HELLO CBM guys,
And here it is article number 3 in 2 days, thank god my boss is not on CBM. Well first of all, this is clearly my opinion. I live in Bulgaria (Europe) and we do not have comic books in stores, so i am purely basing this on my movie taste and will not argue with how this was portraied in the comics. As i've read most of the classic graphic novels and i have a very huge DC Comics book showing the history of DC from beggining to the creation of the NEW 52 by Mr Daniels, my comic book knowledge is restricted to that plus a few online copies of the regular New 52 series mostly Batman. Meaning my comicbook knowledge is not to be trusted at all times.
Also i will not be including any of the animated DC Batman movies in here as we are only ranking the Burton - Schumacher - Nolan movies. There are some great animated movies but lets leave those for people that prefer them over the cinematic ones.
Now at number
7 i offcourse will put
Batman and Robin
Clearly noone's favourite Batman movie, to tell you the truth i would happily exclude it from any charts at all like it never happened, but it did. Now this movie clearly made huge mistakes, bat nipples, bat credit card, neon lights to everything, Arnold, Bane, the Batmobile, Batgirl, the costumes as you may see above. Clooney was miscats here obviously, still he is a great actor but no Batman. We can probably find more if we watch the movie, but why waste time, this was clearly made to make a billion toys and a trillion dollars from them. Now Schumacher is the guy that probably hurt the most here besides the fans, his career took a fall (you can check IMDB, he has been involved in so many cheap movies after that it almost does not make sense to keep trying at this job) and never got back, i understand he has the taste for men but that should not mean to make the costume a sexy bat gown.
What i loved about it? Nothing, it made me fear seeing Mr Freeze on screen ever again. It showed me that my Batman movies need to be about Batman and not the Bat family. Please Warner do not ever attempt to make anything resembling this ever again.
At number
6 comes the prequel
Batman Forever
Now when i saw the trailer for Batman Forever i nearly cried out of joy, i was 10 years old. I can honestly say that when i left the cinema i was a happy boy, i mean it was a Batman movie and i was a Batman fan to the end. I personally loved Kilmer in it, Jim Carrey did not do it for me. I would have prefered if he took another approach at the role of the Riddler, i mean this is Batman not the Mask. Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor but here he was simply a two faced version of Jack Nicholson in his portrail. Most of the scenes that i enjoyed involved Batman/Wayne and some of the action in the beggining of the movie. Now in this movie they had already established the now famous formula for sequels, more heroes, more villains, more explosions, more effects and less story. This needs to be killed in every movie right now.
Kilmer made it easy for us to not focus on Keaton's absence and enjoy it while we are in the theather. The movie could have been very good.
At number
5 is
Batman Returns
Yes i know you disagree, but what escalated in Batman Forever and Robin, started right here. The formula more villains, more sound stage locations, more penguins resulted in this movie taking this position.
I loved both The Penguin and Catwoman in this movie, Danny De Vito killed it as this guy, yes the Burton version of him ( i would have prefered the mob one), and Michelle was great as Catwoman. Still i would have prefered a bit more thought in the process of becoming Catwoman than just dropping her from 20 floors and getting licked by a dozen cats, SERIOUSLY!!
The atmosphere of the movie was very dark (ok with me) and i felt we were at this soundstage the whole time, which at the end made feel like a different Gotham than the 89 version and less as a sequel (No Kim Basinger as well). This movie is a classic and i love watching it over and over again, but we needed more thought and development in terms of Wayne/Batman as a character and what still motivates him to go on doing what he does. By the way Christopher Walken was as much a villains as The Penguin in this movie, great acting. Maybe next time cut the part with the minion army of Penguins running around with rockets, just saying!
At number
4 The Dark Knight Rises
Well when it comes to Nolan i am definitelly a fan, but i had some major issues with the way he choose to end this trilogy. First of all Wayne's big break of 8 years at the lonely mansion, i just thought 8 is a bit much, this put me off a bit. I did not buy that for 8 years nothing happened in Gotham, crime central of the USA - Nope did not buy it! Second of all Thalia, no no no, the villain here is Bane, we really could have lived without the Thalia twist seriously. Bane's death, was a big NO for me, come on guys get a grip, we deserved a big fight there, a punch for punch fight where Batman ends the dude, not his Batpod sending him to the 80s with a rocket from Selina. Another bugger in the movie was the time they spent on the prison aspect (we did that in Batman Begins - remember), how did he get back from Nowhereland to Gotham?? I loved Anne as Selina Kyle, she really did a good job, i did not enjoy her casting at first, but she made it work. Tom Hardy needed to have a more personal plan in this, not be the puppet of this secondary villain. I loved the fight, i loved the stock exchange attack scene, the plane take over and the way he carried himself in the entire movie.
Maybe a hell more of BANE and less of Thalia Chris, please take notes.
Overall i enjoyed the movie, but i feel like with the matrix they had set up in the script i could have revised it myself and made it better. Yes i do. Too many characters in this movie, we could have easily left Thalia, Robin, the new cop on the block. Also the daylight scenes did not do it for me at all, i mean the movie is called the DARK Knight not the Day Walker.
We need to do a Kickstarter and go to New York for 6 months and write a script, Ben will be Batman and we will use Two Face for the villain, let go someone do that.
The movie is still better that most of the ComicBookMovies out there based on Gods, Unfrozen Gentlemen, Rage monsters and people that mimic Bruce Wayne with Hi Tek suits.
At number 3 Batman Begins
This movie came at a time when i was giving up on the concept of seeing another Batman movie ever (thanks Joel), i kind of gave up on the idea. There was rumours of them but no proof. They wanted to do a Batman Beyond type of movie where, Wayne is old and another one fills in the Cowl, well NOOOO! Thanks for the idea but no, nope! Batman is Bruce Wayne and it will remain so. I loved that they took the time and did the origin right, i loved the villains. Personally i think that Scarecrow could have been even more crazy and insane and bring this to the maximum Leaving Las Vegas experience. We could have gone totaly trippy there, having in mind what he can do with the gas. Ra's Al Ghul i loved, but their personal relationship with Bruce took away some of the suprise and the option for him to become the really "bad" guy he needed to be. Maybe there was a way to expand on the idea of Ra's and make it more of a character piece that the performance we got from Liam. Dont get me wrong, i love actors like him and Bruce Willis, that always play themselves and win with it, but it's just not fitting for Batman that much in terms of acting. We needed someone that is fresh and new and need to do something amazing and solidify himself in cinema history. We needed hunger for the part.
Overall i love the movie and the vision, the tone, the darkness and the teaser at the end. We were first in the tease game Marvel, write that down.
At number 2 is Batman
. I mean this movie came out in 1989, it came in my country a few months later and i was 5 at the time, it was a summer cinema no roof. I came out from this wanting to go back on the next day, watching this make me think how did this conclude to Batman and Robin.
The Joker was great, a little from the comics, a little Burton, a little Nicholson. Great performance, not to many characters fr us to distract ourselves. There was a motive for the Joker and for Batman to go after each other. Gotham was beautiful as hell could be, Kim Basinger
was the best romance for Bruce Wayne from the 4 movies and made actually some sense. The Batmobile was my favourite of all the 4 movies, no Robin, no Neon lights. Great tease of his parents death without going in too much in it and wasting precious Bat time. The supporting cast was again very good actors, the mayor, Grisom, Harvey Dent, Alfred (RIP), the reporter, There nothing i dont like in this movie to be honest with you guys.
Burton should have taken example of Batman and made more good movies like that, not become the fairy master of children books.
At Number
1 is
The Dark Knight
Well Nolan did it, congrats! After Batman Begins i was happy to get another one and confused as to who is going to top the Joker from 89 (Mr Jack N.). Then they cast Heath Ledger and i am a bit confused. What should we do panic, well i visited his IMDB page and downloaded all of his movies, watched them and to tell you the truth i instantly realised that this is the guy. I was prooven right in 2008, i had people who made fun of me for liking Batman call me and tell me how good this movie is.
It had a very good script, i love the mafia angle of it, i love the Harvey Dent twist of it, but most of all Heath killed it as the Joker. We needed a crazier more 2000 Joker, who incorporated the ideas of chaos, madness, the denial of money as a ultimate goal. The mafia was truly confused when he burned all the cash just like that, they as people that only care for that did not know what to make of this guy and a vigilante dressed as a bat. Bale maybe made fun of for his bat voice, however he looked most like someone that would dress as a bat and kick your ass if you overstep his law.
Its hard to be the guy playing Batman since you have such a performance from your fellow colleagues in roles like The Joker and Two Face. Eckhart really is the definitive portrayal of Two Face on screen and next time Batman goes solo i hope we get a movie oriented around Two Face as the main
BAD guy.
This movie has so many epic scenes and its such a precious gem, it made room for so many of the now so popular CBM out there.
The Dark Knight the ultimate battle between the villain all superheroes wish they have The Joker and the most memorable and iconic hero to ever touch the screen Batman.
Thank you for the time guys. Leave your comments below if you agree or disagree, this is just my list i am not an authority of any kind.
DCTEAM