The Superhero Mega-thread

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I watched a pretty big chunk of The Dark Knight, and came to the conclusion that the movie was deliberately made to be boring, and all the actors told to be dull and humorless all the time (except Heath Ledger, and to a small extent the guy playing Harvey Dent) so it all becomes a field of boredom for the Joker to prance and caper across. He seems to be a critique on the entire rest of the move with his "Why so serious?" and his torn-open full-face smile. It was made to be a certain kind of thriller, and it's all too slick and controlled, which is part of what makes it so boring. There's no sense of anything being dangerous or real, because it's all so overproduced (to borrow a music term). The dialogue is all so clipped and terse, and if you miss a line or two you can't figure out what's going on. Each character speaks in these weird little micro-bursts of words.

It's a movie built on limitations. Limited lighting, extremely limited humor and charisma, severely limited human feelings. There's little besidews grimness and dullness and occasional brief moments of shock and fear or excitement when the action kicks in. But the way it's all filmed drains even those scenes of any fun or excitement. I really feel like Nolan designed it to be frustrating. The only characters I found engaging in any way are Harvey Dent and the Joker and to a limited extend Alfred. And Lucius Fox, just a smidgeon. I think Nolan told everyone else to choke down all emotion and feeling. I think he was going for that thing where gold becomes more valuable when it's rare, only here the gold consists of all the things that make a movie fun or engaging.

I also dislike dark grim humorless superhero movies, like Civil War and The Winter Soldier, Infinity War and Endgame. And yet I have no problem with Jessica Jones or Daredevil, both of which could largely be called grim and dark. I think the difference is there's enough humor and liveliness and other feelings in these shows so when they're squeezed out you feel the lack of them, not that they were never there to begin with. I remember Jeff Goldblum saying, I think in relation to The Fly, that horror movies begin with the character full of life and vitality, so that when those things drain away it really gets to you. But if you don't have any life or vitality to begin with you don't get that contrast.

I'm just about done watching The Batman for the first time. I had heard both good and bad things about it, but I didn't think I was going to like it judging from the trailers. I was wrong. Though there was a long part in the middle I got really bored on, and it's also a ridiculously long movie. Like twice as long as most movies. But I really like the tone of it, I like What's-his-name as the Batman and as a reclusive goth Bruce Wane (based on Kurt Cobain). He moves better than any of the others too. This really is the comic book Batman, his neck isn't stiff and inflexible like they usually are, he's both athletic and acrobatic, AND they're playing up the World's Greatest Detective angle most movies seem to ignore. It's the best Batman mask I've seen in any movie, and I like the actor playing Jim Gordon. There's a lot I like about it. Zoe Kravitz is incredible.

I decided to watch it last night, after seeing Snarky Jay's review for The Penguin. I'll be watching that as soon as The Batman is over. The Penguin looks even better. It looks like it might be on a level with Daredevil (the Netflix series).

I still don't know if The Joker is part of this same movie world or not. It would fit the tone, and also the naming convention. So far they all start with a The follwed by the main character's name.

Well shit, so much for that. I won't be watching The Penguin unless I can find it on some other sevice, like Netflix or something. The only way to watch it on Amazon is to get a subscription to Max. Well, maybe I'll do it for a month if it costs about the same as Netflix. But I'll wait till all the episodes are out so I can binge them all in a few days, not wait months for them to show up. I hate all this money-grab subscription service shit.