Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 3.0
Time to grow up, America?
Just saw the much-touted Batman Begins, but sad to say, it still disappoints, like all comic book based superhero movies... Yes it's one of the better comic book superhero movies, but definitely not a masterpiece of any shape or form. Let's just say it's as good as any comic book superhero movie is ever going to be, but that's not saying much... The problem is with the source material, comic books (especially American ones) are simply too juvenile, absurd and unimaginative to base any good movie upon. However hard the film-makers try to make comic book movies look respectable, at the end the best they can do is to mask the basic flaws of the source material and make the movie look a bit less juvenile, absurd and unimaginative, but only a bit...It's a sad fact that American obsession with comic books is fueling the Hollywood craze to make them into mega-buck movies, while other much more deserved material is left to gather dust. e.g. Why aren't we seeing more movies based on sci-fi masterpieces by Asimov, Clarke, Brin, Bear and the like? One page in any of these novels contains more intelligence, correct science, mind-opening ideas and grand action than all the comic book movies combined. Yet movie versions of Asimov's Foundation, or Clarke's Rama, or Brin's Uplift saga, or Bear's Eon, are still nowhere to be seen on Hollywood's horizon...Perhaps America is simply not ready for such intelligent movie material... but perhaps, just perhaps, America is ready but Hollywood isn't...