Adam Wilcox; tea drinking Brit with fondness for the media and tech.
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A Logical Batman 05 May 2007

With the UK release of Spider-Man 3 today, I feel the need to announce my problem with the whole premise of the story.

As you know, teenager Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider during a school trip. The spider bite gives Peter an array of spider-like powers, including wall-crawling, superhuman strength, speed and agility, and an extra-sensory “spider-sense”.

Now I am no comic-book geek, and my knowledge of Spider Man is mostly culled from the films and animated series on telly. However, I think you will agree that gaining anything close to “super powers” from a radioactive spider-bite is nothing short of preposterous. As Alexander Litvinenko proved, radiation poisoning does little to improve your ability to fly through the air… unless you believe in angels anyway. In Spider-Man 3, black goo falls from outer-space changing our hero’s personality… I think I have stated my case, but for the record- bit out of the logical ballpark there.

Moving on therefore, I noticed when watching the 2005 masterpiece Batman Begins, just how believable it all is. Casino Royale has kick-stated the James Bond franchise a-new after it all got terribly silly with the invisible Aston Martin bollocks. Likewise Batman Begins creates a relatively sane universe for the story to take place in. There are no radioactive spiders, no unexplainable powers or skills.

If you’ve not seen it, the film covers the origins of Batman. With a suitably dark and moody style, its film noir with super heroes. The look of the film has clearly been inspired greatly from the dark cyberpunk style and futuristic design of Blade Runner. Apparently director Christopher Nolan screened Blade Runner to cinematographer Wally Pfister and two others to show the attitude and style that he wanted to draw from the film.

Good news is that the sequel to Batman Begins, (The Dark Knight) should be released in 2008 with both Nolan and Christian Bale returning. Even better news is that Maggie Gyllenhaal will be replacing Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes. This is good, because my new policy of avoiding all films with Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and John Travolta in the hope that they eventually run out of money and stop funding the insult to human intelligence that is Scientology. Seriously, if you believe that disembodied souls of space aliens were brought to Earth and blown up by nuclear bombs in volcanos by an evil alien called Xenu, and that the alien souls continue today, causing a variety of physical ill-effects in modern-day humans… you need help, not a staring role in a Hollywood blockbuster.