June21

Vicky Vail, Need Not Apply

Goodness gracious. Something just bumped "Spider-Man 2" from the number two spot on my favorite comic-book film adaptations.

Scoot, Nik and I decided to forego Bad Movie Night this week and decided to go see something ranked a bit differently on RottenTomatoes.com. The movie of choice, "Batman Begins." From the opening credits (nice new DC intro, by the way) to the very end, I was enthralled. I think I rolled my eyes once at a goofy line and counted maybe two unnecessary James Bond lines. Other than that, this movie rocked.

The villains were great and were perfect for this storyline – which if you don't know, goes back into Batman's, well, beginning. We get to see Bruce Wayne's parents, who they are and how they die (please don't think it's the exact same as the 1989 "Batman," because it's not). The interesting thing here is that while Bruce's father is only on-screen maybe five minutes of the entire movie, you get the instant connection between him and Bruce.

Christopher Nolan ("Memento," anyone?) did such a great job with this film. It's not nearly as dark and dirty as the four previous Batman films, plus it's not over-the-top corny. Nolan brought the entire story down to a very believable level. While you don't understand why the bad guys think like they do, it's not a stretch and they don't dress up in goofy costumes or have tons of dressed up thugs. Everything felt like it could be real.

While I appreciated Tim Burton's vision of Gotham city and the first two Batman films (one with the REAL Catwoman), "Batman Begins" is a great fresh start for the franchise and I'm excited to see where it will go.

Unfortunately, this movie didn't do nearly as well as expected. Sure it made $72M+ from Wednesday to Sunday, the previous record holder for a Batman film was 1995's "Batman Forever," with $66M. Ouch.

We also saw the movie in one of Cinemark's VIP rooms. If you have one of those close, go check it out, it's completely worth the extra $2 for a ticket – leather recliners, 40 people capacity, a wait-staff, and no teenagers blabbing.

Oh yeah, and if you wondered what my #1 comic-book film adaptation is... "X2: X-Men United," silly.

+ original post date: June 21, 2005 10:10 AM
+ categories: Movies