Batman is rising again and again.

  Okay so I woke up this morning and knew that I had to write something about this. I’ve put it off a little, written over a thousand words for my novel (in less than an hour thank you very much) and even written some of my “novel diary”. Hell I even glanced over some IMDB reviews and forum entries for DKR and as always instantly regretted it.

  The thing is Batman is one of those things where I’m really in the minority. The idea of a Batman movie doesn’t get me excited and I wasn’t a huge fan of Begins when it came out. It’s grown on me a little on repeat viewings and I do appreciate that it’s an excellent film.

  Then there was Dark Knight, which I thought was a better film but again it had to grow on me and eventually became something I really liked. I think this is mostly down to the Joker, a character I find really captivating and Harvey Dent too actually. I found it intriguing to have another good guy enter the inner sanctum of Gordon and Batman’s weird partnership.

  So in spite of my feeling towards a Batman movie I knew I had to see DKR. And actually I was getting excited for it. We had just re-watched the first two films and both movie magazines had given DKR 5 stars. Things were looking good.

  Unfortunately my excitement waned (wayned har har) as time passed, it took me a further week to see it after the release date. (In which time everyone I knew went to see it, some of them twice). But finally I got to go see it.

  And my ultimate opinion? Okay. Not the “best film ever” and certainly not the best Chris Nolan Batman, not by a long way. Don’t get me wrong; the film has a lot to be proud of. As always the casting is perfect and I took some joy in seeing a familiar face (or two) missing from the last film. It has its usual understated sense of humour, it’s excellent action, great scoring etc etc.

  My biggest problem? The pacing. This was a film with a great beginning and great ending but an overly long middle. After thinking on it and discussing it with someone I managed to pin down the main issue.

  At the start of the film Bruce Wayne is no longer Batman, he’s in retirement and his body has clearly seen better days. The film really takes its time (and rightly so) before finally giving us Batman. It’s roughly a 45 minute wait before we get to see the caped crusader.

But then a little way down the road Batman vanishes again and we have yet another wait before he finally “rises” and gets to be batman again. This clearly should have been “The Dark Knight Rises... Twice.”

  It’s a real fault to the structure and it kind of leaves the film feeling a little muddled. Perhaps it would help if he had never retired? Then bring his fight with Bane nearer to the start and make more of a story out of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman again.

  Which brings me back around to Bane and the other characters. I’m sure that when tackling characters like Catwoman and Bane  Nolan couldn’t have done them better. Anne Hathaway found a nice balance to her character that meant it never felt over the top or like it was pandering to teenage boys’ fantasies.

  Bane on the other hand… I get it, I really do, the posh but mutated voice coming from this huge guy. You really do feel like here is a man that can beat the Batman. But the thing is he didn’t really leave much of an impression on me. Of course there was no topping the Joker and even the Scarecrow proved an interesting character. Bane was just average.

  Although I have to admit that my favourite aspect of the film was the Bane back-story, in fact the telling of this tale (or re-telling rather) near the end of the film was the most captivated I had felt at any time.

  I also rather liked the progression of John Blake. I particularly liked a scene with him and Gordon where Blake clearly feels cheated by him and judges him a little harshly. It made me stop and wonder how I would re-act. John Blake was the good guy that got up everyone’s nose and was someone I really related to.

  For me it is the moral questions like this, the ones that almost force you to turn them on yourself, that really make these films stand out for me. Unfortunately I thought they were a little lacking here.

I also feel a need to give special mention to Michael Cane, whose performance had me to tears. It was  his sorrow, more than anyone else’s that got my sympathy.

  This is getting rather long so I’ll try to wrap this up. DKR is excellent in parts but I do think it has its flaws. It’s slow pacing in the middle and re-treading of old ground let it down a little and it felt absent of characters that left much of an impression. To its credit, it at least knows how to put a line under the end of a trilogy whilst leaving certain threads open.

  I’m sure it will grow on me a little more as the others did but it’s not enough to make me want to return to the cinema. DKR definitely deserves an award for best “number 3 of a franchise” but I don’t think it’s the 2 and a half hours of perfection a lot of critics are claiming it to be.

Game Changing Part 2 or Where did Ratha go?

spoiler warning

   The Amazing Spider-man came out almost 2 weeks ago, on a Tuesday, which is a little weird but okay. And ever since watching it I feel like I’ve soaked up every online critique, review and podcast. You see, there is something about this film that fascinates me.

   I think the biggest problem this film has is its close proximity, time wise, to the Sam Raimi films. When the first one came out I was 14 and I was blown away. It was probably my first taste of a superhero movie and it was my first crush. Probably the weirdest crush ever but I digress…

   Essentially what I’m saying is that this film never really had a chance when compared to my first film love. It’s probably why I didn’t get too hyped up by its release, despite the ever-improving trailers. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I don’t ever remember feeling bored or annoyed or anything whilst watching it and I had more than a few laughs. But since leaving that theatre, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

   Now is the part where I explain the title. You might want to read my previous article, “The game change of The Avengers” where I rejoiced in Maria Hill’s presence for the Avengers (purely so she was ready and waiting for the sequels). The makers of The Amazing Spider-man tried to do the same thing. Months before the film’s completion the writers and producers explained how essentially they could slow down the story because they had the luxury of knowing they’d be making more.

   That might sound kind of cocky but they weren’t wrong. The name of Spider-man alone is enough to keep bringing people back and after the first film’s release they know they can make at least two more.

Unfortunately I think this led to them mishandling the story a little. In an interview with Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach by Empire they seemed to hint that the reason Peter Parker doesn’t find Uncle Ben’s killer is because it is a storyline that will be picked up again in the future.

   And even stranger still, in a film that was advertised as telling you the “secrets behind Spider-man” you don’t really learn that much about his parents. In fact the post credit sequence pretty much tells you that there is waaay more to learn on the subject.

   Perhaps when the trilogy is complete we will look back at this film and say “ah it all makes sense now” but the issue is that a film shouldn’t do that. By all means weave a long running story but a single film has to stand up on its own as well and I’m not sure it does.

   There was certainly a lot to enjoy about The Amazing Spider-man. The casting is perfect, I just loved Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. And after reading a lot more of the comics I did feel that this was a Spider-man much closer to how he should have been.

   Unfortunately the unfinished nature of the story and a few other flaws here and there did stop this from being a film I could get really enthusiastic about. Don’t let this put you off too much. As I said there’s still much to enjoy about The Amazing Spider-man.

Extra Note: After writing the above article I made some discoveries. According to a couple of online sources, the reason why some story elements and characters are dropped without another word are down to re-edits and last minute changes.

  Apparently there should have been a whole scene where Ratha confronts the Lizard and Spider-man shows up. From the sounds of things it seems as if we should have learnt more about Peter Parker’s parents but something changed. Perhaps the director and producers decided half way through to move certain elements to the sequel.

  And so any scenes that included the parent storyline had to either be re-cut or dropped all together. I think this is why, story wise, the film does come across as a bit lacking in closure.

The game change of "Avengers Assemble"

   Seeing as Avengers managed to reach 3^rd position at the world wide box office and the fact that you are reading an article with “Avengers” in the title, I can be safe in presuming that you have seen this particular superhero movie. If you also happen to be a fan of “How I Met Your Mother” then you will also be aware that the shows very own Robin Sherbatsky jumped ship to play the part of Maria Hill.

   Depending on how clued up you are on the Marvel universe and its characters you may or may not be aware of how important a character Maria Hill is. Important enough in fact that when Nick Fury disappears, she takes over the running of SHIELD. Now what I want you to do is play a little game called, “How important was Maria Hill to the Avengers movie?”

   The answer is, not very much. Anything she did or said could easily have been placed on to another character or removed all together without damaging the movie in any way. If you know anything about writing, you’ll know that often, unnecessary characters and plot lines usually end up left behind in an earlier draft. And that goes double for a big ensemble piece. Why bother giving any time at all to an unimportant character when Iron Man and the Hulk are in the next room fighting for screen time?

   The reason for this is simple. Because she becomes important later. At some point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Maria Hill will most likely follow in the footsteps of her comic sister and become head of SHIELD. Now think about that for a second. A big budget, big ensemble movie has put time aside to introduce you to someone because they will be important later. It’s all so that when it does happen you don’t ask “Well who the f&*$ is this?” You will know her and you will understand her a little more.

   That in a nutshell, is why The Avengers is a game changer. The writers and producers at Marvel, Kevin Feige in particular, have a much bigger picture in their heads. In the way comics have long running stories and interweaving arcs, they plan to have their films do the same thing. This is impressive. This is a whole new game. And Avengers proved it can work and work well (to the tune of $1.4bn thank you very much).

   You could argue that planned trilogies or planned last two thirds of trilogies have done similar things. Taken small characters and turned them in to something special later on but it’s not quite the same. We’re talking multiple characters and multiple “franchises”. Maria Hill doesn’t even have to wait for the next Avengers. She might turn up to cause trouble for Captain America in his sequel or she might just have one line in a Black Panther movie. The Marvel Universe is huge and anything is possible.

   You could also argue that television got their first. Characters have occasionally crossed over in to another show, particularly if they are already part of a spin off such as Spike making an appearance in Angel. The Syfy channel have also had their go at making a shared universe. Two of their shows “Eureka” and “Warehouse 13” performed a bit of a character swap. Though crossover seems a better phrase, since “Shared Universe” sounds a tad too epic considering what it actually boiled down to.

   I’m a huge fan of character crossovers whether in a mention or an appearance so I’m more than excited by what the future of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe holds. And if this little article is anything to go by, http://www.totalfilm.com/news/avengers-amazing-spider-man-reference-revealed, we might get even more characters than we originally bargained for.

A path to Marvel fandom or A guide to getting in to comics

Recently a certain super hero movie made big news and big box office bucks. The Avengers has led people to ask the same question that always crops up during a superhero movie release. “How do I get in to comics?”

Comics have so many interconnecting stories and are very much like soap operas in the way that each comic is simply an episode in one long, never-ending story. I was put off comics for years because I just had no idea where to begin. I was worried I’d get confused and things wouldn’t make sense.

However I’m in to comics now. It’s been a slowly building monster and I still wouldn’t call myself an expert but I thought I could offer fellow Marvel movie fans some advice. If you think you might be a DC person I apologise in advance for the lack of references to their comics. However I’m sure you’ll be able to apply the pointers to their comic universe too.

I think the best way to do this would be to tell you how I personally made my way through the murky waters of comic books. I was a fan of several Marvel cartoons and movies. There were the X-men movies and X-men evolution, Spider-man and somewhere hidden in my memories, the 90’s Spider-man cartoon. And more recently Iron Man and the Marvel movies that followed.

This might sound like odd advice but if you love the films and TV shows you’re half way there. They help by already offering to you an origin story or at least a version of that character and world that you can keep in mind when reading the comics.

Some might argue that the movies and comics are two very different things and they are but I do believe that it helps to have some form of basis. For example you can open up a page of New Avengers and if someone mentions Tony Stark, then hey, you already know who that is!

Your next step (or first depending on how you look at it) is to seek out a comic volume. First look for one that has characters you already like in it. If possible look for something that at least covers one story arch. Or failing that something that has No.1 printed on the spine.

My first purchase was the collected “Civil War” volume. A complex monster of a story line, condensed in to one volume and looking back there were probably references to people and events I didn’t know about. This will happen a lot. Unless you reach a point of reading absolutely everything ever, there will always be something you can’t quite “get”. Just try not to be put off by it.

Another purchase was X-men first class volume 1. It might not feature the team you would recognise from the Bryan Singer films but it’s a great starting point and it’s pretty funny too.

One of my more recent purchases was The Ultimates. It’s a great read for anyone wanting to get more of the Avengers. This isn’t technically the Avengers, more of an alternative version of that. It’s brilliantly written and the artwork is amazing. It’s definitely one of, if not, the best Marvel comic I’ve read.

Another thing to note is that both DC and Marvel have several different alternate versions of things. No character has one definitive origin (although Peter Parker always has problems with a spider) and you might wonder why some things are different across different versions. Again, don’t let it bother you, in fact try to embrace it. (I should point out however that both companies do have a main version of reality and in Marvel the original world is labelled 616…don’t ask.)

So by now you will hopefully have a couple of books you like and have an idea of what characters or series you want to see more of. I started on New Avengers issue 1 and went from there. This then became Civil War and then split in to two versions, New Avengers and Mighty Avengers.

Even after reading nearly a hundred different issues (well okay hundreds I’ve still been caught out by jumps in the story but it’s nothing a quick Google search can’t help you with. For example I was wondering why the two Avengers series seemed to skip an ending, only to find out I should also have been reading the stand alone “Secret Invasion” issues.

The best way I can help this make sense is that a selection of the different titles will go through one over arching story. This story will then spawn a short run of 8 issues(ish) of the main stuff that will tie all of it together.

Yes, it sounds complex and yes, it might make you go cross eyed and the truth is, if you can’t be bothered with it all then maybe your interests lie elsewhere. But please do give them a try, and who knows, in a few months time, it’ll be you cheering at the Iron Man 3 post credit sequence (or Dark Knight Rises if you swing that way).

Extra advice-

If you’re on Netflix or fancy giving the free trial a go, Marvel have some motion comics on there. There’s the Iron Man Extremis series (inspiration for the next Iron Man movie), Astonishing X-men (the one Joss Whedon wrote) and a couple of others. These are especially great for beginners as they’re relatively contained stories

I'm Back Babeh!

Soo the new website has fallen through a gap in the internet when it came time for rehosting. So instead  I've decided to spruce this one up a little just to have somewhere to put all of those unpublished article.

Nice to see you all again, you're looking lovely.