Pajiba Reviews TDK

Good review from Pajiba. He writes:

If Frank Miller reinvigorated the seriousness of the comic book character with 1986’s The Dark Knight Returns, then Christopher Nolan gave him new life on screen by erasing the memory of Joel Schumacher’s abysmal films and rebooting the entire storyline from scratch three years ago with the bleak, daring, and completely engaging Batman Begins. Tim Burton’s Batman and follow-up Batman Returns were themselves overrated, overheated, and almost suffocatingly stylized, but their biggest sin was that they played up the absurdity of the character without making him believable. Burton once said, “Anyone who knows me knows I would never read a comic book,” and that air of mild condescension came across on screen. But Nolan clearly respects not only the possibilities in the source material but also the very real pain that would drive a man like Bruce Wayne to the edge.

We loved Burton's story because it was all we had, but in retrospect - having lived in such a wonderful period where superhero stories are told with such care and eagerness - that movie falls short. In fact, is it really such a jump that it went from Burton to Schumacher? Not that Burton's movies were bad at all - they were great fun, and had a touch of darkness to them. But they were always fantastical, and so of course it's not that far from fantastical to farce. I think the danger with the Batman franchise is that it'll jump the shark in the last episode the way that Spiderman did in Spiderman 3 - taking itself obnoxiously seriously, heavy on the action, and light on the story and characterization.

It's optimal, I think, to try and sabotage the film when you are doing sequels and on the last episode of that multi-episode franchise. You have a built-in audience, and you don't care if you piss them off, since there's no more future films to come out of the franchise. So skimp on costs and use the previous films' momentum to turn a quick buck. The only way to keep these things alive is if they can be sustained as multi-movie franchises, like James Bond or Star Trek. In those instances, care is taken to avoid damaging the property, assuming there is some future expected demand for those characters and stories. I think at roughly 70 years of age in popularity, a case can be made that the Batman story is mature and robust enough to go much further than a Nolan authored franchise, but that the Spidey 3 was so absolutely stinky compared to Spidey 2 does mean we can expect this one to eventually dive too. Thankfully, that has not been the case yet, as like Pajimba points out, TDK is the bomb.