The Death of Batman

After Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher, here comes one. A franchise died in 1997, but this one sort of personifies that. The premise was good, the cast was good and the darkness quotient was fine. But the director should not have been explicit about certain matters. The ending should have been refined. There was no consistency in Batman's character and no effectiveness in the combat and counter-combat sequences. Other than that, this had the makings of a tolerable film. And please, do not make Batman appear so ineffective. There should have been a fight. Or if the director wanted to kill Batman with a whimper rather than a bang, he succeeded.

Batman is a detective; he wouldn't make a mistake by thinking the punk was part of the gang that he had busted. and batman couldn't be taken down by a tazer. it wouldn't work on his suit, plus bruce wayne is prepared for eventualities. batman/bruce wayne isn't cocky("I hate it when they put up a fight"). even if a tazer had some effect, it wouldn't make him unable to make a move against the punk. bruce blames himself for his parents death so he wouldn't kill himself because a punk took his own life, or kill himself because he was raped/got aids. and he certainly wouldn't OD. he wouldn't lower himself to that level. the film's story is dark(the only good point), but too dark to the point of lame in how it portrayed batman. the person who made the film obviously hates batman and wants to discredit the character(and is probably more of a marvel fan). it should not have been made.

This short film is far removed from the campness of Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. The film is meant to be a sort of conclusion to Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. It questions heroics and what happens if the heroes get it wrong. In this case, very wrong. The performance of Christopher Stapleton as Batman can't be faulted, it really seems like it could be Michael Keaton himself under the mask. And Trip Hope has the near impossible feat of convincing the audience that he is almost in the right to be capturing Batman. Murky and very morally dubious, this film is best suited to open-minded fan of the film who aren't put off by a title which pretty much sums up the end of the film. Though fans of Burton's film will most probably delight in an even more depressing and dark incarnation of the Bat.

I guess I can see the point this guy was trying to make, but first why did it have to be Batman who ended up making a mistake? Couldn't a cop or DA also make that same mistake? Furthermore, this is a hard sell when it comes to Batman, given his continuity as known by fans. We're talking about a man who saw his parents killed right in front of him as a boy; got hell from all his trainers as he prepared to become Batman; saw a close friend's double personality destroy him; after failing save a girl from drowning, got addicted to a steroid pill for which he had to lock himself in the cave for a month to recover from it(hence the unbelievability of the heroin addiction part); had his second Robin brutally murdered; had another sidekick (Barbara Gordon) paralyzed at the hands of the Joker; saw his other best friend, Gordon, stripped naked, tortured, and tormented with pictures of his daughter, also stripped, just after she had been shot and paralyzed; after going a week with less than a day's sleep rounding up all of Arkhum's inmates after they had escaped, got his back busted by steroid-laced madman; saw his beloved city have its own Black Death from the "Clench" virus, then further carnage when it got leveled by a near 9 point earthquake.

With all that, why would Batman give in after finding out he unintentionally sent an innocent man to the slammer, then sent into a heroin trip, and raped? The man's been carrying guilt over his parents, Harvey Dent, Jason Todd, Barbara, Gordon, and recently his former mechanic Harold. What would be so special about this thief that he would take his own life, believing his crusade was in vain? If you want to do one better than Alan Moore (Watchmen) in debunking the whole concept of a hero, this ain't how you do it.

I know this film is meant as open minded, but it should not have been made. As a Bat-fan this film did disturb me, but they've got the character of Batman all wrong. He is a master escape artist and second to none in self defense. The performance of Batman is exemplary, but the execution is not there. One of the things that make Batman great is how he keeps surviving to fight the never-ending fight. No real Batman fan should see this because it's depressing and disheartening for our favorite hero.