Going Batty

Since the country will be in the throes of Bat-Mania this week, I figured I'd add to the collective noise with an entry about my own take on the Caped Crusader, and his latest film franchise.

I've always been a comic book fan. In fact, I owe a lot of my artistic development, as well as a nascent understanding of visual communication, to the countless hours I spent drawing my favorite heroes and self-styled comics. Still, I was never much of a Batman fan. I was a rabidly loyal Marvel Comics reader, so DC titles were anathema to me. Consequently, I never had much exposure to the character and, frankly, watching re-runs of Adam West mincing around in his gray tights failed miserably in selling the pre-teen me on the idea of Batman as a hero. Any punk kid from my hometown would've laughed derisively at West's Batman before gutting him like a big lycra-clad fish, so how was I supposed to take the character seriously as the protector of a sprawling, crime-ridden metropolis?

The later Keaton/Kilmer/Clooney film franchise didn't do much to promote the idea of Batman as a serious hero in my mind, either. I thought the first of the series was the best (owing mostly to my Jack Nicholson man-crush), and while I applaud Keaton for his go at the title role, I couldn't help but see Mr. Mom every time he appeared on screen. 

As for the rest of the 90's films, I think the only sensible thing to do would be to gather up every available copy and bury them. Deep.

The latest film adaptations of the Batman mythos, largely based on Frank Miller's re-imagining of the character in his hugely popular Dark Knight series, looked immediately promising to me. I enjoy Miller's work, and thought Batman would benefit from his gritty storytelling. I was right. The first installment, Batman Begins, was excellent. It hooked me immediately and introduced a Batman that I could really like, even admire.

I remember the exact moment when I became a Bat-Fan. There's a scene in the beginning of Batman Begins which finds Bruce Wayne rotting in a Chinese prison for some minor offense. He's accosted by a menacing giant in the chow line, who informs him, "You're in hell, little man. And I'm the devil."

"You're not the devil," replies Bruce, "you're practice." He then proceeds to trounce the living hell out of the giant and a good number of his minions.

That scene —that one line— gave me more insight into the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman than all of the previous films combined. This was not some technophilic rich kid with delusions of costumed grandeur. No, this was a hard, scarred, and deeply-flawed Bruce Wayne: fearless, self-destructive, and possessed of a formidable badass-ittude he'd travelled the world to obtain. My respect grew for this all-too-human hero as he further tried to exorcise his personal demons under the martial tutelage of the mysterious Ra's al Ghul and his League of Shadows. It was in the company of this brotherhood of assassins that Batman truly began to take shape. It was where Wayne learned the difference between justice and vengeance, and chose which he would uphold.

Most importantly, what Batman Begins gave us was a good story, some fine direction that was stylized without being distracting, and some damned good performances from Bale, Caine, and Neeson. These elements combined to inject some much-needed character and realism into the franchise, and brought the collective "us" as close as we're going to get to identifying with a billionaire industrialist/vigilante. 

So, the stage is set quite nicely for The Dark Knight. As a newly-inducted Bat-Fan, I'm really looking forward to it. From the advance reviews I've read, Ledger's raw performance as the Joker is something to behold. One reviewer called it "epic". I'm interested to see the Joker portrayed without the camp that, until now, seems to have been as integral to the role as greasepaint.

It's interesting to note that some early praise for the film has been tempered with caveats about the truly evil nature of its villians, and the movie's bleak, nihilistic tone. I say bring it on. After all, a grinning sociopath who wreaks havoc and destruction just because he can holds no surprises for me, especially after the past eight years.

It's just a shame that Batman doesn't work in Washington.