LOWDOWN:
When the Joker escapes from Arkham and murders the parents of a young boy, Batman recalls the pain of losing his own parents as a child. He is pushed past his limits to the point where his focus becomes revenge on all who stand in his way, including many of Gotham's underworld. Finally, Batman is forced to look at the psychological profile of his own mind and accept the consequences of his life to find resolve.
A child's parents are brutally murdered, similar to what happened to Batman. The man behind it is the recently escaped Joker, who, along with Harley Quinn, are treated to one of their most hauntingly creepy depictions ever, and not only of this medium(counting The Dark Knight). Best moment of it? He's sitting by a mirror, we don't see his face, and he is mumbling incoherently to himself. You gotta see it to believe how effective it is(and note that this is currently available on YouTube). The performances in general are great, with only brief exceptions. Bruce Wayne's alter ego has a rock-hard face and a spot-on voice, and his narrations has him questioning if he's doing the right thing, something too many fan films forget. Unfortunately, those portions do suffer from occasional uninspired writing and bad reads. On the whole, the script is marvelous, if I can't for the life of me make sense of the moral(best I can tell, it's frankly a complete betrayal of the canon of the hero, and I can never stand that, if you want something different, make a new one, don't change something established to fit what you want if it goes directly against it), and the ending is, as someone in this notes, anti-climactic.
††††
4 templar crosses out of 5
The production values are quite high, with several large locations(a carnival, and a totally absolutely in no way not at all utterly gratuitous strip club with tons of cleavage, skin and butt shots), dozens of extras, and nearly flawless cinematography, make-up, props(the one obvious thing is the grappling gun, which might as well be neon colored), filming, editing and lighting. Action is sparse(I'd call this a thriller, genre-wise), well-choreographed, swift and really hits the mark(the hand-held camera is arguably excessive). The tone is relentlessly bleak throughout. There is a lot of disturbing content and a little bloody violence in this.
OVERALL:
Being a fan of the Batman films and cartoons since I was a boy, I was happy to find a new chapter in the on-going saga. There is no sense comparing this to Nolan's work, or indeed any of the films, and it has a very different feel to the cartoons.
I recommend this to comic book readers, as it will satisfy many of them(and it includes a few more well-known characters), without any of them being out of place, forced in or poor adaptations of the source material(suits, personalities and basic appearances).
The direction the whole is not bad and there are some great shots. However the steady-cam or perhaps just plain hand-held crowd scenes and other action scenes throughout are just a little to shaky.
The score was good, as was the grading of the film. I really liked the look they have gone for. The choice of materials for his suit harked back to the Adam West TV show, and after the slick carbon looking suit of TDK and BB is a little hard to deal with.
In conclusion most of the performances are fine and move what is an interesting story along nicely, and there are no major issues in my opinion, fans will enjoy it others might be more difficult to please.
The score was good, as was the grading of the film. I really liked the look they have gone for. The choice of materials for his suit harked back to the Adam West TV show, and after the slick carbon looking suit of TDK and BB is a little hard to deal with.
In conclusion most of the performances are fine and move what is an interesting story along nicely, and there are no major issues in my opinion, fans will enjoy it others might be more difficult to please.
4 templar crosses out of 5
REALLY REALLY GOOD BATMAN FILM, MUST WATCH!!!
CREDITS:
Directed and Written by Aaron Schoenke
Original Music by Sean Schoenke
Kevin Porter as Batman
Paul Molnar as Joker
Madelynn Rae as Harley Quinn
Guy Grundy as Zsasz
-Brian Lansangan
follow me on Twitter @MrSnugglenutz84
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