Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 10

Gotham Knight: Have I Got a Story for You

Studio: Studio 4°C 

Director: Shōjirō Nishimi 

Writer: Josh Olsen

Wha’ happen’?

Four kids meet up in a skate park and three of them tell stories about encountering Batman that day fighting a masked man with a jetpack. The three stories all describe very different depictions of Batman; as a shadowy monster, a human/bat hybrid and lastly a high-tech robot. Then, the real Batman bursts
into the skate park chasing the jet pack man and the fourth kid is able to save Batman by clocking the dude on the head with his skateboard.

How was it?

It sucks.

Torchesandaardvarks noted in the comments that Gotham Knight is just worse versions of Batman the Animated Series episodes. I don’t know about that, yet, but it’s definitely fair for the opener. Have I Got a Story For You is a direct lift from Legends of the Dark Knight, an episode from The New Batman Adventures that was itself an adaptation of The Batman Nobody Knows from the seventies. Gonna steal, steal from the best, I guess, but the problem is that Legends of the Dark Knight was a glorious celebration of multiple eras of Batman’s history with the production team going to insane lengths to mimic the style of Dick Sprang and Frank Miller. The message of that episode (outside of a mean and low-key homophobic jab at Joel Schumacher) is that Batman is vast, contains multitudes and that every
interpretation and version is wonderful. But Have I Got a Story For You isn’t an examination of who Batman is or what he means to people. It’s really ust about…how he looks. One kid thinks he looks like a shadow monster, one kid thinks he looks like a bat monster. Okay. And?

It also kind of breaks credibility that these kids were that close to Batman in broad daylight and couldn’t see that he is, in fact, a man in a bat costume. One kid claims to see Batman just emerging from the ground like liquid shadow. What’s the rational real world explanation for that other than the kid being high on mescalin?

Plus, when we finally see this terrifying figure of the night?

He looks like a Dad at a baseball game who got heatstroke.

So yeah.

Off to a bad start.

How do you fuck up animé Batman, and shall they do it again?

Shortstember 2023: Batman: Gotham Knight

“Man, Mouse sure has been pumping out those Batman reviews this year.”“Da. No doubt because he is supporting the Hollywood Strikers by refusing to review any Marvel or Disney films until the strike ends.”“Uh yeah. That’s what I did.”

Firstly, holy shit, Comrade Crow’s still alive.

Secondly, yeah, while that was totally my reason for focusing so heavily on Batman movies this year I swear, it was also because I wanted to finish Batman Begins so that this year’s Shortstember wouldn’t occur out of series chronology because OCD be a harsh mistress.

So, what’s on the menu this year, Mouse, you ask?

GOTHAM KNIGHT.

NO.

The other one.

NOOOOOOO. THE OTHER ONE.

Gotham Knight is a 2008 anthology film that takes places in the continuity of the Nolanverse between Batman Begins and Dark Knight. It’s a collection of animé shorts produced by different animé studios to whet fan appetite before the sequel to a popular movie comes out. You know, a bit like the Animatrix. Wait, no. That’s unfair. It’s exactly like The Animatrix.

Look, it’s animé Batman directed with Kevin Conroy. If your pants aren’t already on the floor, why are you even reading this blog?

Booklist Review for Knock Knock

Another lovely review for Knock Knock, Open Wide ,from the good folks at Booklist.

“Reading Sharpson’s latest (after When the Sparrow Falls, 2021) is like being grabbed unexpectedly. Readers know something feels terribly wrong but cannot get away from the horror and mystery of the story; it simply demands that they understand the truth and reach its conclusion.”

“Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

I almost didn’t write this review. I seriously toyed with the idea of putting Batman Begins off for another fortnight and devoting an entire post to the sheer insanity that was Warner’s near decade-long attempt to get a fifth Batman movie made after the neon coloured Chernobyl that was Batman and Robin.

This was right around the time I started following movie news and let me tell you, friends, listening to the proposals coming out of Warners in the late nineties was like having your ear pressed to a cell wall in a lunatic asylum.

“Coolio as Scarecrow! Ghost Joker! MADONNA AS HARLEY QUINN!!! AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!”

Some of these proposed films, admittedly, do sound pretty interesting, like the Batman versus Superman movie starring Colin Farrell and Josh Hartnett, Darren Arronofsky’s Batman Year One or a version of Batman Beyond with Keanu Reeves as Terry McGinnis.

But the one thing that all these proposed movies have in common is that they really, really want you to know that they were going to be DARK. Black. Psychologically tortured. Darkness. No parents.

It’s honestly a little macabre how much they wanted you to know that Batman was going to have a thoroughly shitty time when this movie finally got made. Which is unfair. I mean, Batman didn’t decide to let Akiva Goldsman write the script for Batman and Robin, why should he have to suffer?

Thankfully, we were spared the spectacle of a sobbing, psychologically scarred emo Batman by the appointment of Christopher Nolan as director, a man who has no time for your puny human emotions.

All kidding aside, I’ve seen nine of this legend’s movies and five of them are on my all time greatest list.*

So here’s a quick question for you. Do you feel that Ant-Man or Legend of Ultron are noticeably different in tone and visual style to the comic book movies being made today? No, right? Well consider that the same amount of time has elapsed between those movies and now as between Batman and Robin and Batman Begins. Which is nuts to me because they are so clearly coming from entirely different eras of movie-making. I think this is probably why the whole Barbenheimer phenomenon happened. We’ve been stuck in the current era of movie-making for so long that Oppenheimer and Barbie felt less like movies than escape hatches.

Anyway, the movie begins with honestly a pretty baller move; no opening title, just the bat symbol being formed by a swarm of shrieking bats at sunset.

Little Bruce Wayne is playing in the garden of stately Wayne manor with his friend Rachel when he trips and falls into a disused well.

He’s terrified by a swarm of bats but is rescued by his father who explains that origin stories build character. We flashforward to the present where the now adult Bruce Wayne is serving time in a prison in Bhutan. After getting into a fight with some of the other inmates he’s sent into solitary confinement where he finds a man named Ducard waiting for him. Ducard asks him if he’s so desperate to fight criminals that he’ll lock himself up with them to fight them one at a time. Bruce replies that there were seven and Ducard quips that he counted six.

Rewatching Begins almost twenty years later, it’s easy to see why it was such a big deal. It feels like a proper grown up movie with it’s excellent direction, moody cinematography, stacked cast of phenomenal actors and legendary score. All of this makes it much easier to ignore the script. Now… I mean, it’s fine. Actually, it’s remarkably solid. This may be one of the most influential screenplays of the 21st century given how many stripped down reboots copied it. But there’s also some real dumb shit in here that kind of gets ignored. Like, the simple chronology of this scene. It’s a cool reveal, sure, that Liam Neeson is waiting in Bruce’s cell for him, but logically how did this work? The editing makes it suggest that Bruce was dragged straight from the prison yard to the cell, so how did Ducard know which cell to be waiting for him in? Additionally, if Ducard saw that Bruce was only fighting six inmates, he must have been in the yard when the fight broke out, so how did he get to the cell before him? The implication is that the prison staff are working for Ducard but then, were the guards just marching Bruce around the prison in circles so that Ducard had time to get into a suitably dramatic place to hide in the cell? Seems a bit try-hard, no?

“Surely a man who pretends to be a mouse wouldn’t begrudge me a little theatricality?”

Ducard offers Bruce a place with the League of Shadows, an international order of vigilantes that fights crime. Bruce has to bring a blue flower to the peak of a mountain where he finds a mysterious temple ruled over by Ra’s Al Ghul played by Ken Watanabe. I always assumed that the decision to not have an Middle Eastern Actor play Ra’s was due to 9/11 being literally four years ago, but apparently in the comics Ra’s was born in North Africa to a family of East Asian nomads (Chinese, though, not Japanese) so the casting is actually somewhat comics accurate. I don’t know if that was intentional, but I just thought it was interesting.

Anyway, while Ducard trains Bruce we learn what brought him to Bhutan. As a child, Bruce’s parents took him to see a production of the opera  Mefistofele but a scene involving lots of dudes dressed as bats caused the kid to freak out and he asked to be taken home. Outside the opera house (which is apparently one of those run-down, crack-den opera houses in the bad part of town) Bruce’s parents were confronted by a hoodlum named Joe Chill who shot both Waynes. A traumatised Bruce was looked after by a young cop named Gordon and Chill was quickly caught and imprisoned.

Now, I got issues with this revised origin story and maybe not the one you think. Yeah, I prefer not knowing who killed the Waynes. I like the idea of Batman’s ultimate enemy not being some random dude but CRIME ITSELF. I also feel like, given how exceptional a job the police do here, taking care of Bruce and catching his parents’ killer within the same night of their murder, it doesn’t really make as much sense that Bruce would then decide to become the world’s greatest vigilante. I mean, the police actually seem to be pretty on the ball in this universe. But whatever, Joe Chill is canonically the killer of Batman’s parents in the comic, and the way the movie uses Chill to narratively connect Bruce to Falcone is elegant enough so I’ll overlook that. No, it’s actually more the fact that they were at an opera and not seeing Zorro in the cinema. Batman is a character with a pretty big relatability problem but the idea of going to the cinema with your parents is so universal across social class that I think it works better than the relatively high-brow trip to the opera. It’s also a nice way to acknowledge Batman’s literary debt to Zorro. Now, I know why they did it. Overcoming fear is the movie’s big theme so having Bruce feel guilt because his fear inadvertently led to his parent’s death, sure that works. But it’s a simple fix. You keep the trip to the cinema. You just make it a double-bill of Zorro and one other movie.

Get it? Get it? Because he’s a bat…you get it.

Anyway, years later Bruce returns home from college because Joe Chill is up for parole. He’s greeted by Alfred, his family’s trusty…why am I explaining this, you all know who Alfred is. He also meets his childhood friend Rachel who’s all grown up and working for the DA who arranged Chill’s parole which Bruce, understandably, is none too happy about. She explains that Chill is going to testify against Carmine Falcone, who’s running all of the crime in this shit town. Bruce and Rachel are horrified when Chill is shot down before their eyes in the courtroom. Driving home, Bruce reveals to Rachel that he had actually planned to shoot Chill himself and muses whether he should be thanking Falcone. Rachel goes on a tirade, saying that Falcone is the source of the misery and crime that claimed his parents’ life and then leaves him outside Falcone’s restaurant so that Bruce can thank him personally. Disgusted by what he almost did, Bruce throws the gun away and goes in to confront Falcone.

Falcone tells Bruce that he’s a pampered rich kid who doesn’t understand the first thing about real suffering and then educates him by having his bodyguards beat the privileged snot out of him.

Bruce then decided to rectify this with a little poverty tourism in the Far East, joining criminal gangs and ending up in prison in Bhutan and we’re all caught up.

Bruce learns that the League of Shadows use the blue flower to create a fear toxin to weaken their enemies. On his graduation day, he learns that he’s going to have to execute a criminal and then he’s going to be sent back home to Gotham to basically destroy the entire city as the league has decided it’s too corrupt to exist and Bruce is all “…..hang on”.

So committed to preserving precious human life is Bruce that he selflessly starts a fire that leads indirectly to the death of Ra’s Al Ghul and the complete destruction of the temple. Bruce saves an unconscious Ducard from going over a cliff and leaves him in the care of some local peasants while he returns to Gotham to pursue his war on crime.  

Back in Gotham, Rachel is butting heads with one Doctor Johnathan Crane, a psychiatrist who’s been getting Falcone’s thugs declared insane so that they get sent to Arkham Asylum instead of prison. Of course, in real life it’s far more preferable to get sent to a prison where you actually have a set sentence than a mental institution where you get out when you’ve managed to convince everyone that you’re not crazy which is actually really hard to do without seeming crazy.

Anyway, let’s talk about this Cillian Murphy, the guy who everyone in Ireland knew was awesome before all you Johnny Come Latelies.

I think it’s a damn shame that Murphy’s Scarecrow has kind of been overshadowed by Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy’s more memeable villains because Murphy is the best thing in this. This is such a fucking good villain. The arrogance, the reptilian stillness, the icy menace. You can absolutely see why Christopher Nolan took one look at this guy and said, “yeah, he’s going in regular rotation”. Also as a long time Scarecrow fan I love this. I think Crane is one of the very best Bat-rogues. I think he actually makes a more logical choice to be Batman’s arch-enemy than the Joker. And as a Scarecrow fan I love how effortlessly Crane wrecks Batman’s shit in their first encounter. Takes him apart like it’s nothing, it’s so cool.

Annoyed at having Rachel breathing down his neck, Crane tells Falcone to put a hit on her and tells him that “his employer” is going to be coming to Gotham.   

Meanwhile, Bruce shows up at Wayne Enterprises which is now run by William Earle, played by Rutger Hauer and a character I always feel strangely sorry for. Like, what exactly did this guy do wrong? I mean sure, he stuffed Morgan Freeman in the basement but he seems to have done a great job running the company for Bruce while he was off training to be Snake Eyes. And when this nepo-baby just shows up asking for a job he gives him one in the exact section he wanted no questions asked. That section being a storeroom of unused prototypes where Bruce meets Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who is so checked out of his job he doesn’t mind the new kid helping himself to all the cutting edge military tech lying around.

“Do what you want, I’ll just be over here making doll house furniture.”

Bruce sets his sights on young Jim Gordon, who he identifies as the one honest cop left in Gotham. The two form a tentative partnership, with Gordon telling Bruce exactly what he needs to bring down Carmine Falcone. Bruce intercepts some of Falcone’s thugs who are bringing mysterious drugs into the city and we get our first look at the Batman suit.

It’s fine. I think the helmet is a little…off. I dunno. Decent effort.

Anyway, Batman stops the shipment and rescues Rachel from the hit that Falcone put on her. With Rachel and Gordon on his side, Batman is able to get Falcone arrested who promptly pretends to be crazy so that he can be sent to Arkham. Crane visits him and Falcone threatens to expose their whole operation unless Crane can get him out. To this, Crane has one question.

Crane then goes to clean up Falcone’s mess by destroying evidence of the operation where he meets Batman and gasses him, sets him on fire and basically leaves him crying to Alfred that the bad man did a bad thing.

Alfred manages to rescue Bruce and brings him home. He then calls Lucius Fox who is presumably confused because he is not a doctor but is a good enough sport to work up an antidote anyway. (I guess bringing in Leslie Thompkins would have been one too many supporting characters but I really hate the “doctor and scientist are basically the same thing” trope.)

Bruce realises that the fear toxin is a strengthened version of the effect of the blue flower and asks Lucius to make more of the antidote.

Rachel angrily insists that she be allowed to have her own expert assess Falcone to see if he true-true cray-cray and Crane takes her down to the basement so that she can see his illegal operation where he’s dumping scads of fear toxin into the water supply. Why all of Gotham’s water runs under a mental hospital is not explained. Crane doses Rachel with a fatal dose of fear toxin. Batman arrives and sprays Crane with some of his own medicine which causes him to see Batman as The Creeper from Jeepers Creepers.

Bruce has to get Rachel out of the Asylum without getting caught by the cops. This leads to a really cool chase scene with the new Batmobile, the Tumbler, which Alfred later says resulted in no casualties because that’s what he needs to sleep at night.

After treating Rachel and getting Alfred to return her home, Bruce attends his birthday party and one of his guests offers to introduce him to “Mr. Ra’s Al Ghul”. Bruce is naturally a little surprised by this but it turns out that Ducard was actually Ra’s the whole time.

Ra’s proceeds to lay out his ridiculously overly complicated plan. See, the League of Shadows recently high-jacked a ship containing a device that causes water to evaporate…

Oh my God, they stole this plot from sixties Batman! All it’s missing is Commodore Schmidlapp and a scene at the off-brand United Nations!

So the plan is to vaporise all of Gotham’s water which contains the fear toxin which needs to be breathed rather than ingested to work. Okay, fine, I guess. But I still don’t get how it’s vaporising all of this water without killing every living human being in its radius. We’re mostly water, you know. And yes, I guess I am saying that the sixties Batman movie displayed greater scientific literacy than this one.

Ducard uses the monorail that Bruce’s father built as the delivery system for the microwave emitter. With Gordon’s help, Batman is able to blow up the rail bridge and lets Ra’s plummet to his death saying “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you”.

The day after, Earle learns that all of Wayne Enterprises stock was secretly bought by Bruce and that he’s now out of a job.

That’ll teach you to trust Old Money.

Rachel visits the smouldering ruins of Wayne Manor where Bruce is randomly hitting a piece of wood like a fucking caveman who can’t understand why the house isn’t fixed yet (dude, just call an architect, this is not a one-man-and-his-butler job). She tells Bruce that she waited so long for him to come back but that the man who returned home was someone else. But she hopes that when Gotham has no need of Batman she’ll see Bruce again.

The movie ends with Gordon showing Batman the brand spanking new Bat-signal he’s had installed and telling about this strange new criminal who’s appeared with a flair for the theatrical. One who likes leaving mysterious cards…

Oh crap, Mr Monopoly has escaped from prison to begin a new reign of terror!

***

At once an incredibly influential movie and something of a rough draft, Batman Begins is a solid opener for an exciting new chapter in the bat’s cinematic journey.

The Dark Knight Detective

Counter-intuitively I think Bale’s Batman peaked with his first appearance. He nails Bruce Wayne, possibly the best live action portrayal. And while his Batman isn’t perfect, he’s still got the voice under some kind of control.

His Faithful Manservant

I like my Alfreds posh as a matter of personal preference, but if you like the rough-around-the-edges working class former military Alfreds that pop up occasionally, Michael Caine is the best version of that.

Fear Incarnate, Fear Walking the streets of Gotham…

Much as we must forever lament not seeing Coolio or Howard Stern as the Scarecrow (yes, those were both seriously considered, don’t do drugs, kids) I’m confident in calling Cillian Murphy’s venomously beautiful, deliciously chilling Scarecrow the best thing in this whole show.

“Perhaps, Detective, it is time that you and I finally settled this!”

On the other hand, I’m not really a fan of the reveal of Ducard as Ra’s. It reeks of “twist for the sake of having a twist”. Nothing is really changed by the revelation, the story would proceed exactly the same if Ducard just returned to Gotham to avenge the real Ra’s death. And, while Neeson’s the man, there will never be a Ra’s Al Ghul as iconic as David Warner in the animated series.

The Comish

Although technically not yet a comish. The Lieutenantish? While certainly treating the character with more respect than the Burton/Schumacher movies did, Oldman’s Gordon is honestly a bit of a wet cabbage. I get that he has to be less cool than Batman, but in the comic this is based on Gordon is a former marine who can take down Green Berets without breaking a sweat.

Our Plucky Sidekicks

I feel like Katie Holmes got overshadowed by Maggie Gyllenhaal but she’s really good in this. Maybe her best performance. Or are there great Katie Holmes performances out there I’m overlooking? Let me know in the comments. Or don’t. You don’t work for me.

Batman NEVER kills, except: 

I’m sure they’re all fine.

Seriously, I’m glad this movie at least acknowledges the idea that Batman does not and should never kill. That said, I can’t get on board with the “I don’t have to save you” rationale. Yeah you do. You’re Batman.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?: 

This movie actually explains (maybe over-explains?) just where exactly he gets those wonderful toys. In keeping with the stripped down, back to basic approach, Batman actually has very few gadgets in this movie that you couldn’t get in an army surplus store. With the notable exception of:

It’s the car, right? Chicks dig the car:

I feel this might be controversial but…I don’t like the Tumbler. Yeah, it’s genuinely cool that they built this thing from scratch and it can actually go that fast. But…it’s ugly as shit. Am I crazy?

FINAL SCORE OUT OF TEN:

NEXT UPDATE: 07 September 2023.

NEXT TIME: Disney doing dark fantasy in the eighties? When has that ever not worked?

*Prestige, Memento, Inception, Dark Knight and Oppenheimer in case you were wondering.

Summer Wars (2009)

So, here’s a little interesting factoid about me. If you ever meet someone from Ireland with the surname “Sharpson”, they are related to me. Like, immediately related. There are, at the time of writing, eight Sharpsons in the entire country. When I was growing up, there was my Dad, my three brothers, and me (my mother being a strong independent woman who refused to change her maiden name even for the sake of boosting the stats). That was it. My grandfather emigrated to Britain from Cyprus and then moved to Ireland in the fifties.

And, along the way, he anglicised his name to Sharpson, a name that had never existed in the country before then. So, we’re what you might call a rare breed.

Now, contrast that with my wife, whose family is as old as the hills, vast as the oceans and mad as lovely, lovely people. I say this not just as a way of banging out an intro to a review of a movie that I don’t really have much to say about other than “it’s good, I enjoyed it”, but to explain why the main character of Summer Wars, Kenji Koiso resonates with me.

So Kenji is a shy Japanese high school student with a gift for mathematics, having placed second in a contest to represent Japan in the International Math Olympiad. As a side gig, Kenji and his friend Takashi work as part-time moderators on OZ, which is…okay, imagine if in the early 2000s Second Life had become as successful as Facebook.

So you have a massive online world navigated by customisable avatars where users can play games, shop, watch sports, you name it. And OZ has become so integral to life in this world that banks and governments have established permanent presences in the virtual world. Basically, the kind of app that Elon Musk sees when he closes his eyes and touches himself. The movie takes place half in OZ and half in the real world, with the latter being rendered in traditional hand-drawn animation and the former using CGI. Nothing too ground-breaking there, but it works and it works well.

The boys’ work are interrupted by their fellow student Natsuki Shinohara who asks Kenji if he wants a job. Kenji, who clearly has a crush on Natsuki, agrees in a heartbeat. Next thing he knows, he’s taking the train with her down to Ueda prefecture for the 90th birthday of Natsuki’s great grandmother, Sakae Jinnouchi. Now, the Jinnouchis are based on a real-life Japanese clan, the Sanadas, who were an extremely powerful family throughout much of Japan’s history. So, as Kenji gets closer to the Jinnouchis’ palatial compound he starts to realise that these folks are a big effin’ deal.

Natsuki introduces Kenji to her great grand-mother as her fiancée, and Sakae appraises Kenji and asks him if he’s “man enough” to please her great grand-daughter.

“Young man, do you even know what a clitoris is?”

Kenji, not surprisingly, doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but Sakae asks him if he’s willing to die for Natsuki and he answers, simply, “yes”. This is enough to impress Granny, and she welcomes him into the family.

Natsuki apologetically explains that Sakae was recently very ill and that she told her that she couldn’t die until she (Sakae) had met Natsuki’s awesome boyfriend. Sakae recovered, but Natsuki was now caught in a lie so she needs Kenji to pretend to be her boyfriend for the weekend. And of course, she couldn’t explain this to Kenji beforehand because of perfectly valid reasons. Kenji, that chump, agrees, and is introduced to the rest of the family.

I’m not going to give the low down on every member of the family because LOOK AT THIS SHIT:

I love that they included the dog.

You don’t need to know everybody anyway. When someone’s important I’ll let ya know.

The movie does a great job of capturing the combination of tedium, bewilderment and nervousness that comes from being thrown into a large family gathering where you’re a complete outsider and even if only a few of these characters get much screen time and fleshing out, they all contribute to the whole. And that’s kinda the point. All these characters are part of something greater.

See, the movie that Summer Wars ended up reminding me most of was Shin Godzilla. There, the protagonist was not so much an individual as the Japanese government itself. In the same way, the Jinnouchi clan stands in for Japan. Members of the family are doctors, paramedics, cops, engineers, firefighters, soldiers, civil servants, all under the guidance of Sakae, who represents the old feudal aristocracy. And, as we’ll see, when an apocalyptic threat rises, only one thing can defeat it.

Wait a minute, apocalyptic threat? That doesn’t seem very congruous with the laid back slice of life dramedy shenanigans I’ve been describing, does it?

Well, I’ll get that.

That evening, Kenji realises that another family member has arrived; namely the black sheep.

This is Wabisuke Jinnouchi. He’s…okay, follow me closely here.

So Sake’s husband, Tokue, had an affair with another woman and Wabisuke is his illegitimate son, much younger that Tokue and Sakae’s other children. On learning about him, Sakae adopted Wabisuke as her own son. Got that? So he’s Natsuki’s half great-uncle slash adopted great uncle.

Now, Natsuki absolutely adores Wabisuke, to a degree that’s frankly a little uncomfortable. But the other family members are not happy to see him, not even Sakae, who says “I assumed you were dead in a ditch somewhere”.

See, ten years ago, Wabisuke sold some of Sakae’s property and absconded with the money to America. The rest of the family therefore view Wabisuke as a bit of a bad egg.

Lying in bed, Kenji gets a mysterious email with a code. His massive math brain cannot decline a challenge to its honour so he cracks the code and goes back to sleep.

The next morning, he discovers to his horror that OZ has been hacked and that his Avatar has apparently gone on a rampage, creating havoc in the virtual world. He’s locked out of his account he goes to Natsuki’s cousin, Kazuma.

Kazuma is that one kid at the family reunion who finds a quiet corner in the house to surf the internet until all this madness has resolved itself. Kenji begs Kazuma to use his laptop.

Kazuma, incidentally, is such a cool character.

KAZUMA: Why are you freaking out?

KENJI: Because somebody used my account to hack into OZ!

KAZUMA: Got it. You’re the fall guy.

The kid does not faze.

Kenji gets a call from Takashi in Tokyo who tells him that somebody cracked OZ’s encryption the previous night and Kenji realises that he should probably change his name to “Kim Kardashian’s Ass” because he just broke the internet.

Takashi creates a burner account for Kenji to enter OZ and confront the person who hijacked his account.

Kenji tells the avatar that being online doesn’t mean he can just do whatever he wants, which I’ve found always works against trolls. The Avatar then proceeds to beat the ever loving virtual snot out of Kenji but he’s rescued at the last moment by King Kazma.

“This movie is very popular with furries”. He said. Redundantly.

So King Kazma is this legendary fighter in Oz who’s controller is actually Kazuma because, obviously. He just changed one letter.

King Kazma bats the Avatar around but then the Avatar starts devouring other Avatars and morphs into a new form.

It defeats King Kazma easily and is about to devour him too when Kenji is able to distract it long enough for them to escape.

Back in the real world, Takashi tells Kenji that their enemy is an AI named Love Machine that escaped from a lab in the states. Meanwhile, Natsuki’s family learn from a news report that Kenji is behind the attack and now know that everything she told them about him is a lie.

We get a deeply uncomfortable scene where Natsuki’s aunts realise that the backstory Natsuki came up with for Kenji (Tokyo University grad, old family, studying in the states) is pretty much Wabisuke. And then they recall a school essay she wrote called “My Uncle and I” and oh Jesus why is this here? Why is this necessary?

Kenji is arrested by Natsuki’s cousin Shota, who is a cop and hates Kenji because he’s jealous because he wants to bang Natsuki who is, if you remember the beginning of this sentence, HER COUSIN.

This fucking family, man. Literally.

Shota tries to take Kenji to the police station but has to turn back and return to the estate because Love Machine has turned all of Japan into into one big continuous traffic jam.

With the country teetering on the brink of chaos, Sakae springs into action, calling everyone she knows in the government, friends, family and old enemies to pitch in and help resolve the crisis. It’s presented as Japan’s greatest generation coming out of retirement to wage war against a new menace.

Here’s my problem with this.

I want you to imagine this story was set in Germany.

Yeah.

Inspired by Sakae’s efforts, Kenji works to restore control of the mainframe to the moderators. He then gets some good news from Takashi; not only was he not the only one to crack the code that Love Machine sent out (55 people around the world also did it), he actually made a mistake in his answer and didn’t crack the code at all. Which honestly, I kinda love. Of course, it also means that Kenji didn’t actually commit a crime, so that Cuz-nuzzler Shota can’t arrest him.

With the OZ back under the control of the moderators, things improve but Love Machine is still active and has absorbed some two million accounts. Kazuma suggests get everyone on OZ to band together and stop it but Wabisuke interjects to say that it won’t work.

Wabisuke finally tells Sakae what he did with the money he stole from her all those years ago. He went to the states. Designed Love Machine. And then sold it to the US Military. Sakae’s reaction is…

I mean, fair?

She turfs Wabisuke out of the house.

Later, Sakae plays a game of Koi-Koi with Kenji and she makes him promise to look after her grand-daughter.

That night, because of Love Machine, Sakae’s heart monitor fails and she dies in her sleep.

Distraught and furious, the family begin to plan her funeral. But Kenji, Natsuki, Kazuma and some of the other Jinnouchis form a plan to beat Love Machine. Using their contacts they get their hands on a super computer and a massive generator. Kazuma challenges Love Machine to another battle and almost wins but Shota (of course) accidentally removes some of the ice bags that are keeping the superconductor cold and Love Machine absorbs King Kazma. Now ridiculously powerful, Love Machine hijacks a satellite and re-directs it so that’s it’s going to crash into a nuclear power plant.

The family read Sakae’s will and learn that her last wish was that Wabisuke could be welcomed back into the family. Natsuki’s calls him and tells him that she’s dead and he speeds home to be with them. Realising that everything is a game to Love Machine, Natsuki challenges it to a game of Koi-Koi with the fate of the world on the line.

The scene would, I have no doubt, be thrilling if I understood the first fucking thing about Koi Koi.

Natsuki almost loses but the entire user base of OZ joins together to lend their support. Fatally damaged, Love Machine spitefully re-directs the satellite to destroy the family’s home. King Kazma returns to fight Love Machine and is able to finally defeat it when Wabisuke disables its defences. Kenji manages to hack the satellite and re-direct it at the last moment and the house, the family, OZ and the world are all saved.

And the movie ends with Kenji and Natsuki kissing and him being formally welcomed into the family.

***

Scoring

Animation: 16/20

Nicely executed mix of trad and CGI.

Leads: 15/20

Kinda hard to even say who is the lead, as Kenji, Natsuki and Kazma all take turns as the protagonist. Whatever, they’re all good.

Villain: 13/20

Love Machine is a mixed bag. His early avatar is delightfully creepy, his warrior form is gorgeously menacing but his final form is just a lazy blob kaijiu. And ultimately, it’s not a character at all.

Supporting Characters: 16/20

Captures the chaos of large family gatherings beautifully.

Music: 08/20

Akihiko Matsumoto’s score is handsome, graceful…and utterly generic.

FINAL SCORE: 68%

NEXT UPDATE: 24 July 2023

NEXT TIME: Part 1 in our trilogy exploring how Christian Bale gave himself vocal nodules.

Starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, baby!

Man, now I know why Mario does it!

What a rush.

My upcoming novel, Knock Knock, Open Wide just got a gob-smackingly generous STARRED review from Publisher’s Weekly:

Transporting readers to a blood-soaked Ireland, Sharpson (When the Sparrow Falls) delivers modern horror at its best. One stormy night in 1979, Etain comes across a faceless corpse on the road; days later, she’s found half dead near a burnt-out farmhouse, her shattered mind a blank. Then, one of her twin daughters disappears in 1989, and soon after, her husband is found dead in a suspected suicide. By 2003, the only person still looking for an explanation to this mysterious series of events is Etain’s surviving daughter, Ashling, a university drama student who’s just entering into a passionate love affair with a woman. Ashling’s convinced, however, that what she remembers of her sister’s disappearance can’t possibly be true: it involved a popular children’s TV show about a goat puppet that would only come out of his box if someone had been very bad. According to everyone else who watched the show, the box never actually opened—but Ashling remembers it differently, and the more she investigates, the more she comes to fear that what’s inside is no cuddly puppet, but something old, crafty, and hungry. Sharpson does a masterful job of weaving together the three timelines, handling each story with tremendous sensitivity and skill while supplying genuine scares. By turns tender and terrifying, sexy and stomach-turning, heartwarming and heartrending, this folklore-steeped exploration of generational trauma is a high-water mark for the Irish horror novel. 

“Well. Obviously you’re going to accept this with humility and good grace…”“WHO DARES SPEAK IN THE PRESENCE OF MY GENIUS?! MOUSE RULES ALL!!!”

“Just what I had in mind. Everything dead on Earth, except us. A chance for Mother Nature to start again.”

More fool me, I guess.

I went in to this full of kindness and forgiveness in my heart.

I was prepared to embrace this movie like a loving father welcoming back the wayward prodigal. Of course this movie isn’t as bad as everyone says. Of course it’s really a delightfully camp romp. Of course the backlash was just a combination of toxic fanboy insecurity and subtle and not so subtle homophobia.

And this fucking movie turned and sank its fangs into me like a snake in a parable.

Yup. I was wrong. I dunno what I was thinking.

Conventional wisdom is always right and independant thoughts are weird and stupid.

Batman and Robin really is that goddamn bad.

I know, I know. Great to be back here on Planet Sensible. I don’t know why I ever fooled myself into thinking that this movie was So Bad it’s Good rather than regular old So Bad it’s Actually Bad. But rest assured, this is no Rocky Horror Picture Show. This movie is not fun, and it’s not even camp. It’s a grindingly cynical and mechanical attempt to be fun and camp and it fails utterly.

As I write these words, the brave men and women of the Writer’s Guild of America are on strike to save Hollywood from itself. But the dangers of studios outsourcing writing to Generative AI is a lot older than we think. Oh yes, children. The algorithim has always been with us. We just called him Akiva Goldsman.

Goldsman’s niche as a writer is crafting exactly the kind of scripts that execs want to see. You want a star vehicle for Will Smith or Russell Crowe with a solid three act structure, romantic B-plot, All Is Lost Moment and a climax within two hours or less he will give you that. He’s good at the “bones” of writing screenplays, the actual structure. Which, to be fair, is something that many writers struggle with, myself included. But, as anyone who’s messed around with Chat GTP an attest, humour is beyond the algorithim. This is a problem, because Batman and Robin is ostensibly a pure comedy, the first in this series to which that label applies (not counting sixties Batman obviously). And unfortunately, it’s the least funny of all of them.

There are a LOT of problems with this film, and, any one them would probably be enough to ruin it. But the biggest and smelliest turd in the trifle is the script. Goldsman was apparently operating on the principle that quantity has a quality of its own, and just about every second line has some kind of pun, quip or smug half-joke. It’s like Whedon, except NONE of the jokes land.

It’s amazing how much worse this is than Batman Forever. Amazing because they are the same damn film.

Seriously, once you notice it, it’s breathtakingly brazen.

The movie begins with a suiting up sequence in the Batcave, a portentous reveal of a new Batmobile undercut by a sassy quip from Alfred and then Batman driving off to a crime scene that’s already in progress. Commissioner Gordon exposits that an already existing supervillain and his henchmen have taken over a Gotham landmark. Batman fights some mooks, the villain escapes by air, Batman follows but is unable to stop him escaping amidst a massive explosion. Which movie am I describing? Batman Forever or Batman and Robin?

Oh, and it does not stop there. All the Edward Nygma/Riddler scenes are now Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy scenes. Is she a weird sweaty obsessive loner who undergoes a scientific accident, takes on a new green-themed personality, kills her boss, becomes a Gotham cause célebre, allies with another supervillain, has a big Take Over the World machine and has her final scene as a psychologically destroyed wreck in Arkham Asylum? I think she bloody is!

The biggest victims in this blatant recycling are the dynamic duo themselves. In Forever, both Batman and Robin had complete arcs. Batman is no longer driven by the trauma of his parents’ deaths and has committed to being Batman because that’s what he wants to do. Dick Grayson has learns to move past his desire for revenge and find purpose as Robin. So where do they go from here? Tons of places! If you’re not just recycling the same plot from last time! But you are! So…I dunno! Maybe they just jog in place until the climax?

Batman at leasts gets something to do with the Alfred B-plot. Alfred, you see, is dying, of the same disease that afflicted Mr. Freeze’s wife so we get some scenes filling out their history together. But Robin? The supposed second lead in this thing has nothing to do other than bitch and complain about Batman not treating him like a real partner which is annoying from the off and gets even worse when Poison Ivy uses her pheromones to turn them against each other in a love triangle.

Yeah, I know it’s comics accurate, it still sucks.

That’s because Robin’s place in the story is now taken by Barbara Gordon Wilson, Alfred’s niece who’s visiting from England. So she gets to be uncomfortable with the wealth and privilege of life in Wayne Manor (which made plenty of sense for a former circus kid, less so for the student of a posh English boarding school). She gets the joyride scene, the being rescued from street thugs scene and the discovering the Batcave scene.

There is one change between the two films, or rather a shift of emphasis. Whereas Riddler was very much the main villain of Forever, Batman and Robin gives a lot more time to its Two-Face Analogue; Mr. Freeze. Freeze has had a very interesting trajectory as a character. Originally called “Mr. Zero” (cooler name if I’m honest, and no, that wasn’t a pun) he was just one of a million gimmicky cold-themed comic book villains that have existed since the birth of the genre. Then Batman the Animated Series got their hands on him.

Heart of Ice reimagined Freeze as a devoted husband trying to restore his beloved comatose wife Norah while battling a condition that will kill him if his body is ever so much as room temperature. And this one appearance was so instantly iconic that it became the status quo for the character in every iteration since. But it also makes Freeze something of an awkward fit for Batman’s regular rogues gallery. He’s not insane. He’s not motivated by greed or malice. There are plenty of Batman foes who are somewhat sympathetic, but Freeze kinda shoots the moon on that. When he shows up, your first thought might well be:

Batman and Robin incorporates the brooding widower with the literally fridged wife from the animated series pretty faithfully, but also tries to keep Freeze as a cackling super-villain spouting ice-themed puns in practically every line of dialogue.

It’s about as schizophrenic an approach to the character as could be imagined. And I don’t want to dunk on Ahnold too hard, I think he’s a better actor than he’s often given credit for, but Daniel Day Lewis couldn’t make this work.

Oh, and lest we forget, we also get ANOTHER iconic Batman villain.

Yes, Bane, the man who broke the bat, here acting as Poison Ivy’s henchman and treated with all the gravity and dignity of a Power Rangers villain.

Why haven’t I spent anytime on the plot? Because I already covered it in the last Batman review and, unlike Akiva Goldsman, I do not like to repeat myself. Poison Ivy convinces Freeze that Batman killed his wife even though it was actually she who pulled her plug. So Freeze decides to him the entire city in revenge.

Sing along if you know the words:

The two villains team up to use a magical science MacGuffin to take over/destroy the world.

Batman and his latest sidekick race to stop them in a brand new range of vehicles available at your nearest Toys R Us, you know what to do kids.

This time, Mr Freeze is using the Gotham Observatory by turning its telescope into a giant freeze ray. Batman and the Batettes are able to undo his flash-freezing of the city by re-directing all of Wayne Industries satellites to reflect sunlight to melt the ice and also heal everyone’s lethal frost-bite through the magic of friendship. This also includes the single funniest line of dialogue in the whole thing.

BATMAN: Satellites could be re-positioned to thaw the city but that would take a computer genius.

ROBIN: I’m on it!

Like, sure. I bet Haly’s Circus had a hell of a coding module.

Anyway, Batman proves to Freeze that it was actually Ivy that tried to kill his wife but that he and Robin were able to save her. Well, Batman saved her while Robin was really quiet and played with his crayons. Freeze is all “oh God this is embarrassing” and as an apology gift, gives Bruce the cure to Alfred’s disease.

Alfred’s life is saved and the movie ends with Batgirl joining the team officially and Alfred noting “we’re going to need a bigger cave”.

What are you talking about? There’s tons of room.

***

If Batman Forever was a flawed but weirdly brilliant alchemical mixture of the dark and ditzy aspects that make Batman work, then Batman Forever is a cynical attempt to reverse engineer the recipe and mass produce the result. And it’s awful.

The Dark Knight Detective

Billionaire playboy philanthropist George Clooney as Bruce Wayne SOUNDS like perfect casting. And, since Clooney’s career (somehow!) survived this shitshow and he went on to become king of the A-list it seems even more baffling that this didn’t work. But it didn’t. Clooney as Batman is approaching Robert Lowery levels of anonymity in the Batsuit, zero presence, and doesn’t seem to be doing anything to differentiate Bruce Wayne from Batman vocally. And his Bruce Wayne seems embarrassed. Shrugged shoulders, perpetually bowed head. Is a little decent posture from the Prince of Gotham too much to ask?

The Boy Wonder

Calling a grown ass man a brat seems weird but there’s no other way to describe Robin in this. I stand by my previous statements that O’Donnell was a damn good Robin in Forever but, no, I can’t defend this. This Robin is fucking insufferable.

His Faithful Manservant

Michael Gough’s scenes in this are like little islands of a better movie in a sea of crap.

The Dominoed Daredoll

Given all the bullshit Alicia Silverstone had to put up with I wish I could say that the first big screen Batgirl was a triumph. Oh shit. I’ve just realised she was also the LAST big screen Batgirl.

Trouble between the dynamic duo! Is SHE the cause?

Uma Thurman can act. I know she can act. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But this may be one of the worst performance by a great actor I’ve ever seen. Broad, schticky and yet somehow also lifeless and tired with a weird “Southern Belle” affect that comes and goes with the passing of the seasons.

A cunning mind had devised a fantastic method to utilise cold for crime

“Look, it doesn’t matter who we cast as the bad guy. Just get me the biggest star in Hollywood.”

“You mean, literally the biggest?”

“What else could I possibly mean?”

Instead, I will simply BREAK YOU!

When Poison Ivy straight up admits in dialogue that Bane is in the movie to sell toys…I won’t lie. That broke me.

The Comish

Last appearance of Pat Hingle’s Commissioner Gordon, along with Michael Gough one of only two actors to last the full four movie run. Unlike Gough, his dignity did not survive.

Our Plucky Sidekicks

God bless John Glover, playing this movie’s version of Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, for understanding the kind of movie this is supposed to be.

Elle MacPhearson plays Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne’s last love interest in this continuity and one the movie can barely even pretend to be remotely interested in.

I was going to give kudos to Doug Hutchinson for a small but extremely memorable turn as a Gang Leader.

He’s incredibly creepy and unsettling. I thought that was just good acting. Then I googled the guy.

MOVING ON.

Batman NEVER kills, except: 

Batman doesn’t kill in this movie but he hardly gets credit for that. This is now a universe where people can be frozen solid and survive. I don’t think death even exists here any more.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?: 

Befitting a movie that’s basically given up on being anything other than a glorified toy commercial, Batman gets a LOT of new toys this go round. As well as the Bat Heater, we get a trio of new ice-themed vehicles, the Bat-Hammer, Bat-Skiff and Batgirl’s Bat-Cycle, not to be confused with Robin’s Red Bird. They all look like giant glowing toys.

It’s the car, right? Chicks dig the car:

If you can get past the glowing neon-blue panels and the swirling disco ball on the front, there is actually a very handsome, classic looking Batmobile here. But you CAN’T get past the glowing neon-blue panels and the swirling disco ball. Nor should you. Who the FUCK designed this?

Quelle fuckin’ surprise.

FINAL SCORE OUT OF TEN:

NEXT UPDATE: I’m taking a break to work on another writing project and to go on holiday so I’ll see y’all back here 11 August 2023.

NEXT TIME: Summer? What is that? Some weird foreign thing, probably.

“I wish that mattered, Janet.”

Alright, firstly I want to discuss a resolution that I’ve made. Like many movie critics (and after eleven years that still feels presumptuous to say, thank you imposter syndrome) I’ve noted that the CGI in Marvel’s recent output has been of inconsistent quality. This inevitably comes across as a criticism of the VFX artists who worked on these films, which is horribly unfair. As has become more and more clear in recent years, the problem is not with the artists but with Disney’s tendency to over-work their artists while micromanaging every visual aspect of their films to the point that the effects teams often have very little time to do their work to the standard they would ideally like. So, I’m no longer going to say “the CGI is shit” in these reviews. Instead I will say “the studio is shit”, just so we all know who’s really at fault here.

Will I have cause to make use of this new paradigm when reviewing Ant-Man 3?

Right now I feel about the Ant-Man series the way I feel about this mole on my back. It didn’t bother me at first and I was able to pretend it didn’t exist but the longer it hangs around and the bigger it gets the less I care for it.

The movie begins with a flashback to Janet living as a hermit in the Quantum realm. Little niggle, but does it bother anyone else when a character is stranded in the wilderness and turns into Bear Grylls crossed with a Minecraft player, able to hunt and craft weapons and furniture and make a tent that’s basically a nice suburban home? I dunno about you, but if I was suddenly cast into the quantum realm I’d be dead after three days with a half-chewed shoe in my mouth.

She goes to investigate and is attacked by some predators, only to be rescued by a mysterious man who asks her where he is. So this is Kang the Conqueror. Or is it? Who fucking knows? I hate Kang. Not Jonathan Majors’ performance, I think he’s quite good, I just hate the character in general.

I actually tried to do some research to refresh my knowledge of this character and I came across this, which is Kang’s complete history (as of 2018) done as a choose your own adventure novel. Which is at once brilliant, and also damning. And as I waded into the sea of Immortuses, Rama-Tuts, Iron-Lads and never-ending retcons I realised: I don’t care. I just don’t care. This is too much work to understand a character who is basically own-brand Doctor Doom.

He’s a time traveller. He wants to conquer everything. He runs on bullshit. Moving on.

In the present day, life is just peachy for Scott Lang. He’s a famous superhero, he’s just published a book, his girlfriend is a tech billionaire and he’s even started to age like a normal human being so he won’t outlive everyone he’s ever known and loved. However, he has to leave his own book reading when he gets a call from jail because his daughter Cassie has been arrested, presumably for being the worst.

No disrespect to Kathryn Newton (who I thought was great in Detective Pikachu) but Cassie Lang is the worst thing in this movie. And that is up against some stiff competition. In fact, let’s take a minute to take stock here.

Anyone remember Tony Stark? I don’t mean tech-messiah Tony Stark who died for our sins. I mean this guy.

That dude had problems. He was a deeply morally compromised man with massive personal failings. Now. Can you imagine Disney making a movie with a character like 2008 vintage Iron Man as the protagonist? I made a lot of noise in my review of the first Ant-Man movie that Disney seemed terrified of Scott Lang having actual flaws. Sure, he was an ex-con, but he was in jail for stealing from corrupt corporations. There was never a hint that he had ever caused anyone any kind of harm. Sure, his marriage fell apart but that was always presented as something Scott had to suffer, not something that he caused. It’s, “this guy fought the system, was punished, and now the cop who arrested him has swooped in and taken his wife and daughter from him. Poor guy.”

And this problem, this unwillingness to present Scott with any kind of real rough edges has rubbed off on Cassie Lang. She’s in jail after being arrested. But don’t worry, she was only arrested for championing the rights of the oppressed. And by the “oppressed” I mean, people who were made homeless by the Blip, not any real life groups, don’t worry we’re not getting political. And she is just…insufferable, rude and superior to everyone including her own father who, I remind you, played a central role in saving half of all life in the universe.

They go to dinner with the Awful, Awful Pyms and Hank reveals that he’s been doing secret Ant science with Cassie behind Scott’s back. Hank actually calls it “Ant Science” and I want to take this moment to say “hi and I’ll see you in court” to whoever it is in Marvel who reads this blog. You know my running gag portraying Hank Pym as a half-senile weirdo literally incapable of doing anything that does not somehow involve ants?

That dude is now CANON.

Also, Cassie is a science genius now.

She’s a champion of the oppressed activist science genius.

Jesus Christ, would the world end if any of these people were just fucking normal ordinary people?

So they show everyone what they’ve been working on, which is a machine that can establish contact with the quantum realm (using ants, obviously) and start broadcasting a message. Janet starts freaking out and tells them to shut the message off because she had no idea that Hank was working on this, I assume because they’ve stopped talking to each other whenever the kids aren’t visiting. Before she can shut it off, a portal opens and Janet, Scott, Cassie, Hope, Hank and a metric shit ton of ants get sucked into the quantum realm. Scott and Hope get seperated from the Awful, Awful Pyms so we have two teams now.

Your humble rodent has been ruminating on just why this movie utterly fails to elicit any kind of interest from me. And it’s not any one big thing. It’s just a lot of little things. And you can’t argue with the little things.

Firstly. I am so. Goddamned. Done with Disney’s obsession with Lost World stories.

You know the ones. Our heroes travel to a strange world, meet a few factions, pick up a comedy alien sidekick or three and end up saving the world. Shang-Chi, Frozen 2, Strange World, John Carter ENOUGH WITH THIS HACKNEYED PLOT.

Secondly, there is just a general mehness to everything. Writing, acting, the shitty studio, I really don’t feel a lot of heart in this one. Spoilers for a future review, but I saw Guardians 3 recently and there is just a different vibe when you can tell that the people making a movie loved what they were doing and cared.

And these aren’t really things that can be fixed. I mean, if I was asked to do a script pass on a movie titled “Quantumania” I don’t think my first note: “maybe they don’t go to the Quantum Realm?” would meet a warm reception. (Also, the title is terrible. “Quantumania” promises tongue in cheek, campy fun that this film is waaaaaay too square to pull off.)

BUT there is one big hairy problem that I think could have been fixed and made the movie better. And that’s changing the protagonist. There is one (count ’em) one, person in this thing whose story in this I actually find compelling.

Just do a Wasp movie. That’s it. That’s the note.

Here is a woman who’s returned from a long exile and finally managed to put back together the family she lost. But then the secrets from her past rise up to destroy all her hard-won happiness and she is pulled back into the war that she left behind, against a monster that she helped create. Also, I’d ditch Bill Murray’s character and have it that Janet and Kang were lovers instead, adding an element of betrayal and lovers to enemies. I mean, that sounds like a main character’s story to me, I dunno about you.

But instead, the movie keeps insisting that we focus on Scott and his relationship with Cassie because apparently we’re bad people and this is what we deserve. As well as just being annoying, this also means that the movie has the same problem as Princess and the Frog, the central conflict is between the antagonist and a supporting character, leaving the protagonist feeling superflous in their own movie.

Cassie and Scott are captured by a ragtag group of rebels led by a generic warrior woman alien named Jentorra and Chidi from The Good Place. The character has a real name, but I’d rather be thinking about The Good Place than Ant-Man 3.

“This is worse. You get how this is worse?”

They feed Scott and Cassie some juice from a talking creature named Veb and that allows them to speak the local language (it’s always drinking weird goo, have you noticed that? Same in John Carter). The aliens freak out when the Langs mention Janet because apparently it’s her fault that their world went to hell.

Meanwhile, the Awful, Awful Pyms meet Lord Krylar, a former revolutionary and also lover of Jan’s, played by Bill Murray in pure “Ghostbusters 2016″ cash-in mode. That said, he does get my favourite line in this whole thing.

Krylar: Human, that’s the word. Totally forgot what you call yourselves up there. Human.

Hank Pym: Are you not human?

Krylar: Not technically, but yes. In the ways that matter. 

Anyway, Krylar pulls a Lando and reveals that he’s actually working for Kang and Kang’s stormtroopers arrive. There’s a bit of a kerfuffle and the Awful, Awful Pyms escape in a flying craft that Hank has to pilot by double fisting it.

While that’s happening, the alien resistance camp gets attacked by Kang’s troops led by his henchman M.O.D.O.K. Scott and Cassie are horrified to learn that M.O.D.O.K. is in fact the MCU’s greatest villain, DARREN CROSS! YES! CROSS IS BACK BABY! MARVEL HEARD YOUR CRIES, YE CROSS-MAD FANATICS AND YOUR FAITH HAS BEEN REWARDED! DARREN CROSS IS BACK, STRAIGHT FROM THE UNCANNY VALLEY TO RULE OVER YOUR NIGHTMARES!

God the studio fucking sucks.

I mean, if they were going to bring back any Ant-Man villain I guess it had to be him, if for no other reason that I literally couldn’t remember who the villain in Ant-Man 2 was and almost gaslit myself into thinking it was Jimmy Woo. But this still feels like a massive misstep, and not just because the studio is so shitty (although, JESUS CHRIST how did this get released in this state?). M.O.D.O.K. is one of the nuttiest, goofiest, downright funnest Marvel villains and merging him with Darren Cross of all fucking characters is just bizarre.

Anyway, they’re captured and brought before Kang. So, here are my thoughts on Kang. I think, in a vacuum, this is a pretty good villain. Johnathan Majors has undeniable presence and you definitely get the feeling that he’s an unstable and dangerous dude. In the role of Kang. What did you think I meant?

As is befitting an actor playing Kang, the timeline is long, convoluted and not fun to read.

And yet, the very conception of the character; big, brooding, saturnine, soft spoken with flashes of rage and melancholy can’t help but feel a little…familiar.

I feel like Kang is just too close to being Thanos-lite.

The Awful, Awful Pyms race to Kang’s citadel to rescue the Langs and Janet finally tells Hank and Hope what this dude’s deal is. See, Kang crash landed near Janet’s camp and the two formed a bond. They worked together to repair his ship so that she could return home to her family which she wanted to do for reasons the script leaves ambiguous. But, when Janet touched the telepathically operated ship she saw into Kang’s mind and realised that he’s a bad ‘un, possibly the worst ‘un in the whole multiverse. So she blew up the ship and fled. However, the ship’s core is still intact in the centre of a temporally frozen explosion. And Kang has built his entire empire just to have the resources necessary to recover it. And he wants to do that because he claims that there’s an army of alternate versions of him who are coming to destroy the multiverse. All cool? Okay.

So in his citadel, Kang threatens to kill Cassie unless Scott helps him.

But Scott agrees and shrinks down into the quantum realm where matter exists in all possible states (wait, I thought he was already in the quantum realm). Anyway, Scott’s probabilities start multiplying and soon he’s in a sea of infinite Scott Langs, including one who never became Ant-Man and stayed working at Baskin Robbin’s. Which would mean that there is one timeline where Scott was able to keep his criminal record a secret which of course is IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE BASKIN ROBBIN’S ALWAYS FINDS OUT!!

Kill the Skrull!

Pretty soon there’s just waaaaay too many Scott Lang’s but hope arrives in the form of…Hope who follows after Scott. A radio message from Cassie convinces all the Scott’s to work together and they form a massive quivering phallus of sweaty man bodies that gets longer and longer…

Hope arrives and helps him shrink down the core. They return to normal size…I mean, they return to the impossibly tiny size they were before they shrunk to an even more impossibly tiny size and Kang appears and demands the core. Scott demands to know where Cassie is and then Kang reneges on the deal, shoots Hank’s ship down, knocks Scott and Hope out but leaves them alive and then peaces out with Janet.

How…simultaneously dickish and merciful. Also, the fact that Kang would willingly spend more time with Cassie is what finally broke my suspension of disbelief.

So Kang brings Janet back to his citadel and gives her the standard supervillain monologue. There’s a little “I shall have my revenge” with some oakey notes of “I’m the only one who sees”. Boiled down, he lost a war against the other Kangs and now he’s going to wipe out the multiverse to kill them all.

None shall be spared.

Again, this comes across as Thanos but worse. Thanos’ goals were at least interesting in their motivation. Kang just wants revenge, which is not a terrible motivation for a villain but it’s also quite basic. The stakes of wiping out the multiverse are also just too grandiose to feel much investment in. With Thanos, sure we’re hoping our heroes will save half of all life in the universe in general, but in particular we’re hoping that they’ll be able to bring back Black Panther, Peter Parker and all of our sweet baby boys who were taken too soon. And lastly, I can’t get past the fact that our heroes are trying to save the multiverse from a tiny, tiny, tiny, little man.

Scott and Hope are rescued by Hank, who was found by a civilization of super-advanced ants who are the descendants of Hank’s ants and who now basically worship him as their ant God.

The meme has ascended.

In the citadel, Cassie escapes and frees Jentorra and they free the other captured rebels and start a rebellion in the citadel. Scott, Hank and Hope arrive with a metric shit ton of cybernetically enhanced ants. There’s a big fight and M.O.D.O.K. switches sides after Cassie tells him not to be a dick and apparently that’s all it took. He then dies (quite horribly).

Scott and Kang have a big fight where Scott yells at Kang for lying to him about releasing Cassie and you can almost smell the movie sweating as it tries to force some kind of believable antagonism between these two characters. I mean, c’mon Scott, of course the supervillain who took your daughter hostage was untrustworthy. If you’re really that hurt by this betrayal then, I’m sorry, you were reading something into the relationship that simply wasn’t there.

Clear communication. Honesty about expectations. It’s so important.

Kang is seemingly killed (by ants). I read a theory online that Hank’s ants are going to become the MCUs version of the Annihilation Wave which would honestly be hilarious. There’s finally a continuity where Hank Pym isn’t most famous for creating Ultron and instead he becomes the creator of Annihilus. That would be, truly, the most Hank Pym thing ever.

Janet opens a portal back to their world and Cassie and the Awful, Awful Pyms return home. Scott is about to follow but, surprise!, Kang was only pretending. Kang beats the snott out of Scott but Hope comes back because she needs something to do in this and she is technically our second title character. They seemingly kill Kang by sucking him into the core and return home.

Scott plans a birthday party for Cassie and then remembers what Kang said about needing him to fight off the encroaching army of Kangs and he suddenly realises that the entire MCU is in terrible peril.

“Oh God! Three duds in a row and James Gunn is leaving!”

***

I don’t hate this one as much as Love and Thunder but that’s about as effusive as my praise for this gets.

Scoring

Adaptation: 07/25

Rote, bland, by the numbers.

Our Heroic Heroes: 08/25

Paul Rudd is never not welcome but Scott really feels disconnected from the movie he’s supposedly the star of. Hope honestly could be cut and little would be lost.

Our Nefarious Villain: 12/25

I dunno. I mean, he could work. I thought Thanos was crap when he was introduced and look how that turned out.

Our Plucky Sidekicks: 05/25

Piñing for Peña.

The Stinger

In a cosmic football stadium, Immortus, Rama-Tut and…I dunno, some other Kang, talk vaguely about doing something to protect the multiverse. I got real Countdown vibes (if you know, you know). We then see that the stadium is full of Kangs. It’s Kangs all the way down. Kangapalooza.

And the audience went…

The Second Stinger

Loki and Mobius sit in a darkened auditorium as YET ANOTHER KANG gives a demonstration to the crowd. Mobius says he doesn’t seem threatening but Loki assures him that he is so I guess he’s threatening.

And the audience went…

Why did Marvel decide that Loki must always be shot so darkly that I can never see what the fuck is going on?

FINAL SCORE: 32%

NEXT UPDATE: 14 July 2023

NEXT TIME: You do know he never actually says “Ice to see you”, right?

“You see, I’m both Bruce Wayne and Batman, not because I have to be, now, because I choose to be.”

Well, what totally planned and intentional synergy. It’s Pride month and just in time to talk about how Joel Schumacher made Batman gay.

“Made”. Sure.

Amongst many Bat-fans, the Schumacher Batman films are looked on as a dark age and I would argue that, much like the real dark ages, that’s entirely unfair.

Okay, mostly unfair.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Joel Schumacher is a better director than Tim Burton. Objectively, he’s not. Burton’s Batman films (Returns in particular) are beautiful gothic wonderlands. Schumacher’s vision for Gotham, by contrast, is a grimy industrial hellscape inexplicably drenched in garish neon. It’s ugly and weird and gaudy and kinda cheap looking. But ask yourself, is that really such a bad artistic choice for a Batman movie?

In fact…I’m just going to say it, Joel Schumacher came closer to capturing the feel of Bronze Age Batman than just about any other live action director. Doesn’t mean his films are the best necessarily. But I think the man deserves more respect than he gets, i.e., any amount of respect.

But we get ahead of ourselves.

Batman Returns only made around half of what its prequel did which was still enough to make it one of the biggest hits of the year. But Warner Bros keenly felt that they had left money on the table. There was a definite feeling that the next bat film needed more Happy Meal tie ins and less cat-ladies in gimp suits and weird sewer perverts. This was going to be a more kid-friendly, less nasty and absolutely more marketable affair. And it is, to a degree that admittedly gets pretty obnoxious. Take, for instance, the very first line of dialogue. As Batman gets ready to enter the new Batmobile Alfred asks.

“Can I persuade you to take a sandwich with you, sir?”

To which Batman answers: “I’ll get drive through” and the Batmobile rockets out into the night.

Which, you know what? You see that in the cinema in 1995 and you might chuckle. That’s a cute little bit. But then you go home and you turn on your TV and you see:

And you feel USED.

Anyway, in another obviously planned bit of timing, as I publish this the news has broken that a much longer “Schumacher cut” of this movie exists and that we might actually get to see it if Warner Bros can convince us to pay for old pictures of when they were still pretty. And I can well believe that this movie is a heavily truncated version because it actually begins in media res with Batman racing out to stop Two-Face who is already a super-villain and in the middle of robbing the second bank of Gotham. Sigh. Okay, let’s talk about Two-Face for a minute. Or two.

So, Two-Face is widely considered to be in the very top tier of Batman rogues and one of the characters that even people who’ve never read a comic have probably heard about. This is doubly (I swear I didn’t do that on purpose) impressive when you consider that he was deemed too gruesome for the sixties series and missed out on the massive pop of exposure that show brought to other rogues like the Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman.

And here’s where I have to commit some Grade A Bat-heresy.

Two-Face is a terrible villain.

Why are there TWO angry mobs…oh, I get it. Very droll.

Now some of you may be furiously typing in the comments something on the lines of “what about “insert all-time classic Batman story here”?”

But here’s the thing. I will bet you good money that the story you’re citing is not a Two-Face story, but a Harvey Dent story. Because Harvey Dent is a fantastic character. Batman’s great failure. The good man who tried to face Gotham’s madness and was eaten alive by it. That’s all gangbusters. But I had a realization watching this movie: every great Two-Face story I’ve ever read or watched; Eye of the Beholder, The Dark Knight Returns, the “Two-Face” two parter from The Animated Series…they are all either retellings of the origin story with Dent dealing with his descent into madness as Big Bad Harv takes control, or they’re tragedies of a seemingly reformed Dent realising that he can’t escape and slipping back into being Two-Face.

You see what I mean? They’re all stories about Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face. When he actually is Two-Face? When he’s robbing the second bank of Gotham on February 22nd? He sucks! He just sucks. His gimmick is the number two. I swear to God, this is not hyperbole, FUCKING CALENDAR MAN is a thematically stronger villain. And sure, the idea of a bad guy whose actions are dictated by the flip of a coin sounds like it could make for a terrifyingly chaotic and unpredictable villain.

But in practice, it just means you have a villain who is 50% less dangerous than a regular dude with a gun. And that there is a one in two chance that Batman will win because Two Face just decides to surrender.

“I earned that victory.”

Which is a very long-winded way to say that I think this movie shoots itself in the foot by ignoring the origin story and having Harvey be Two-Face from the off. And then Tommy Lee Jones’ performance shoots the movie in the other foot and kicks it in the balls for good measure.

Arriving at the scene, Batman is introduced to Doctor Chase Meridian (Jesus CHRIST) who looks and sounds and is named like an ad for high-priced cologne. Chase Meridian (A new fragrance. By Calvin Kline) is a psychologist specialising in the real nutbars and she and Batman psychobabble at each other for a bit over Two-Face’s likely goals. And, oh my, this movie is an absolute treasure trove of lines where not so smart writers try to write smart people.

: Like you. – Well, let’s just say that I could write a hell of a paper on a grown man who dresses like a flying rodent.: Bats aren’t rodents, Dr. Meridian: Really? You ARE interesting.

I mean sure. That’s interesting to someone who didn’t read the Usborne Big Book of Animals growing up but I would have expected the world’s FOREMOST EXPERT ON ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY to be a bit harder to impress.

Anyway, Batman storms the bank and beats up most of Two-Face’s goons but then gets trapped in the bank vault with one of the security guards. You know how there are no small parts, only small actors?

Mwah. Shakespeare like it was meant to be played!

Batman succeeds in saving Olivier and the cash from the BOILING ACID but Two-Face escapes.

The next day Bruce Wayne visits one of his labs and meets scientist and walking “Hi” Tinder Message Edward Nygma, who pitches him on a TV that beams images directly into the mind. And tech billionaire Bruce Wayne essentially says “No. Needlessly tampering with the human brain is insanely dangerous and unethical. We’re not doing that.”

Ah, sweet escapism.

Bruce then sees the bat-signal in the sky and makes one of his patented “totally not suspicious” exits. Nygma doesn’t take this well and swears to Bruce that he will “make you understand”.

Changing into his Batman duds, Bruce heads over to Police Headquarters and finds Chase Meridian (Pour homme. Pour femme.) waiting for him. She tells him that she’s figured out Two-Face’s weakness; that he always needs to use his coin to make decisions and Bruce is all:

Even in the movie this is presented like Chase being an absolute basic bitch. She then admits that she really arranged this meeting just to climb the bat-pole if you catch my drift.

I’m talking about his penis.

“Do you have any idea how many tax-payer dollars you just wasted turning that thing on?” “Does that turn YOU on?”
“Get out of my head.”

Gordon (or as he’s known by the boys down town, “Commissioner Cock Block”) arrives and Batman bids a hasty retreat.

Later that night, Nygma’s boss Strickly finds him running more experiments on the Brain Box and demands that he stop. So Nygma knocks him unconscious and plugs him into the box. This has the unexpected side-effect of draining Strictly’s intelligence and making Nygma smarter. Okay, cards on the table. I love Jim Carrey as the Riddler.

I will not be taking questions at this time.

I think the backlash to his performance (apart from joyless sad sacks who don’t enjoy Jim Carrey. Or fun. Or being able to bring someone to orgasm) is that he’s clearly continuing the work done by Frank Gorshin. Back in the nineties, the Adam West show was still something of a sore spot for many batfans. Now though, as we’ve started to realise that the Adam West Batman was actually the tops, can we not find it in our hearts to admit that this Riddler is exactly what this movie needs? This movie is more interested in Bruce Wayne than the previous two and most of the darker elements come from him, not the two villains. So a lighter, frothier villain is a good fit, I feel. Plus, when he wants, to Carrey is actually very good at bringing real menace.

After pushing Strickly out of a window, Nygma manipulates the CCTV footage to make it look like he killed himself, a detail which was ridiculous when the movie came out but now feels perfectly plausible. Bruce visits the lab and insists that Strickly’s family gets full benefits despite his death being ruled a suicide and his assistant reminds him that he still has to find a date to see the circus. You know, I kinda feel that if there was any city where a circus would not be welcomed it would be Gotham. It just seems like that would be viewed as being in poor taste.

Bruce then finds a creepy greeting card with a riddle on it at his office and another waiting for him at home, so he takes them to Chase Meridian (I…don’t know any more cologne taglines). Oh, funny story. I’ve been googling “cologne” and “Batman” so much that the algorithm has started trying to sell me Batman themed cologne.

It smells of sweat, rubber and no parents.

Anyway, she tells him that whoever sent him the riddles is a psycho crazy killer and, visibly aroused by her professionalism, he invites her to the thircuth. No seriously, Val Kilmer lisps the word “circus” so bad and I can’t believe nobody caught it

At the thirtcuth, they watch thome thircuth acrobath called the Flying Graythonth thoar and thwing through the air over the trapeeth. One of these is a young lad named Dick Grayson who looks just about old enough to run for president of the United States.

“Robin the Grown-Ass Man Wonder” doesn’t have quite the same cadence.

Suddenly, the circus is taken hostage by Two-Face and his Goons and he tells the crowd that somewhere in Gotham is a nuclear bomb and that one Gotham citizen has the trigger…wait, wrong movie. He tells them that he has a bomb and that if somebody in the crowd doesn’t reveal Batman’s real identity he’ll blow the Big Top sky high. And this is where I suddenly realise that I actually love this Batman.

Know what he does? He stands up and yells “HARVEY, I’M BATMAN!”

No hesitation. He just does it. People are going to die and his secret identity isn’t worth that. He just fucking does it. Like, y’know, a hero.

Obviously, it doesn’t work because the whole crowd is screaming but I love that moment. Anyway, he changes into Batman and fights Two-Face’s mooks while the Flying Graysons work to get the bomb out of the tent and into the river. The succeed in saving the circus but Dick’s parents and brother are killed.

Not wanting Dick to be taken away by Adult Services, Bruce offers to let Dick stay in Wayne Manor. Dick agrees, because if you’re plotting revenge against the man who killed your parents, you might as well do it in style. Bruce has a flashback to his parents’ murder, and blurts out to Alfred “I killed them”.

Before he can chew that little nugget of undigested trauma the Bat signal lights up and he has to head out. Alfred helps Dick unpack and asks about his helmet, which has a robin painted on it.

Robins, of course, being red all over.

Dick tells Alfred that he got the nickname “Robin” after he saved his brother from falling by flying out “like a Robin”. He bitterly muses “some hero I turned out to be” and Alfred replies “ah, but you are a hero. I can tell.”

“And also, you saved hundreds and hundreds of people from being blown up at great personal risk to your own life. Which is kind of heroic, in a way.”

Meanwhile, Nygma crashes Two-Face’s lair and offers him an alliance, seed money to build and market the box to every home in Gotham in exchange for Batman’s true identity. With impressive speed, they manage to steal enough money from jewellers and banks to build a business empire and freaking DOOM FORTRESS in Gotham Bay.

Meanwhile, Dick discovers the Batcave and takes the Batmobile for a joyride which requires Batman to rescue him from a mob of angry day-glo neon street thugs. Back at the Batcave, Dick asks Bruce to train him so that he can kill Two-Face. Batman replies:

: Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn’t die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won’t know why.

See what I mean? Yeah, the movie is corny. And cheesy. And often stupid. But it gets the fundamentals of Batman right in a way that amazingly many adaptations don’t.

Nygma unveils his “new improved” box at a gala unveiling which raises the question as to how the hell long this movie’s timescale even is. Nygma has managed to put a box in virtually every home in Gotham and is now rolling out the Playstation 2, essentially, which should mean a gap of at least a few years, right?

Anyway, with Chase as his date, Bruce attends the gala and investigates the box, only to have his mind unwittingly scanned. Two-Face and his Goons attack the gala (man works hard, give him that) and we get yet another confrontation between him and Batman than almost ends in Bruce’s death before he’s rescued by the Adult Boy Wonder.

Later that night, Batman visits Chase and they share a kiss. But she breaks it off, saying that she’s realised that she’s in love with someone else. So now, Bruce has to make a decision.

Keep risking his life and the lives of those he cares about by being Batman.Knock it all on the head and get with Nicole Kidman.

He invites Chase over to Wayne Manor to tell her the truth. But when she knocks over a vase with some roses it triggers a flashback to the night of his parents funeral, when he ran out into the night, fell into the Batcave and saw the bat that bit him and turned him into Spider-man. Chase kisses him and realises who he is (the bat story wasn’t clear enough, apparently). Before they seal the deal however, the manor is attacked by Two-Face and Riddler who learned his real identity from the box. Bruce is knocked unconscious, the Batcave is bombed to smithereens and Chase is kidnapped.

Fortunately, Batcaves are like ogres and onions; they are lairs with layers, and though the Batmobile is destroyed, the Batwing and the Batboat are fine. Dick shows up in a new costume that Alfred made for him and Batman says “ah fuck it, welcome to the team”.

They travel to the Riddler’s corporate doom fortress and we get THE LINE. Now, this screenplay had three writers so we’ll never truly know who was responsible Akiva Goldsman this has Akiva Goldsman all over it.

: Holey rusted metal, Batman!: Huh?: The ground, it’s all metal. It’s full of holes. You know, holey.: Oh.

Robin confronts Two-Face and almost kills him but spares him because ultimately revenge is a worthless hollow pursuit that kills both he who it is visitied upon and he who exacts it and truly mercy is what separates us from the…

Uh movie, you’re kinda muddling your message here.

Robin is kidnapped and, when Batman reaches Riddler’s lair, he’s presented with a final riddle; can Batman and Bruce Wayne co-exist. He has to choose whether to save Chase or Robin.

Naturally, he chooses option C: Save both of them and kick your ass because I’m the goddamn Batman.

He destroys the brainwave receiver which overloads the Riddler’s brain and rescues both of the hostages. Two-Face just dies and it’s no one’s fault let’s just move on. His mind utterly scrambled, Riddler is committed to Arkham Asylum (in its first onscreen appearance in live action) and the movie ends with Batman and Robin beginning their new partnership that everyone is going to just love.

Is Robin fucking taller than Batman?! Who let that happen!!!?

***

Corny, campy and shamelessly corporate and yet…I think Schumacher honestly came closer to creating a live-action version of the comic universe these stories take place in than any other director who tackled the character. Nolan, Snyder and Reeves all tried to “fix” Batman and make him work in the “real’ world. Burton just did a Burton movie with a character that superficially resembled Batman. But with Schumacher, despite all his excess and corniness, I at least feel like he cracked open a few Batman comics (and not just the ones written by Frank Millar) and said “Oh cool. Let’s just do this”.

Oh, and lest we forget, this movie gave us this absolute banger:

The Dark Knight Detective

Possibly the must underrated Batman. Kilmer isn’t quite classically handsome enough to fully resemble comics Bruce Wayne but he gives the character a studious, intellectual seriousness that really works. He’s a got a great Batman voice and both Kilmer as an actor and Schumacher as a director actually seem interested in what makes Bruce tick psychologically. Unlike Keaton’s Batman, who sometimes came across as a lunatic who fought villains by coincidence, Kilmer’s Batman is actually…heroic.

The Boy Wonder

Look, I know we all love to shit on Chris O’Donnell’s Robin but, put aside your hatred of Batman and Robin and judge him here on his own merits. He’s actually pretty darn good here as an angry young man out for revenge. I mean, yeah, he is ridiculously old for the part but he’s a lot better than he’s given credit for.

His Faithful Manservant

Another thing that Schumacher did better than Burton? Realising what a gift he’d been given in Michael Gough’s Alfred. Alfred gets a lot more screentime in the Schumacher films and that’s to their eternal credit.

The Clown Prince of Crime

Yeah, I had completely forgotten this but, if we accept that this movie takes place in the same continuity as the Burton movies, then the shadowy figure we see gun down the Waynes in flashback is the Joker.

The Prince of Puzzles

Jim Carrey is doing Frank Gorshin’s Riddler performance infused with angry-virgin energy and no safeword and I realise that that’s not for everyone.

It’s for me.

Meet the most bizarre criminal of all time, a twentieth century Jekyll-Hyde!

Okay, before I completely torpedo any remaining credibility…this just does not work.

“Mom, can we have Jack Nicholson’s Joker?” “We have Jack Nicholson’s Joker at home.”

I love Tommy Lee Jones, truly. But he always plays Tommy Lee Jones. That’s as it should be. They took a man famous for only playing one man, and cast him as a man famous for being two men. That’s some real shitty math.

The Comish

Pat Hingle’s Gordon has reached full buffoon apotheosis, showing up beside the Bat signal in his nightdress and babbling incoherently like Grandpa off his meds.

Our Plucky Sidekicks

Chase Meridian (God, that name) is straight out of the “hack nineties screenwriter’s guide to writing Strong Female Characters TM” i.e., sexually harrassing every mammal with a dick in a five mile radius. However, she has the good fortune to be played by Nicole Kidman who is an all time GOAT at finding nuance and layers to otherwise shallow archetypes. Even when handicapped by having to spout meaningless psychobabble, Meridian actually helps Bruce Wayne on his character journey. And she even has an arc of her own, overcoming her own fascination with damaged unnattainable men to see the humble handsome billionaire standing right in front of her. And there are moments. There’s a bit where she kisses Bruce Wayne and realises that he’s Batman and she gives this beautiful little smile.

Wonderful.

Batman NEVER kills, except: 

Hey, know what’s a pleasant side-effect of wanting to sell more Happy Meals? This Batman isn’t a PSYCHOTIC MANIAC. There’s a few edge cases. Batman dodges a bazooka rocket from Two-Face which blows up the henchman driving up behind him but, no, that’s on Two-Face. Some more henchmen die crashing into a wall chasing after the Batmobile but, again, nobody made them drive recklessly. Batman does fling coins at Two Face which causes him to spaz out and fall to his death but

a) Justifiable self-defence.

b) He was just trying to distract Two-Face, not kill him.

This Batman passes the “not a murderer” test.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?: 

We get a new redesigned, Gieger-esque Batwing and Batboat which are just gorgeous. Batman uses a Bat-Net Gun, a Bat Taser and a Bat Blow Torch and we see the return of the remote controlled Batarang. I’m missing plenty, this is a very gadget heavy film.

It’s the car, right? Chicks dig the car:

With the partial destruction of the Batmobile in the previous film we get this Formula 1 looking thing with a shark fin that jiggles noticeably when in motion.

I don’t like it. When I see the Batmobile driving down the street I should think “Man, I don’t want to mess with that guy” not “I bet the guy who drives that is a massive chode”. Chicks may dig the car. Mouse does not.

FINAL SCORE OUT OF TEN:

NEXT UPDATE: 29 June 2023

NEXT TIME: It’s a world of laughter
A world of tears
It’s a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There’s so much that we share
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all

Hoodwinked! (2005)

I won’t lie guys, that exclamation mark frickin’ terrified me. Unless a movie is a prestigey old-timey musical, an exclamation point has no place in its title. You know what other independently produced CGI movie has an exclamation point in its title?

“They worshiped the dragon who had given authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can wage war against it?”

Fortunately, Hoodwinked! is not as bad as The Abomination and it’s not even the worst movie I’ve reviewed this year (although that is more an indictment of the year than an endorsement of the movie).

So what is Hoodwinked!?

Gah, see, this is the problem with having an exclamation point in the title. It looks like I’m screaming in panic.

“What is Hoodwinked?!”“I DUNNO!”“Aaaah!”“AAAAAAH!!”

Now Hoodwinked! was a movie that I was tangentially aware of. I’d never watched it, but I’d occasionally see it across the crowded room that is the modern animation landscape. And it would wink at me. And I would pretend I hadn’t noticed because it looked like the ugliest fucking Shrek rip-off I had ever seen and there wasn’t enough booze in the world for me to go home with it. But, like anyone who creates content on the internet for long enough, soon enough you find yourself doing things you never would have imagined doing. I watched Hoodwinked!

I have questions.

So, firstly, I don’t know if you know, but this movie is kind of a big deal. This film is sort of the Secret of Nimh of CGI movies. It was one of the very first attempts to create an independent feature length computer animated film. Like Nimh, Hoodwinked! was created in a single house by a small team, without the backing of a distributor and for a positively miniscule budget. Unlike Nimh, it looks like hot garbage. Also unlike Nimh, it was a massive success, earning its budget back tenfold and clearing the way for an avalanche of CGI films made outside of the Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks Triumvirate.

Say “Thank you Hoodwinked!”
I can’t hear you.

Why did it make so much dollah? Well some-BAHDY once told me…

Yeah, Shrek really did just create a market for crass CGI fairy tale parodies out of frickin’ nowhere. But I don’t think it’s fair to say that Hoodwinked!’s rather breathtaking success was purely due to riding Shrek’s filthy, flatulent coat-tails. Now, Hoodwinked! is no critical darling. It may have offended some of the blue noses at Rotten Tomatoes with its cocky stride and musky odours. But it does have a fairly devoted cult following and having seen it I can sort of understand why.

The movie was written by stand-up comedian Corey Edwards and it really feels like a script written by a stand-up comedian. Because in terms of structure and plot it’s a shaggy mess of a thing but, fair is fair, it is quite funny.

The movie is based on Little Red Riding Hood, perhaps the last really big name fairy tale that Disney never got around to leaving their indelible stamp on. The movie aims to update the story into a snarky irreverent laff-fest with a contemporary sensibility which was a real novel idea when Tex Avery did it in 1943.

Our story begins with Little Red Riding Hood arriving at Granny’s house only to find someone with larger eyes, ears and teeth in her bed than might be expected. Also this person is wearing a granny mask forged from pure nightmares.

Sweet Jesus.

Okay, let’s tackle the elephant in the room. The animation. It’s…yeah, it’s pretty bad. And no, not, “bad because it was made in 2005”. This is around the level of something like The Adventures of André and Wally B. from 1984. The movement’s stiff, the character designs are largely either generic or hideously ugly or both and the textures have an awful plastic quality. But…

It’s also kind of an amazing achievement? See, this animation wasn’t made by animators. Or, at least, not by animators with experience working in CGI. The animators were literally being trained in how to use the software as they were making the movie. And I gotta say, if this was my first attempt at making computer animation?

I dunno, I’d be pretty proud of that!

Okay, Red comes into Granny’s cottage, they do the whole “what big eyes/ears/teeth” rigmarole, the wolf attacks the girl, Granny bursts out of the closes bound and gagged and then the woodsman bursts through the window waving an axe.

Cut to black.

Later that night, the police have been called, led by a frog named Detective Nicky Flippers and the police chief, a bear named Ted Grizzly.

So it’s at this point that the movie reveals it’s doing a Rashomon. Each character gets interrogated by the police in turn and with each new perspective we learn more until finally we know the truth.

“I thought the point of Rashomon was that human society is a tissue of self-serving lies and deception and the search for objective truth is ultimately meaningless?”“I fell asleep after the first ten minutes.”

Before we go any further, let’s talk about that cast because holy shit. Patrick Warburton as the Wolf. Anne Hathaway as Little Red Riding Hood. Jim Belushi as the Woodsman. David Ogden Stiers as Flippers. Glen Close as Granny!? And of course, the modern Olivier, Xzibit himself, as Chief Grizzly.

No shade, he’s legitimately good in the role.

And see, I think this is what saves the movie and lifts it to the point where, while you can’t exactly say that it’s good, you can’t just dismiss it as a train-wreck either. Nothing with Patrick Warburton’s dry cool delivery will ever be unwelcome in my home.

Red is the first to tell her story. We see her in flashback, cycling through the woods delivering goodies for Granny. Now, trust me, as a seasoned veteran of cheap-as-chips animation, when you hear the music starting up and realise that the movie is going to have a song…

Which is why I am stunned to report that the songs in Hoodwinked! are…kinda good? For example, our first song, Great Big World. I mean, it’s not Sondheim or anything but it’s pleasant, it bops along, the lyrics are catchy and Anne Hathaway has just the sweetest voice.

Little Red Riding Hood meets Boingo the Bunny (Andy Dick) who’s just lost his job with the Muffin Man (you know the Muffin Man?) because his recipes were stolen by the mysterious “Goodie Bandit”. As Red continues on her way she realises that all the local bakeries and sweet shops have gone out of business. Deciding that it’s too dangerous for her to hold on to Granny’s Recipes she makes her way into the forest on a cable car driven by Boingo. She falls out of the cable car and meets the Wolf who acts real stranger-danger until she screams and runs off. Making her way through the forest she came across a shack owned by a goat named Japheth who sings our second song, Be Prepared.

They ride Japheth’s mining car to Granny’s but when the cart gets thrown into the air Red sees a vision of Granny in the sky who tells her to “use the hood” and she does, safely parachuting to the ground. She arrives at Granny’s house and it all plays out like we saw in the opening.

Now, it’s time for the wolf’s interrogation and he reveals that he’s actually an investigative reporter and that he and his assistant, a helium voiced squirrel named Twitchy, were actually searching for the Goody Bandit. The wolf has come to suspect Granny as being the Goody Bandit as she’s the only business still operating. He and Twitchy meet up with Boingo who offers to show them a short cut to Granny’s House. Despite getting lost and almost run over by Japheth’s mine carts, they reach Granny’s House before Red Riding Hood. We learn that the Granny Mask the wolf was wearing was actually official Granny merchandise that she just had laying around the house.

That does not make it better. No sir. It does not.

Little Red Riding Hood comes in and we’re all caught up.

It’s times for the Woodsman’s story and you know what, we’re going to skip it. It’s dumb and it adds nothing.

Granny’s turn now and she reveals that the reason she’s actually been living a double life as an Extreme Sports Athlete (my god that is the ultimate early 2000’s joke). While competing in a snowboarding race, another team was hired by the Good Bandit to bump her off. She escaped and parachuted home (which is how Red saw her in the sky) but she got tangled in her own parachute and locked in the closet.

Realising that none of these idiots is actually the Bandit, Flippers releases them. Red feels betrayed because Granny was always over protective of her while she was secretly out risking her life. She goes for a mopey walk to the strains of Red is Blue by Ben Folds which, again, is so much better than I was expecting for this movie.

Red stumbles across the Goody Bandit in the middle of a heist and it turns out to be Boingo the Rabbit, who’s planning on using the stolen recipes to create a fast food empire selling super-addictive goodies. She gets captured but is rescued by the wolf, Granny, Twitchy and the Woodsman who also figured out that Boingo was behind everything that happened to them. The cops arrive, Boingo is taken away to jail, we get the mandatory implied prison rape joke (okay, no, that’s the ultimate early 2000’s joke).

And the movie ends with Red, the wolf, Twitchy and Granny being recruited into Flippers’ detective agency.

“I’d like to talk to you about the Happy ever After Initiative”.

***

I think you need a kind of “school play” mindset going into this film. I’ve been to school plays where, okay sure, it’s not a professional level production but the kids are acting and singing their hearts out, they clearly worked really hard on the set and the teacher actually did some interesting things with the choreography. And when you get into the head-space of thinking “wow, they actually worked really hard on this” it can become a lot more enjoyable than many more technically competent, professional productions. And, let me remind you: This cost an estimated 8 million dollars compared to Foodfight!’s estimated $60 MILLION.

Scoring

Animation: 02/20

I’m not trying to be mean here, guys.

Leads: 11/20

Between them the female leads of this movie have ten Academy Award nominations. God damn.

Villain: 09/20

Andy Dick is a suitably wascally wabbit.

Supporting Characters: 12/20

I mean. It’s Patrick Frickin’ Warbourton and David Frickin’ Ogden Frackin’ Stiers. And Xzibit as a bear.

Music: 14/20

The soundtrack has no damn business being as good as it is.

FINAL SCORE: 48%

NEXT UPDATE: 15 JUNE 2023

NEXT TIME: Riddle me this…