Cheap night out

[caddyman]

Cheap night out last night. DT sans LJ and I went to Vue in Finchley to watch Batman Begins, stopped to buy a Mickey D’s afterwards, all for £12.40 all in. For two. Ah, the wonders of Orange Wednesday when combined with a buy two for the price of one coupon from McDonald’s. I don’t have them very often, but I do have a soft spot for their quarter pounders with cheese (probably my liver).

I liked the movie; I liked it a lot. DT was a little less enthused, feeling that the baddies’ fiendish plot was a little unbelievable (see how I got through that without using spoilers? See, I do pay attention). I didn’t think it was too bad; it is a comic book world, after all, and for all the clever technological explanations for Batty’s gadgets, we all know that much of what he does is generally physically impossible, so having an overblown threat is acceptable within the genre.

Apart from which, if you compare it with Mr Freeze, et al from earlier Batman filmic outings, this was positively restrained and totally believable. To my mind, what there is of it anyway, the threat has to be consistent with the genre, and in this case it was.

So there.

And the movie does answer some of those questions as to where Bruce Wayne gets the kit from to become Batman in the first place. A massive fortune doesn’t protect you from prying eyes, necessarily, so it was nice seeing how that was handled.

“Ten thousand?! Oh well, at least we’ll have plenty of spares”.

The trailers for the Fantastic Four looked interesting, and I expect that I shall cough up the dough to see that too, in due course. The FF were always my favourites when I was a kid, but with the release of The Incredibles, much of the ground has been cut from under them in cinematic terms. I am downplaying my expectations of the movie, which I expect to look great but to be plot-lite. We’ll see, but if I don’t expect too much from it, I can be pleasantly surprised, or even (less likely) bowled over.

Comic adaptations have peaked, I think. Time for Hollywood to plunder some other genre and squeeze it ‘till the pips squeak.

Comments

[immerwahr.livejournal.com]

I am off to see it tonight for a much delayed rendezvous. Not having heard a bad report about it, I expect it to be enjoyable. The Fab Four were my first favourites as well, before the X-Men and 2000AD arrived. I always wanted to be Johnny Storm. I hold out the slim hope that Mole Man will be the villain and that he will be played by George out of Sienfeld (I had to ask the local Sienfeld obsessive about the character name, I know him better and more lovingly as the voice of Duckman). It is slim, I know.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

George (Jason Alexander) as a bad guy would be splendid indeed!

[dreamfire.livejournal.com]

Read an article today that says that Christian Bale hopes to use the notoriety of Batman to raise the finace for " a project he and werner herzong have been working on for a year and a half" thought you may wish to know this and I may forget to tell you later

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Orange Wednesdays, I've never managed to get that to work , my texts just bounce- damn you!

I thought the baddies/plot of Batman were great. Made just enough sense not to be silly, but not so much that they were dull or mundane. Plus they provided a perfect excuse to flood the city with steam and turn it into an urbam hell. Loved it.

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion there are lots of ways you can make a Batman film, and more than one way can work, but that particular way was the way I wanted them to do it. It felt more like the comics I'd liked. It's quite a subjective thing though, Chi has read similar Batman comics to me and wasn't that impressed, especially not by Mr Bale, who I thought was spot on.

[crazedgiggles.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the review, now I have to go out and see the Batman movie before it leaves theaters.

I'm hoping they'll adapt the Redwall series into movies.. although I doubt they will :)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

"Comic adaptations have peaked, I think"

The quality may die down, but the numbers won't:

V for Vendetta - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

Watchmen - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I am trying not to think about them.

Alan Moore seems to have washed his hands of those adaptations, which does not bode well. I give you LOEG as an example.

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

Let's hope it never happens. I have especially strong views upon Watchmen adaptations, although partly because I've actually read it ;)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

This may get me blacklisted, but I enjoyed LOEG - fun film, bit of a crap translation of the comic plot-wise though.

Still V has Ms Portman a la cueball, so I'm interested.

[romney.livejournal.com]

See Caddy, there IS someone other then me who enjoyed LOEG!

[forbinproject.livejournal.com]

It rocked my world. Up there with X-Men & Spidey in my opinion. Was quietly exploding during the FF trailer.