Browse Tag: batman

RECAP: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Christopher Nolan

How do you follow up one of the most successful movies ever made? If you’re Christopher Nolan, you don’t worry about it. You make Batman go away for awhile, maybe retire. Make him vulnerable. You ignore the transcendent greatness of the previous villain. Oh, and you throw in a nuke.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A masked villain terrorizes Gotham with a nuclear bomb while an injured Batman tries to stop him.  Continue Reading

RECAP: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight (2008): Christopher Nolan

Batman Begins, the 2005 restart for Warner Brothers, was a modest success at the box office, where it grossed about $200 million, good enough for eighth place that year. The critics liked it, and so did fans. Rotten Tomatoes scored it at 85%. Fans voted it at 110 on IMDb’s Top 250 list. A good movie, possibly a very good movie, and iconic at least for giving the world “Batman voice.”

Did Warner Brothers know? Did Nolan know? Did Bale know? The sequel to Begins, The Dark Knight, was an absolute sensation: 94% on RT, #4 on IMDb, #5 on the all-time domestic box office chart (67% more gross than that year’s #2 grosser: Iron Man), eight Oscar nominations and two wins. Knight swooped in like Batman and nearly choked us like we were The Joker to make us take notice: Nolan and company screamed that their Batman was not a Michael Schumacher Batman. The movie succeeded so well that many commenters credit it with fostering the expansion of the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards.

I saw The Dark Knight four times in theaters, and I can still remember three of those events, including my first date with my future wife. Awww.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Bruce Wayne is in full-fledged Batman mode while battling his most dangerous foe, The Yoker, I mean, The Joker. Continue Reading

RECAP: Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad (2016): David Ayer

On the heels of Superman’s death in Batman v Superman, Warner Brothers gave us a team-up movie featuring lesser known DC characters.

Suicide Squad introduces a team of baddies locked away in a black site prison. Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, El Diablo, and more are introduced to the film audience.

Fearing these to not be enough of a cinematic draw, Warner threw in appearances of Batman and Joker to anchor this puppy. The film also adapted a Neon Demon color scheme that appears in the opening and closing credits and whenever Joker is around.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Some real bad ladies and dudes join to fight for America against a badder lady and dude.  https://www.exploderblog.com/blk-dating-for-black-singles/

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Batman v Superman (2016): Zack Snyder

America’s, and perhaps the world’s, most famous superheroes have never been in a feature film together. They’ve fought their own fights, battled demons internal and external. But these two guys realized that the time came to unite against their greatest foe yet: Marvel. Oops. Doomsday and Lex Luthor. That’s it.

Did they succeed? Yeesh. They beat Doomsday, but did they overcome their actual greatest foe: sequel promotion? DC Comics, seeing what Marvel had done with second-tier characters, thought, wisely, “We can do that.” They tasked Zach Snyder to helm the project, to be the Joss Whedon of the Warner Brothers/DC partnership.

And for every bit whimsy and fun Whedon brought to The Avengers movies, Snyder stuffed (and probably will stuff) his movies with grim specter. The enterprise really makes you think of that line from Macbeth about a tale told by an idiot.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: BATMAN FIGHTS SUPERMAN; SUPERMAN VERSUS BATMAN; YAAAAAHHH! Continue Reading