Is it just me or is Batman not a great hand-to-hand fighter in the Burtonverse?
- Thread starter Skipper
- Start date
There have been so many versions of Batman through out the years in the comics, like all the superhero's, that it is difficult to say this is THE Batman. People will have a preference and if the current cinematic version isn't that, people say it's not Batman.
Lately, the movies have gone towards the darker, 'edgier' (god I hate that word) version of the character. And yes, somehow that means the producers and directors feel that it should also look dark. Very, very dark.
Two hours and twenty minutes in the director's cutHaha, good one!
Fair enough, in the same way that Superman: The Movie tried to approach its subject with verisimilitude and naturalism, but still had a liberal dose of Silver Age comics ludicrousness in spite of itself.
And the Burton movies, despite their professed aspirations, did somehow manage to emulate plot points from a couple of '66 storylines: the Joker vandalizing an art gallery and the Penguin running for mayor.
"Grounded" is not a word I would use for any Tim Burton film. His Batman movies are very much in an exaggerated fantasy world, as much as any of his other movies.
As for Returns, my issue isn't that it's any darker, but that it's far more broad and ridiculous. The studio execs held Burton back on the original, pushing for a more conventional action film than he wanted; but on the sequel, he was given free rein, and it's much crazier, broader, and more grotesque as a result. I mean, I don't see how a movie whose climax involves an army of mind-controlled missile-launching penguins can be called dark, let alone grounded.
As for the rating, I have no memory of it ever being rated R, unless it was an early edit that was cut down to get a lower rating before release. Even with aspirations for relative seriousness, I can't believe Warner Bros. would've ever seriously considered releasing an R-rated Batman movie in that era. The only comic book characters to get R-rated movies in the '80s-'90s were characters that were particularly adult or violent to begin with -- the Punisher, the Crow, Judge Dredd, Spawn, Blade. Plus a few movie-original superheroes like the Toxic Avenger, RoboCop, and Darkman. But not as mainstream a character as Batman.
Is Terry Matalas in charge?
Yep, that's a good comparison. And I think that's just a natural progression given what the influences would have been at the time. And naturally, you would start with what one is familiar with and build on it from there.
Yes, especially in the first movie. The second maybe not so much.
Fair enough, especially when the tone shifted so much between the first and second movies. I have to say I think the first movie worked much better than the second. You're right that Returns was more out there.
Btw, here's a great video on what might have been if Tim Burton had been allowed a 3rd movie instead of going to Shumacher for Batman Forever.
