It's been on my mind for a while that The Batman is in a terrible slump in the movies and needs to be fixed. I think the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton wanted to take an entirely different direction that the children's Batman of the 1960s, and so for that reason Batman was a much more somber character, and actually they went back to Bob Kane's 1939 character who wanted to terrorize crooks. This may not have been a good decision, because the moviegoing audience is not going to understand a scary Batman.
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| The movies have emphasized Batman's plan to gain an edge over criminals by frightening them by dressing up like a bat. But are crooks of the 21st century scared by a bat suit? Doubtful. |
In 1939, it may have been terrifying to see a person dressed as a bat. Plus, initially bad guys may not have heard of Batman and might be surprised by him as an unknown force. But in 2017, everybody knows Batman. He is not scary any more, if he ever was.
Starting with the 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton, Batman has gotten darker and darker, even to the point of being psychologically disturbed. Frankly, I find him to be depressing, boring and generally inept. He has become a handsome version of Wile E. Coyote, who was always getting fantastic devices to use against Road Runner, only to be beaten every time.
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| The stuff that the Coyote used to buy from the Acme Company worked way better than the decrepit stuff that Batman gets from Wayne Industries. |
In particular, the Batplane is a disgusting piece of junk, and the American military should definitely buy from Stark Industries instead of Wayne Industries. As an Air Force guy, I cannot accept that the Batplane can be brought down from a single shot from a clown revolver (Jack Nicholson's, plus Riddler shot it down again with a laser pistol for good measure). That is utterly pathetic and totally unrealistic. Jeepers, Steve Trevor did much more damage in his World War I jalopy in Wonder Woman than the Batplane ever did. Similarly, Penguin sabotaged the Batmobile using a jamming kit he probably bought on E-Bay. Even in the new Justice League movie, Batman's futuristic Spider Tank breaks down. Somebody is going to do a monolog on late night TV to point out what a joke Batman's hi-tech machines are. This is not entertaining, and kid's aren't going to buy a toy Batplane or Batmobile if they crash all the time. It's pathetic.
Now let's talk about Batman, mano i mano. To be worth a darn, the Batman should be as good a fighter as Bruce Lee with the knockout power of Mike Tyson. But no, Batman has to brawl with ordinary thugs these days, usually taking significant damage. His long bulky cape gets in his way, and he really looks clumsy. When he fought against Keith Ledger's Joker, he pummeled Joker with his fists, but Joker just laughed at him. That's not a superhero. That's far below the level of fighter from your local kung fu studio, who would simply destroy Joker with one punch.
Look, if Batman is fighting a non-super-badguy, one punch should knock his opponent out, break bones or shatter joints. Otherwise, don't bore us with his pathetic lack of skill in combat.
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| Keith Ledger's Joker just laughed off Batman's puny attempts to punch him out. Conclusion: Batman can't punch and can't fight. |
So, what is to be done with this aging bat? I have a few modest ideas. Ben Afleck put Batman on the road to rehabilitation in Justice League. In this movie, he at least thinks about organizing and working on team with difficult personalities. That's better, but I think he should be allowed to take the role even further down the road to recovery.
Batman needs to rediscover his role as a detective. After all, his comic book home was Detective Comics (in fact that's what DC stands for!), and he was billed as the World's Greatest Detective.
Like Sherlock Holmes, Batman should be able to get in the head of an evildoer and predict his next move. He should be able to figure out where traps have been laid and outsmart them, like an urbanized Indiana Jones.
Batman should stop losing fights to non-entities. He needs to be a superhero, not a marginally effective brawler. If he goes one on one with the Joker or Luthor, they should not stay awake at the end of the scene.
Perhaps he could also develop a sense of humor. Like Spider-Man, he could take a special delight in humiliating bad guys when gift wrapping them for the authorities. For example, I could imagine a scene in which Batman would catch a bad guy and then attach him to a crane and leave him suspended ten stories high in the air. Or bad guys might wind up covered in unpleasant substances (think Biff Tanner in Back to the Future, or Marv and Harry in Home Alone 2).
They absolutely have to stop the plot device that Wayne Industries products break down on the job. It's not cool, just stop it. The Batplane and Batmobile represent DC's answer to Tony Stark's armor. The way it is now, if DC had Iron Man as a character, his tag line would be, "Oil my mouth." Riddler would soon make him into a beer keg.
No, Batman's weapons should be fantastic and highly effective, rather than simply ineffective as in the past. The Batplane should be at least as awesome as a military aircraft. In fact, I think it would a prototype built by Wayne Industry's "skunk works," modeled after the real life "skunk works" of Lockheed Martin Aircraft. That's the only way you could plausibly have a Batplane. It was to be on the books as an exotic prototype fighter (the F-1000 or something), and it has the extra capability to turn into the Batplane, which almost no one knows about. Batman could press a secret button and it reconfigures into the Batplane, with some special secret weapons that even the Air Force doesn't know about. He should be able to take on a third world country's Air Force and win, though he might be a bit more concerned if the US Air Force should ever decide to contest its flight. A bad guy (like James Bond's Dr NO or Goldfinger) should not be safe in a fortress in some Caribbean island. The Batplane should reduce it to a pile of rocks, and then vanish using active camouflage to blend in with the background.
Bruce Wayne could use a facelift also, to compete with Tony Stark. I don't see him as the hard-luck bachelor we have sen so far. His love life should be at least as exciting as James Bond's or, for that matter, Adam West's!. Adam's Bruce Wayne got to go on dates with Catwoman. In fact, I think with his rediscovered detective ability, he might be able to deduce that Catwoman is actually Selena Kyle, and so he might decide to go undercover and have an affair with her in order to collect information from her. Or perhaps he might even have a thing for Wonder Woman, if he can figure out a way to not be crushed by her.
Lastly, the Alfred character is brought up to date by Jeremy Irons, who is a truly great actor. This character started to make sense in the past few movies, but we're not there yet. At least now he's a military expert. Still, we can not imagine that a Butler is able to build fighter jets by himself as a part time job. That makes no sense.
I think Alfred needs also to have a secret identity as the head of the aforementioned Wayne Industry "Skunk Works." Very few people would realize the full plan, but there has to be an organization to support Batman, not just a butler.
Like Sherlock Holmes, Batman should be able to get in the head of an evildoer and predict his next move. He should be able to figure out where traps have been laid and outsmart them, like an urbanized Indiana Jones.
Batman should stop losing fights to non-entities. He needs to be a superhero, not a marginally effective brawler. If he goes one on one with the Joker or Luthor, they should not stay awake at the end of the scene.
Perhaps he could also develop a sense of humor. Like Spider-Man, he could take a special delight in humiliating bad guys when gift wrapping them for the authorities. For example, I could imagine a scene in which Batman would catch a bad guy and then attach him to a crane and leave him suspended ten stories high in the air. Or bad guys might wind up covered in unpleasant substances (think Biff Tanner in Back to the Future, or Marv and Harry in Home Alone 2).
They absolutely have to stop the plot device that Wayne Industries products break down on the job. It's not cool, just stop it. The Batplane and Batmobile represent DC's answer to Tony Stark's armor. The way it is now, if DC had Iron Man as a character, his tag line would be, "Oil my mouth." Riddler would soon make him into a beer keg.
No, Batman's weapons should be fantastic and highly effective, rather than simply ineffective as in the past. The Batplane should be at least as awesome as a military aircraft. In fact, I think it would a prototype built by Wayne Industry's "skunk works," modeled after the real life "skunk works" of Lockheed Martin Aircraft. That's the only way you could plausibly have a Batplane. It was to be on the books as an exotic prototype fighter (the F-1000 or something), and it has the extra capability to turn into the Batplane, which almost no one knows about. Batman could press a secret button and it reconfigures into the Batplane, with some special secret weapons that even the Air Force doesn't know about. He should be able to take on a third world country's Air Force and win, though he might be a bit more concerned if the US Air Force should ever decide to contest its flight. A bad guy (like James Bond's Dr NO or Goldfinger) should not be safe in a fortress in some Caribbean island. The Batplane should reduce it to a pile of rocks, and then vanish using active camouflage to blend in with the background.
Bruce Wayne could use a facelift also, to compete with Tony Stark. I don't see him as the hard-luck bachelor we have sen so far. His love life should be at least as exciting as James Bond's or, for that matter, Adam West's!. Adam's Bruce Wayne got to go on dates with Catwoman. In fact, I think with his rediscovered detective ability, he might be able to deduce that Catwoman is actually Selena Kyle, and so he might decide to go undercover and have an affair with her in order to collect information from her. Or perhaps he might even have a thing for Wonder Woman, if he can figure out a way to not be crushed by her.
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| Amazingly, Adam West's elegant and clasy Bruce Wayne had a much more exciting social life than Ben Afleck's. Ben's Bruce mainly hangs out in a cave with his butler. Here is Bruce on a date with a disguised Catwoman (Lee Meriwether). Now that's a hot date! She's a killer--really! |
I think Alfred needs also to have a secret identity as the head of the aforementioned Wayne Industry "Skunk Works." Very few people would realize the full plan, but there has to be an organization to support Batman, not just a butler.
So those are my modest prescriptions for rehabbing Batman. He's a comics icon and will always draw an audience even if the movie is a bomb. But maybe the next movie won't be bomb. Hire me, DC. I'll help out!
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