Dear god it's rough this morning... I think I'll actually come back a few times today if I get bored and edit it for... Shit, it looks like "edit for readability." Whatever, I've only had one cup of coffee and I'm passionate about my Batmen.
Unlike nearly every other geek on the planet, I won’t be going to see The Dark Knight Rises tonight at midnight. Or this weekend for that matter. I probably won’t bother until its last week or so at my local IMAX. When the screening room is empty enough for me to open a beer without having to cover up the sound with a fart. And I’m going to need the beer.
I don't enjoy not being excited about The Dark Knight Rises. My tendency toward comic book nerddom has reached a fever pitch of late, and I crave new content more than I crave my next beer. Jesus, I can't shut up about beer this morning. No matter, I need to focus on my inexplicable distaste for a comic book movie that I should by all rights have an erection over.
Maybe it’s Christian Bale’s fault. He’s managed to grunt his way to the most unlikable Batman ever committed to page or screen and that’s a hard thing to manage with a corral full tight wearing or otherwise be-nippled Batmen the likes of George Clooney. Bale’s just so god damn one dimensional. I know there’s a wealth of character to both Bruce Wayne and Batman, but Christian Bale can’t capture any of it. Though to his credit he can stare intensely at the horizon with the best of them.
I really wanted to care about The Dark Knight Rises. I did. And I really tried. Scouts honor. But I just don’t give a shit. For a while I was worried that it was Batman as a character. That after a lifetime of hearing BatWayne bitch about his dead parents without embracing even a modicum of personal growth, I’d soured on the whole thing. Then I played Batman: Arkham City again and began to realize the real problem. Aside from the fact that Christopher Nolan seems to actually have his head crammed completely up his ass at this point… Just... Just the whole way up there. Chewing on his own colon.
And on that note, let's take an aside: If Avengers and Iron Man movies proved anything, it's that you can ground a comic book world in reality without actually making it "realistic." I understand that Christopher Nolan would like to make his vision of Gotham City a believable one, but he took it too far. Because, as much as he might like to forget, Batman is a comic book character. Comic book characters are our modern day greek gods. We want them to be relatable, even likable, but they certainly shouldn't be forced to suffer the crushing reality that we have to deal with on a daily basis. There's a fine line between a believable comic book world and a world in which Bruce Wayne gets audited the same week that his gallbladder flares up. Batman, as a concept, is as silly as Captain America or Iron Man or the Hulk. None of these characters could function in the real world. However, when put in the appropriate context these characters aren't silly. They're heros. And that's a hard context to nail down when you're bringing a comic book to life. Aside over. Back to the point.
The real problem: I grew up with the best envisioned, best captured, best voiced Batman to ever grace a gargoyle in Gotham City. I had Batman: The Animated Series. Kevin Conroy’s Bat-Voice is and should always be the industry standard. The Bat by which all other bats should be judged.
Then it hit me. It really was the voice. That was it. It wasn’t Christian Bale’s wooden acting, or that shooting Chicago/Vancouver for Gotham City was an extraordinarily bad idea, or even Nolan’s often misguided attempts at realism. It was that god damned ridiculous, obnoxious, pointless, embarrassing Bat-Voice. It all came flooding back. While watching the Dark Knight in the theater (opening night), I laughed alone and audibly just after Bale scream/cry/grumbles (I can’t even hazard a guess as to what he’s going for) “HE MUST HAVE FRIENDS!” The awkward silence and stare-daggars that followed made me slump in my seat, but I still couldn’t control my giggling.
Batman’s voice is Bruce Wayne’s real voice. Cocktail Party Wayne (I’m looking at you, Mattel. Make it happen) has the effected voice; it’s pitched higher with a subtle peppering of douchebag. Do you think, as intelligent and powerful as Batman is, that when he’s the middle of a fight to the death he really needs the extra distraction of remembering to talk like he gargled with bleach before he left the house? And why would he bother when he’s alone on a doomed tram (train? suspension train? that thing his father built that he blew up in Batman Begins) with his former master and mentor? A man who already knows his identity and presents a very real physical threat.
There's no reason for Christian Bale to risk polyps on his vocal chords for the sake of an over-the-top Batman voice. For my money, it'd be less distracting if he decided to pitch up like Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That'd actually make some sense. Think back to the fear and anxiety that voice caused you when you were a child (or even an adult… that shit's just disturbing). Even more to the point, actual bats make a number of high pitched squeaks themselves. Now imagine being stalked by a shadowy figure on the darkened streets of Gotham. You head into an alley, thinking you've lost him. Then, like a ghost, he appears before you. You try to run, but the bolos around your ankles send you hurtling to the ground. As you struggle to free yourself over the searing pain of a fairly severe head wound, you freeze. The figure now stands above you. Gripped by fear, you babble in protest. Until he speaks, and you fall silent: "When I killed your brother, I talked JUST. LIKE. THIIIIIISSS!"
Excuse me I seem to have soiled myself. I usually fast-forward through that scene… Or I just watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the can.
Maybe there's a reasonable explanation. Perhaps Bale saw Batman and Robin and was appalled that Clooney didn't even bother with a Bat-Voice at all, so he over-compensated. That seems reasonable. Even Joel Schumacher thought Batman and Robin was shit. Maybe I'm being too critical. I'll watch the last trailer again…
God dammit...
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