Some years ago, on his Sunday night radio show, Matt Drudge discussed the Planet of the Apes remake and inadvertently let slip a spoiler–as if you could spoil a story that had already been around for 30 years. Someone immediately called in to complain. He complained bitterly, winding up with the declaration, “You’ve spoiled my whole summer!”
Eh? Well, if your “whole summer” depends on a movie, maybe you need to get a life.
This week the movie site “Rotten Tomatoes” had to close down its comments page because hordes of loony leftists went berserk over negative reviews of Batman III: Dark Knight Rising. It’s a movie about a comic book character! It’s pitched to 12-year-olds! But never mind–somehow all these kooks got it into their heads that any criticism of this movie deserved the most violent response possible on the Internet. And so Rotten Tomatoes was swamped with profane, inarticulate, frothing-at-the-mouth comments by the usual idiots who believe The Rich are responsible for their lives being so futile and pathetic. For the first time ever, they had to close their comments page.
I haven’t seen this movie, and don’t plan to. I have outgrown comic books, and I don’t watch movies based on comic books. From what I’ve heard,Dark Knight has mutated into a political statement. Lefty losers are for it, and anyone who is against it must be an Enemy of the People. After all, you’re not a loser because you’ve attached yourself to ridiculous ideas, mal-educated, close-minded (not that there’s all that much to close), too full of rage to think straight, and never learned how to achieve anything. You’re only a loser because The Rich made you a loser while you weren’t looking!
Meanwhile, I guess we can’t even have fun with comic books anymore.
The endless parade of comic book movies puzzles me. I certainly have no interest in them and even though I have been dragged into a couple, and found them tedious.
The very first “Superman” movie was good; it brought those characters to life, and was a fun nostalgia trip. But then of course everybody had to get into the comic book thing, and it got boring almost overnight.
The comic book movies have grown ever darker and sinister with time. I went to X-Men because a friend wanted to see it, and I could barely endure being there.
If the beginning credits start with “Marvel” I change the station. Why actors like Robert Downey Jr. have wedded themselves to them is mystifying. i guess it is just a quick million dollar payoff.
Not that I want to sit around watching boring “serious” movies–but comic books? Yeesh!
I certainly fail to see the appeal. What does anyone get out of this? There was one comic book based movie I liked, RED, which was about a government agent who was considered RED, Retired and Extremely Dangerous. It was an over the top send-up, a farce about a bunch of retired spies. It had humor and pathos, but there wasn’t a serous millisecond in the entire movie and the strange, dark ambiance that these comic-book movies tend to have was absent.
I think that’s what I dislike the most, many of these comic book movies tend to take themselves far too seriously. Superman, of the late seventies, didn’t. It was tongue in cheek. It poked fun at itself and that made it approachable and interesting.
It’s the usual sophomoric twaddle about “dark” being synonymous with Serius Introllectural Thuohgt.
The first Batman movie, back in the ’90s, really disappointed me. I haven’t bothered seeing any of the subsequent ones. There’s plenty of darkness to go around, no need to create even more.
Want darkness? Just turn on the news.
The darkness I prefer is the sight of a TV that is turned off. 🙂