pleasing however. The way people react when they first see the Batmobile is priceless. I just wish they’d have done more villain character development as well, rather then have him be a weirdo raving lunatic for no reason what so ever. Altogether a very good movie though, I am looking forward to the sequel already.
As far as the “realism” of the mega-magnatron thingie is concerned – it didn’t bother me at all.
Extremely selective microwaves are a breeze, if you’re prepared to accept that rooftops in Gotham are typically fortified strongly enough that a speeding tank landing on them just knocks a few shingles off. (And I am- I figure it has something to do with hailing taxicabs.) 
Maybe they had to reinforce all the rooftops to handle the 3 level elevated train system that runs through the middle of town.
You like Batman Returns?
[QUOTE=faldureon]
I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think its on the level with Batman Returns. It wasn’t dark enough. The villains were waaay under-represented. Me and my roommate ended up arguing over who the main villain was supposed to be (Raz or Scarecrow)./QUOTE]
That is actually what I thought made the movie good. In the other films. especially the latter one, the villians were co-stars, not supporting actors. I don’t think the appeal of Batman is as much the villians as Batman’s psyche. That desrves co-star credit.
I think that the main villian was the corruption in Gotham, when its citizens turned a blind eye and watched the city destroy itself (mixed metaphor). This the story of Batman as he comes into his own and realizes his purpose, when Bruce Wayne turned his life over to another persona. A clear cut villian would have obscured that. Although I would say that Ra’s is obviously the more important villian. Crane was just a tool.
We went to the new one on south Lamar. Very spiffy. The line was inside (yay for air conditioning…it was 98F outside)! You always have to wait outside downtown or at the Village. Plus, they had a Beer Cart selling cold Shiner Bock and XX while we waitied.
I’ve been told there’s at least one shirtless scene, and that Christian’s pretty buffed up.
I have to go and see this soon.
More then any other Batman movie out there as a matter of fact. It has Catwoman, Penguin, Max Shreck, an incredible soundtrack, a dark and dystopian feel to it, the fact that Batman damn near looses and never manages to get Catwoman to stop being evil proving that some wrongs can never be made right again… What more can one ask for from a movie?
And yes as a matter of fact I do rewatch it as well as House of Sand and Fog, Monster and Requiem for a Dream in sequence over one or two weeks about every year or so, just in case you were curious.
No, it doesn’t have the Penguin. It has Edward Flipperhands, a pale imitation thereof. It’s a Tim Burton movie much more than it’s a Batman movie. I like Walken, but Max Schreck is pretty unimpressive as Bat-villains go. I mean, geez, Tim Burton, go light some candles and listen to the Cure or something. We don’t need to see your depressive self-loathing in cinematic form.
The one, brief, shining moment in Batman Returns that I truly appreciated was a throwaway oneliner when Batman and Catwoman are battling, and I’m sure I have some script doctor to thank - the bit where Catwoman talks about being hungry, or not having had a bite all day, or whatever, and Batman retorts, as he throws her down… ‘Eat floor. High Fiber.’
This explains so much… You like being depressed.
Was anyone else really bothered that Gotham was Chicago and that Chicago had an island? Gotham has always been New York to me and I’d never think of having it be Chicago.
That and the Ra’s Al Ghul’s version of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation dancers bugged me too.
I did love Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) in the movie. (I feel like I should say one positive thing here).
Lies. Damned lies. I am a very happy and optimistic person. But I do very much enjoy a movie that doesn’t follow the happy go-lucky pink bubble wrap style that most movies these days adopt. I never read any of the Batman comics and I am a very big Tim Burton fan, so as far as I am concerned the second one is as good as they get. Unless of course the sequel to Batman Begins introduces a show-stealing villain and has Burton as the set deigner, then perhaps I’ll reconsider.
Having only ever been to Chicago once and not making any particular note of the local geography, I can’t say the thought even crossed my mind.
I thought it was a little strange that “The Narrows” was connected to Gotham proper exclusively through drawbridges (and the train link apparantly). No fixed bridges or tunnels? I didn’t dwell on it, though.
In the comics, most of Gotham is an island like Manhattan. In the “No Man’s Land” storyline from a few years back, Gothm is mostly demolished by a major earthquake and is abandoned by the US Government and declared, you guessed it, a no man’s land, complete with destroyed bridges and mines in the water separating Gotham from the mainland.
I just got back from seeing this. Damn fine Batman movie, damn fine. I like Batman Forever a lot, but I’m a sucker for Jim Carrey. That one does flashy comic book well, this one did dark and artsy comic book extremely well.
I really didn’t have a problem with any of the cast. I loved them all.
My one minor complaint is Bale’s Batman voice. He skipped over “gravelly” and went straight to “lifetime smoker with a tracheotomy.” It was just…really over the top.
For the record, although I don’t know too much about the comic book Batman, I do know that Ra’s Al Ghul is most definitely the main villain. He’s essentially Batman’s equal in fighting skills and resourcefulness. And yes, the men who were called Ra’s Al Ghul were decoys; Liam Neeson (Ducard) was the real deal. From what I remember of Ra’s, he even looked nearly just like him.
When I first heard about this movie, I winced. I expected it to be even worse than Batman & Robin, simply because that appeared to be the general trend of the movies. I’m very happy to have been mistaken.
I dunno. Chicago has so much great neo-Gothic and Art Deco architecture – it’s perfect for Gotham.
Some locations that are pure Gotham:
It doesn’t bother me that they used locations in London, either, although of course “Gotham has alway been in America.”
