Tag Archives: trilogy

It’s Batman Day! Here’s How All the Cape Crusader’s Films Rank

BatmanComicIssue1,1940Batman is the best superhero, that has never really been up for discussion (you either think that or you’re wrong). So in honor of Batman Day, here are how all the live-action films of the Caped Crusader stack up.

 

 

 

 

7.) Batman and Robin (1997)

This will be last on everyone’s rankings of Batman films, if not worst movies of all-time, period. It killed the franchise and left us Batman-less for eight years, and it really isn’t a wonder why. It tried to be campy and self-satirical like the old Adam West Batman but left out all the fun and joy that that style brings, and oh my god the puns…so many puns… The one plus I can give this film is it’s hilarious if you watch it as a comedy; like, it really is hysterical how badly they botched this. Oh, well. At least we’ll always have the Bat Nipples.

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Variety

6.) Batman Returns (1992)

This one is often split among the Batman community; some appreciate its dark tone and twisted gothic looks, others (myself included) just didn’t enjoy what it was trying to be. Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer are perfect as the Penguin and Catwoman, however their performances aren’t enough to make this a good Batman film.

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5.) Batman Forever (1995)

I think this one gets a bad rap. Much like “Batman Returns,” this film is highlighted by its villains. Tommy Lee Jones has the time of his life playing Two-Face and Jim Carrey, who was coming off 1994, the best year an actor has ever had at the box office and was as hot as anything, nails the Riddler. Val Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as Batman and does a solid job, and they at least tried to stick to the comics.

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4.) The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This was never going to match “The Dark Knight,” but it was a little disappointing how much of a drop-off this was from its predecessor. The film is far from bad, but there are dozens of plot holes and Nolan goes from perfectly depicting Bane (my favorite villain as a kid) to turning him into a lovesick puppy dog with a horrible death (spoilers, but like if you haven’t seen TDKR by now and are reading a list of Batman films, you clearly don’t want to). It’s a fun movie, but unfortunately that’s where it ends.

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3.) The Dark Knight (2008)

This film is grossly overrated but it is still great. Christopher Nolan’s crime drama created the new, gritty realism of comic book films (one could argue that may be more bad than good, as that tone is what ruined films like “Man of Steel”), and featured a fantastic performance from Heath Ledger (although not the best depiction of the Joker, more on that in a second).

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2.) Batman (1989)

Tim Burton’s original Batman film in a way revolutionized the superhero genre. He put his faith in comic Michael Keaton to portray the Dark Knight and he crushes it, and Jack Nicholson gives the best Joker portrayal to date (read a comic book, haters). I have loved this movie ever since I saw it on VHS as an 8-year-old home sick from school, and is the second best-ever Batman film.

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1.) Batman Begins (2005)

Yes, this is better than “The Dark Knight.” Just from a movie perspective it is more coherent and engaging than its successor, and when you take loyalty to the comics into account the separation between the two becomes ever greater. Christian Bale remains the best Bruce Wayne/Batman that we have, and Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul partnered with Cillian Murphey’s Scarecrow gives us the best (and more logical) bad guy evil plan of the Nolan trilogy. Gotham felt like a real, breathing city and not like Detroit (or Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York and Los Angeles like in TDKR), and that is just one of the reasons why “Batman Begins” is, and likely will forever remain, the best Batman movie of all-time.

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‘Hobbit’ Trilogy Ends on Low Note

The_Hobbit_-_The_Battle_of_the_Five_Armies            The Twitter campaign for this movie was #OneLastTime. So it only seems fitting that Peter Jackson, the man who truly doesn’t know how to stop when he’s ahead, took one final shot at ruining his far superior Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Written and directed by the aforementioned Jackson, “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” is the final film of the Hobbit trilogy, the prequel series to the Lord of the Rings. Martin Freeman stars as Bilbo, Ian McKellen plays that lovable wizard Gandolf, and Richard Armitage plays Thorin, the leader of the Dwarves as the trio try and protect their mountain from invading foreign armies.

I’ll say what everyone has said since it was announced that the Hobbit films would be broken up from two films into a trilogy: it does not have the substance to sustain three films. To me, all I heard when Jackson explained it was “cha-ching!” (an additional movie means an additional $900 million). And after “Five Armies” features more of the made up characters, forced side plots and slack narrative that made the first two films so mediocre, it is only confirmed that this trilogy was a cash grab.

It is really hard to review a movie like this. I can’t really knock it for having no real pacing, plot, or character development because it was set up to be a huge epic finale with lots of confrontations. Sure, whatever. But the entire time the orcs were killing dwarves, and elves were fighting orcs, and humans were kind of just running around, all I could think was, “what’s the point of all this?”.

Truly, though, for all the fighting and violence in this film, it is hard to tell who is who, and each of the “five armies” motivations is only mentioned in passing. And then it all comes to an end. A glorious, anticlimactic end. No, but seriously: some of the conflicts just end, and there are some main characters who disappear into the conflict before never being seen again. Got to love Jackson and his inability to have a proper wrap-up, right?

There is also the forced elf-dwarf romance that on top of being a waste of time also features some cringe-inducing lines about love.

It will upset fanboys, but here’s the truth: Peter Jackson is the new George Lucas. He creates this grand trilogy, with interesting characters, fantastic storytelling, and above all, practical effects. Years later, he creates a prequel trilogy with underwritten characters, forced storylines connecting the two trilogies, and worst of all uses an overabundance of CGI. The orcs don’t look so glaringly fake here as they did in the first two films, but still. The original Rings films were made famous for using costumes; the Hobbit trilogy is just like the Star Wars prequels, and it is really hard to defend Jackson.

By the time “Battle of the Five Armies” is wrapping it, it ties into the beginning of “Fellowship of the Ring” before slowly panning onto a map of Middle Earth, clearly a nod by Jackson that it is the end of the Lord of the Rings saga. In “Moneyball”, Billy Beane asks if you would rather die from a shot to the head or five to the chest. The Hobbit trilogy seems like it falls under the latter category, as all it did was make me miss the original trilogy, and be glad that this grueling series has finally come to an end.

Critics Rating: 5/10