In further 'things not looking like stuff'

Awesome III,
King of Kick Ass and Radonia

A few weeks ago I drove down to L.A. to go to the open call for extras for the new Batman movie. Well, actually the call was for 'Magnus Rex' which is the secret code-name for Dark Knight Rises. Why? I don't know, we all know it's Batman 3, so why the charade? (click here to say it British-ly!) What's weird is that I think they'd probably be better off calling it Magnus Rex. I know it's basically Latin for 'King Awesome' but it's a better title than Dark Knight Rises. Almost anything with 'rise' in the title is probably going to blow. Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj. Average Metacritc score: 32.6 (math!). Sure, if the movie turns out to be great, who cares what it's called? But if it is crap this is one of the things we'll make fun of later.

Here's my headshot.
Notice my smoldering intensity.

Anyway, I and about 10,000 other would-be 'background talent' (holy shit, DO NOT call them extras) stood around for like four and a half low blood sugar hours in hopes of getting cast as 'Man with Newspaper #2' or 'Woman Eating Cake.'  It was a long and boring experience but still kind of a cool. I mean c'mon, it's a Batman movie, I'm sure I couldn't have been the only person there harboring fantasies of Christopher Nolan strolling by, picking me out of the crowd and shouting into his director's megaphone: 'I have found my The Riddler!' What? It could happen...(no it couldn't).

There was not a man or woman in Conference Room B that wouldn't stab their own
Grandmothers for a 10-second walk-on role in The Mentalist.

Ah the internet,
what would we do without it?

So yeah, it was quite a thing. While I wait for my agent to call however, I'd like to discuss what's wrong with the new Batman movie. How could I possibly judge with a movie that isn't even out yet? Why the internet of course, but also experience. Allow me to explain: In a further example of things not looking like stuff anymore, the last two Bats-Man (like mothers-in-law), while totally good movies, made me think that Christopher Nolan just enjoys sucking the fun out of superheroes by re-boot-magining Batman as a real-live person.

"Ok Mr. Wayne, that's 300 bat-shaped
boomerangs. Would you like any grappling
hooks to go with your order today?"

I know it's nerd-blasphemy to question Nolan's epic (or, long) Batman Begins, but in showing us every single step in the Bruce Wayne becoming Batman process, the film kind of strips the character of his superhero-ness. Batman doesn't have super powers and instead relies on his utility belt, kick-ass martial arts and detective skills to fight crazy theme crime. Sure, his gadgets are just slightly sci-fi and don't always obey the rules of physics but it's cool. He's Batman. Where does he get those wonderful toys? Well, in BB (acronym!) we spend half an hour watching Christian Bale order his gear from a catalogue, so yeah, I guess that's where he gets them. Operators are standing by.

Here's all we need to know.

Look out Goldman Sachs,
Batman's on to you!

As for the film's villain, Scarecrow was ok, but what happened to Ra's Al Ghul? In the comics he's a five hundred year-old megalomaniac who uses a magic well to live forever. They left this part out because they thought the audience wouldn't buy the magic, instead they just made him some dude who orchestrates a financial crisis. Ok. Sure, it's more plausible than a fat man flying around on a heli-umbrella, but the movie version of Ra's Al Ghul could have just as easily been defeated by a team of forensic accountants.

A deleted scene from Batman Returns explained that Oswald Cobblepot is 40% helium.

I thought the The Dark Knight was a little more comfortable being a comic book movie what with both Two-Face and the Joker, even if the latter was reduced to a serial killer with clown make-up. I mean, Joker was always a serial killer, but in the comics his murder-sprees were kind of hilarious. Observe:

Here the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon, leaving her paralyzed for life.
It's funny 'cause he's wearing a silly hat.

He's a giant purple guy who
eats planets. Accept it and move on.

Sometimes I wonder if the people who make movies out of comic books and cartoons aren't just a little bit ashamed of the source material. Like when Michael Bay didn't want to deal with mass-shifting Transformers, or when the Fantastic Four sequel turned Galactus, Devourer of Worlds into an evil space-cloud. Sure, it makes sense that a more realistic take on Batman would require some toning down of the more out-there aspects of the Bat-universe, but sooner or later Warner Brothers is going to roll out Justice League or a Batman/Superman team-up to compete with Marvel's Avengers movie. Once you drop the Last Son of Krypton and Martian Manhunter into the mix, the devotion to realism kind of goes out the window.



What got me thinking about this was the photos from the new movie that started cropping up on the internet. Sure they're out of context and almost certainly don't represent the finished film, but still. This is a movie about a man dressed as a bat fighting crime with boomerangs...lighten up a little, you know?

On a side note, whilst down in Los Angeles I stayed with my friends in Silver Lake and spotted these delightful flyers stuck to a pole:

Click to make bigger
and therefore legible.

Oh hipsters...

Silver Lake is a great neighborhood, but be warned: despite stronger emission standards, living there is the equivalent of smoking 2 packs of irony a day.