Do You Want To Build a Snowman?

Jack Frost

Director: Troy Miller

Cast: Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Joseph Cross, Mark Addy

Released: December 11, 1998

This is a weird movie. I had never seen it before until now, but the only think I knew was that Michael Keaton's character dies and he is reincarnated into a snowman with the help of his young son. The first half hour of the movie he is alive and, well, honestly, I kept waiting for him to die. (Well, I knew it was eventually going to come!) He plays Jack Frost (yes, that's his real name; who names their child 'Jack Frost'?) and he's in a band called The Jack Frost Band (very original) that sometimes get air time in the small town they live in, Medford, Colorado. The radio station seems to pride itself on playing music from the '70s and '90s and promises it won't play anything from the '60s or '80s. Wouldn't it make more sense to play something from two consecutive decades? I would rank the '70s as my least favorite for music from those four decades, so I wouldn't be listening to that station! The Jack Frost Band has a song called "Frosty the Snowman." No, it's not a cover; it's an original song. At the beginning of the movie, we see them playing and a talent agent is there and is just so amazed by them. :::whispers:::: They're not that good. 

Jack is married to Gabby (Kelly Preston) and they have a ten-year-old son named Charlie (Joseph Cross). Charlie is on the hockey team and he wants his dad to attend the big game. His dad has band practice or a gig or something to do with his band, but he promises Charlie he'll be there. When he's saying this, I thought for sure he was going to get killed in an accident while driving there, but that doesn't happen. He does miss the game and Gabby is furious with him since he promised Charlie he would be there. He apologizes to Charlie and gives him a harmonica that's special to him because he got it the day Charlie was born. He tells Charlie it's a "magical" harmonica because he can hear it whenever Charlie plays it, no matter where he is. Since Christmas is near, he tells Charlie that he has a great idea of the three of them spending the day at their cabin in the mountains with no distractions and have a nice family Christmas and Charlie loves this idea.

Somewhere between this scene and before Christmas Eve, Jack and his son build a snowman and Charlie tells his dad it looks like him (it doesn't) because it's wearing his hat or something. I don't know. 

On Christmas Eve they've got the car packed and are ready to go to the cabin, but Jack gets a phone call from a big name label that wants to listen to The Jack Frost Band and potentially sign them. When he tells this to his family, they are ecstatic for him, but when he reveals he has to do it tomorrow (which is Christmas Day), they are not so happy. Gabby is a little more understanding and asks him how long he would have to play. He says only a couple songs, it wouldn't be a full set. Both him and Gabby think he'll be able to play the set, but still be able to spend time at the cabin. Charlie, however, is not happy about this at all and he gives his dad the harmonica back, telling him he doesn't want it anymore. 

Jack and his friend, Mac (Mark Addy), who's also the band's keyboardist, are driving to the gig in one car while the rest of the band and equipment are following them in a van. At one point, Jack tells Mac to pull over. He has decided he needs to be with his family and that they're more important than his career. He takes Mac's car and its now dark and snowy and the windshield wipers won't work and he's driving through a windy mountain road and I knew this was when he was going to die. 

Ironically, if he had just stayed with his band, he not only would have (most likely) still been alive, but he probably would have had a very lucrative career and I'm sure his son would have forgiven him for missing the Christmas when he was ten. But now he's dead and Gabby is working two jobs: we see her as a teller at the bank and a teacher at Charlie's school. Well, maybe she's just volunteering at the school; I wasn't really sure. 

After the car careens off the mountain, the screen goes black, then we are given a title card saying that it's one year later. This surprised me somewhat because I was thinking the snowman that Charlie and his dad had built was the one that is reincarnated into Jack. But it does make sense that they let a year go by because it would be a lot to deal with in this family comedy if we had to see how a young boy copes with the death of his father right after it happens. He's still pretty torn up about it a year later which is understandable. 

He has withdrawn from his friends and has quit the hockey team. One of his friends is played by Andy Lawrence and I'm like, okay, that's the one who wasn't on Blossom or Boy Meets World. Mika Boorem plays another friend who is also on the hockey team and I think she lives next door to him and I think she has a crush on Charlie, but they don't really explore that. We also never see them walk home together, so I may be wrong on her being his next door neighbor. There's also a bully named Rory who picks on Charlie and we see this in a scene before Jack dies and Charlie is usually able to get the upper hand on Rory. 

One snowy evening, Charlie builds a snowman while "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac plays over the scene. He draws the snowman's mouth in the snow instead of using material like most kids would do, but this is probably for the sake of the production of the snowman (which was created with puppetry and some CGI). He's wearing a hat (the one that made him look like Jack) and a red scarf. He has a cork for a nose and his eyebrows are made out of pine needles, which I thought was clever. I can't tell what his eyes are made out of. 

Even though Charlie gave the harmonica to his dad before he died, he has it back and starts playing it in his room. We see some wind whip around the snowman and voila!, he comes alive. Okay, if I had built a snowman and it came alive, I would be terrified. Espeically if it looked like this snowman. And Charlie is terrified. Jack doesn't seem to realize he's a snowman until he sees his reflection in the mirror and even that doesn't deter him from people seeing him walk around town. 

When Charlie is pelted by snowballs the next day by Rory the bully, Snowman Jack has followed him and starts launching snowballs at Rory, just like that scene in Elf when Buddy pelts snowballs at the kids. Rory and his minions start chasing after him and Snowman Jack saves the day by rescuing him on a sled and they go down the mountain (I didn't even realize they were on top of a mountain in the first place) with the bully entourage chasing him with sleds and snowboards set to some very '90s song. I did some research and found it was "Hey Now Now" by Swirl 360, a song or a group I'm pretty sure I've never heard of in my life...and I was around in the' 90s. The song is so '90s it simultaneously made me cringe and feel nostalgic. While they're sledding down the mountain, Snowman Jack says, "I'm the man! No, I'm the snowman!" Insert groan here. 

Since the snowman helped Charlie escape the big bully and the little bullies, he thinks it might actually be his dad, so he asks him a few simple questions that his dad should know, right? Wrong! Jack gets them both wrong! But then he calls Charlie "Charlie-boy" while he's talking to him and Charlie is all, "What did you call me?" And this is his proof that the snowman is his dad. Really? I honestly feel like any random person could just guess that "Charlie-boy" is his nickname. I don't think that would be enough proof for me, but it's enough for this eleven-year-old. 

I mentioned that this was the first time seeing this movie and while watching it, I thought that perhaps the snowman isn't actually sentient; perhaps it's all in Charlie's mind and he's just imagining it to be alive because his grief is still so fresh. Charlie tells his dad that he came alive as a snowman after he played the harmonica and says he didn't know it really was magical and even Jack admits that he was bs-ing him when he said that. Being that this is just an ordinary harmonica, I wondered if Charlie had created this fantasy when he played the harmonica. However, there were a few scenes that made me question if this could actually be the case. Snowman Jacks tells Charlie he's hungry, so they go back to the house where Charlie gives him frozen vegetables (I guess that's what snowmen eat? Why would a snowman even need to eat anything? It's a snowman!) and while they're in the kitchen, they don't hear Gabby's car pull up. She's walking towards the house and notices the snowman isn't there. Snowman Jack is hiding in the pantry and Charlie tries to distract his mother until the snowman can go back to the front yard where it was. When Gabby opens the blinds, she sees the snowman back in its place and just thinks she's losing her mind. The only thing I could explain for this scenario if the snowman isn't sentient is that Charlie brought in the snowman himself (Gabby did mention the floor was all wet). 

Charlie isn't the only one to witness a talking and moving snowman; his hockey coach sees Snowman Jack when Jack, who seems to forget that he's a freaking talking snowman, stops the coach in his car to ask him something and the man just screams. We will see later that he's being interviewed on TV about it and when the reporter asks if there were any other witnesses around (heh, clearly she doesn't believe him), he can only tell her no. Also, when Rory was chasing Charlie down the mountain, Snowman Jack comes up from behind him to wipe him out and Rory sees a snowman on a sled and he screams, "Ahhh! Snowman!" 

So those two examples don't really help my case that the living snowman is all in Charlie's mind. Even though it's still December and we got a couple months of winter left, the weather is getting warmer and if Charlie doesn't help him, he's going to turn into a puddle. 

After some heart to hearts with his snowman dad, Chatrlie has decided to rejoin the hockey team and Snowman Jack goes all the way to the rec center or wherever they have hockey games and watch his son play hockey since he always missed it when he was alive. The best thing about this movie is the adorable pet dog Charlie has named Chester and he uses the dog to pull a sled. By this time Snowman Jack knows he can't just be walking about since he's a freaking snowman so he has the dog pull him on a sled. You might be thinking the dog was a husky or a Samoyed, but it was a Wire Fox Terrier; at least that's what Google told me. I knew it was a terrier, but I had to look up what breed it was. But whatever it is, it is an absolutely adorable dog and easily the best part of there movie.

So Snowman Jack makes it to his son's hockey game (don't worry, he's not sitting with the rest of the spectators, he's sort of hidden...somewhere) and he only sees about the last fifteen seconds of the game, but Charlie scores a goal and he's able to see that, whoopee. After the game, Charlie doesn't seem one bit surprised that he's there. He does notice his snowman dad needs to get somewhere colder because he's starting to melt. He runs to the bank his mom works at, telling her she needs to help him and admits the snowman is her deceased husband. Of course she doesn't believe him and basically tells him she's not driving a snowman up a mountain. I mean, can you blame her? She had seen him talking to the snowman and was worried about him, but never did she think it was this bad! She runs after him, but he's gone, so she goes to see if Mac can help. By this time, Charlie has spotted an alpine tree truck heading towards the mountain so he decides to get his snowman dad on the truck. He does this with the help of Rory, of all people. At first, Rory taunts the boy, but then Snowman Jack talks to him, startling the boy. It kind of reminded me when Woody talks to Sid, but Rory handles a sentiment snowman way better than Sid handled a sentient toy. I probably would be more like Sid. Rory has grown up without a dad...I think he's in jail, maybe? I don't know, but he knows what it's like to not have a dad so this makes the two boys bond, I guess, and he helps Charlie get Snowman Jack in the truck. Charlie also rides with him even though Snowman Jack could easily just jump out of the truck when the truck reaches the  top, but I guess they need Charlie here as part of the plot. 

So they go to the top of the mountain and jump out and slide down. There's lots of snow and it's very beautiful, but the jacket Charlie is wearing looks very light. Maybe it's one of those coats that are warmer than it looks. I also noticed that this kid never wears a scarf or anything to cover his neck or lower face and I can just imagine how cold he must get. Maybe it wasn't as cold as it looked, I don't know. Maybe I'm just a wimp when it comes to cold weather and I like to bundle up. But luckily, they are near their cabin, so Charlie is able to get warmed up on the couch in front of the fire. We don't see who made the fire, but how f***ed up would that be if the snowman made it? 

It's now dark outside and you can imagine that Gabby is besides herself with worry because her son not only thinks his dead dad is a snowman, but he's also missing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, when she and Mac are looking for him, we see them go down a street, just missing Charlie and Snowman Jack jumping onto the truck. Gabby gets a phone call and it's Snowman Jack telling her that Charlie is safe and he's at the cabin. Gabby wants to know who's calling her, then realizes it sounds like Jack's voice and when she says "Jack"? he hangs up. I would be a little concerned if I were her and would probably call the cops to accompany me to the cabin. Who knows if this is some sick creep who kidnapped Charlie and maybe he knew Jack so he's able to impersonate his voice and now he's trying to lure Gabby into his trap. Just saying!

But Gabby drives up alone and there's nothing to worry about because it's just a sentient snowman who's her deceased husband. I guess the magical curse or whatever you want to call it wears off because the snowman disappears, but then we see Michael Keaton with a glow emitting from him as he says goodbye to his son and wife for the final time. By the time Gabby witnesses this, I knew for a fact that Michael Keaton was really a sentient snowman this entire time and Charlie wasn't just imagining it. I sort of figured this out earlier, but kept trying to tell myself that they would explain the odd things. No, it's a real f***ing snowman! That was brought to life by a regular old harmonica! O-kay! 

Another thing I felt they never address or maybe I just missed it, was if Gabby and Charlie knew that Jack was coming to see them at the cabin last year at Christmas? Did they figure out when they realized his car was coming towards them? But his car flew off a mountain, so how would they know if he was going towards the cabin or away from them? I kept waiting for Snowman Jack to tell Charlie this, but he never does. Maybe he just didn't want to make Charlie feel guilty. 

I suppose this could be classified as a Christmas movie and even though it's set around Christmas and there's a Christmas tree and Christmas decorations, it just doesn't feel like a Christmas movie. It feels more like a winter movie, you know, with the winter sports like hockey and snowboarding and, duh, the snowman. When I was looking up the song that played during the sledding scene, I noticed there were Christmas songs listed, but I honestly don't even remember hearing them. I doubt this is on anyone's top ten Christmas movie list, let alone top fifty! 

Okay, bye. 

Seeing Triple

Multiplicity
Director: Harold Ramis
Cast: Michael Keaton, Andie MacDonnell, Eugene Levy, Ann Cusack
Released: July 17, 1996

When it comes to movies about cloning, there are only two roads you can go down (besides the sci-fi road, of course). You can take the horror route or you can take the comedy route, which this movie does. I would advise you NOT to see this movie if you need things to make sense and are a very scientific person because this movie totally blows over the whole cloning process. I know nothing about science and even I know that cloning is not possible the way they do it in this movie!

This movie starts off with some of the worst opening credits I have ever seen in my life. If I ever see opening credits worse than this, I will be sure to report it, but I don't think anything could be worse than the credits (in a non-exciting font, mind you) placed randomly on the screen (seriously, people, it's not even centered!!) with stock footage of busy Los Angeles traffic. Supposedly Doug, our main character is driving home from work, but we don't even see him (probably because Michael Keaton wasn't actually there - haven't these filmmakers ever heard of editing?) It is just so awful!

Doug has just been promoted at the construction company he works for and now he has even more responsibility. So much that he misses his daughter's dance recitals and son's baseball games and he doesn't have time to work on the house that his wife (Andie MacDonnell) has been asking him to do for awhile now. At a construction job, he runs into a scientists who can see how frustrated he is and asks Doug if he wants to make things easier. Doug agrees when he finds out that he can be cloned. He'll have the clone work at his job so he can spend more time with his family.

The cloning process in this movie is a relatively easy process. Almost too easy. Scarily easy. If cloning were as easy as it is in this movie, we should all be very afraid. The scientists takes a sample of Doug's DNA, then Doug is asked to count backwards from 100 and falls asleep for the operation...couldn't he just pull out a hair or have his blood drawn to give DNA? Oh, well. When he wakes up, the audience is to believe that is the original Doug, but it was actually his clone who has all of Doug's memories. He has a mark on him to distinguish he is a clone. He takes over Doug's job and Doug is able to spend time with his kids and attend their events. However, Doug starts having a little TOO much free time on his hands and begs his clone to take over the home stuff so he can go back to work, but #2, as he is called, refuses, saying he was hired to oversee his job.

Doug decides to make another clone who can help out with his domestic life. #3 is very proper and a bit effeminate and is the most responsible of the clones. He lives with #2 in a separate segment of the house. One day Doug comes home to find out that there is a #4 who is a bit on the special side because he is a clone of a clone and therefore a little malfunctioned.

Now that he has his job and domestic life covered, Doug goes sailing with some friends for a couple days to collect his thoughts after he and his wife had a big fight. There's been a lot of miscommunication (gee, you think?) because of the multiple Dougs. Now I saw this movie when it first came out and I swore there was a scene where she finds out about the clones. She never does, but I must have been thinking of the scene where she encounters all three of them (separately, of course) in one night. While Doug is gone, he puts #3 in charge of domestic duty which means sleeping in the same bed as his wife. His first rule for the clones is that nobody sleeps with his wife and tells #3 to pretend he is sick if she's in the mood, which she is and #3 sleeps with her despite doing his best to act like he is horribly sick. She goes downstairs to get a midnight snack where #2  is trying to sneak away from the kitchen which he has snuck into to grab some food. She sees him and thinks he has come down to join her and they end up going at it on the kitchen counter. Even #4 gets some action. I can understand her not knowing about the first two clones, but she's gotta be a little suspicious about how....stupid #4 is. This scene is played for laughs with all the clones trying not to let her see them if she is with another clone, but if you think about it, it's rather quite creepy. She has sex with three different men who look like her husband, but aren't her husband.

This movie came out seven years after Back to the Future II where Michael J. Fox played multiple characters of his future family and three years after Dave where Kevin Kline plays two different characters, so having one actor play different characters in one scene was something the film studios seemed to be having fun with. (And I believe The Nutty Professor was the same year and The Parent Trap remake came out two years later). This technique has gotten better with time, but you could definitely tell when they were using trick cameras because the screen would look a bit unnatural during the scenes where Michael Keaton was doubled (or tripled or quadrupled).

I could not remember what happened to the clones at the end of the movie when Doug realizes he doesn't need them anymore. I knew in this comedy they wouldn't be set back to the lab and "destroyed". They move down to Florida and start a pizza business. I guess this movie didn't make enough money to garner a sequel.

'Toy' Trilogy

Toy Story
Director: John Lasseter
Voice talent: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, Wallace Shawn, Jim Varney
Released in theaters: 11/22/95
Viewed in theaters: 12/??/95

Oscar nominations:
Best Original Song - Randy Newman for "You've Got a Friend in Me" (Lost to Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz for "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas)
Best Music from a Comedy or Musical - Randy Newman (lost to Menken and Schwartz for Pocahontas)

Toy Story 2
Director: John Lasseter
Voice talent: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammar, Wayne Knight
Released: 11/24/99
Viewed in theaters: 12/04/99 and 12/25/99

Oscar nominations:
Best Song - Randy Newman for "When She Loved Me" (lost to Phil Collins for "You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan)

Toy Story 3
Director: Lee Unkrich
Voice talent: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton
Released: 6/18/10
Viewed in theaters: 6/23/10

Future Oscar nominations: We all know this is gonna win Best Animated Picture. C'mon.

With the recently released Toy Story 3, I've decided to revisit the first two films and review them along with the third installment, a movie I'm been eagerly anticipating since last winter. It had been quite a few years since I've seen the first two, so it was a joy to re-watch them and it almost felt like I was watching them for the first time again. The computer animation has obviously gotten consistently better in the fifteen years since the first Toy Story was released, but that doesn't diminish the film one bit. The script (which was co-written by Buffy creator Joss Whedon) is still sharp and funny with heart and I can't imagine anyone else doing the voices for the already iconic characters of Woody and Buzz Lightyear than Hanks and Allen.

BTF: Best Toys Forever

In the first movie we're introduced to a slew of toy characters who belong to young Andy. Besides our cowboy sheriff and space ranger heroes, there's Mr. Potato Head (Rickles), a piggy bank (Ratzenberger), a neurotic plastic T-Rex (Shawn), a slinky dog (Varney), a remote control car, plastic green army soldiers, and Little Bo Peep (Potts) who belongs to Andy's little sister.

Woody has always been Andy's favorite toy, but once Buzz is given to the young boy at his birthday party as a surprise present from his mother, Woody knows his days are numbered. Not only has Buzz taken the coveted spot on the bed while Woody has been demoted to the toy chest, but Buzz is a more modern toy with lots of buttons and gadgets and even has a laser (although Woody will argue it's just a little light bulb) whereas the old-fashioned cowboy utters his favorite sayings with a pull string. Also, all of Andy's cowboy paraphernalia has been replaced with an outerspace theme.

With jealousy taking over, Woody tries to get Buzz stuck behind the desk so Andy can't find him, but ends up tossing him out the window. Feeling guilty, Woody tries to make it right, but both toys have now become lost and are now in the possession of Sid, the mean kid next door who likes to torture his toys by blowing them up or taking them apart and rebuilding them with different parts. The two feuding toys have to find a way to work together to return to their owner, but the clock is ticking because Andy and his family are moving the next day.

There's so many great moments, but my favorite part would have to be when Woody comes alive in front of Sid and he screams and runs into the house where his sister starts tormenting him with her doll.

In Toy Story 2 we have the same characters, but we're introduced to new ones. Woody discovers he's part of a collection called Woody's Roundup Gang that also includes his horse, Bull's Eye; Jessie, the cowgirl (Cusack); and Stinky Pete the prospector (Grammar). Mrs. Potato Head and Barbie are also new additions to the toy family. The plot of the second film is a bit more elaborate than the first and while I know toys coming to life isn't very realistic (okay, it's not realistic at all!), it seemed plausible within the context of the story. After Woody is mistakenly taken by a toy collector (Knight) at a yard sale, the other toys try to devise a plan to rescue him. This involves them making a long trek to Al's Toy Barn, driving a car to the airport, and Woody and Jessie escaping from an airplane that has just started to take off while Buzz is galloping right beside the plane on Bull's Eye. Don't get me wrong - Toy Story 2 is a great movie with a funny script and endearing new characters, but I preferred the simplicity of the first one.

I talk about a scene from Toy Story 2 that made me cry:

The latest installment of the franchise has Andy going off to college and he's not sure what he's going to do with his old toys, who haven't been played with in a long time. The toys are worried they're going to be thrown out, but they wouldn't mind being sent to the attic and brought back down when Andy has kids of his own.

There's a bit of a mix-up at the beginning (don't want to give too much away!) and the toys end up at Sunnyside Day Care, which at first seems like a nice retirement home for toys. There they meet new toys including Lot-so, a bear that smells like strawberries (Beatty); Ken (Keaton); a rubber octopus (Whoopi Goldberg); a baby doll; and Chatterbox phone (I remember those!) However, while the veteran toys are in the Butterfly Room where the older kids play and treat their toys with respect, the new recruits are placed in the Caterpillar Room aka Toy Hell. They're abused by screaming toddlers who smash them against the floor, paint on them, sit on them, etc. Woody manages to escape, but wants to find a way to help his friends get back to Andy too. He learns that the day care is like a prison and it's impossible to escape because the toys are kept in cages at night and there are lookouts at each post. It kind of reminded me of Watership Down for toys.

The tone is definitely darker than the previous two movies and there was one moment in the film that I was really afraid something horrible was going to happen to the toys and they seemed to have realized their fate and were all holding hands. Thank goodness I had a handkerchief in my purse because I needed it for pretty much the entire third act! I have yet to read/hear a review where nobody cried!

I was satisfied with the ending and I think Pixar did a great job of ending the Toy Story trilogy. (Of course, there could always be a fourth, but I don't know if they're going to continue with the franchise as I think they ended on a good note). While the first movie remains my favorite of the three, all of the movies are very solid and it's very rare when you see all three movies in a trilogy that are great. Usually, the first movie is good and the other two are just awful or don't measure up to the first one. (Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man just to name a few).

I would definitely recommend watching the first two movies again to refresh your memory as there are some callbacks to them in Toy Story 3!

Oh and it amused me that there were many kids in the theater who weren't even born yet when the second movie came out! I feel very privileged to have seen all three in the theaters!

A Very Long Review

Um spoilers...and please ignore how crappy this looks (especially towards the end)! I have not mastered Blogspot yet; why can't it be simple to use like LiveJournal?

Batman

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger

Released: 6/23/89

Oscar nominations:

Best Art Direction (won)

Batman Forever

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell

Released: 6/16/95

Viewed in theaters: 6-7/?/95

Oscar nominations:

Best Cinematography (lost to Braveheart)

Best Sound (lost to Apollo 13)

Best Sound Effects (lost to Braveheart)

The Dark Knight

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman

Released: 7/18/08

Viewed in theaters: 7/20/08 (Um, my first viewing)

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger (won)

Best Sound Editing (won)

Best Art Direction (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Cinematography (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

Best Editing (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

Best Makeup (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Visual Effects (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Sound (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

As you can see, I watched three different Batman films. Three different decades, three different directors, three different Batmans (sorry, Clooney, you didn't make the cut - there's no way you can make me watch that dreck!). Now I should preface this by saying that I'm not a Batman fan in the least; I know nothing when it comes to the world of Batman. In fact, for the longest time, I had no idea he was referred to as the Dark Knight. When I first heard of Nolan's title, I thought he was the one who came up with it (I'm being serious, people) and thought it was a catchy title and could totally see Batman being called the Dark Knight. Little did I know... Actually, they refer to him as the Dark Knight twice in Batman Forever, but I didn't remember that since it's been at least ten years since I've seen that movie. I also didn't know that Harvey Dent and Two Face were the same person. I remember Eckhart doing press before TDK was released and didn't understand why all the interviewers kept bringing up the character of Two Face and then I put two and two together. Aha! So in this review I'm going to compare and contrast the different elements of these three movies. I totally won't discriminate - oh, who am I kidding? I so have a clear favorite and you might be surprised by which one it is. Or not. Probably not.

Director: Burton v. Schumacher v. Nolan

All three movies are very different in style. Burton's has a certain athestic where you definitely feel like you're watching one of his films. There's a very gritty and almost nostalgic feel to '89. It kind of reminds me of an old mafia movie, especially with the way the men dress: trenchcoats, bowties, vests, fedoras. Watching it is almost the equivalent of watching a comic book come to life.

Then there's Schumacher who took over when Burton's movies were deemed too dark. (While I didn't find '89 scary, Batman Returns is pretty twisted and dark.) Forever is a flashy summer blockbuster. It's almost like watching a live-action cartoon. Most of the characters are caricatures with over the top performances and it's clear Schumacher chose the actors based on their attractiveness or popularity at the time. Watching this is like eating a bag filled with fun-sized candy bars: enjoyable at first, but the more you have, you start to get sick of it and want to stop and make it go away. It gets very tiring very fast.

Nolan's version is the most realistic and I mean this as a compliment when I say it's like I wasn't even watching a Batman movie (except when Bale showed up in costume). All the characters felt real, not as though they were taken from Saturday morning cartoons and there was no dialogue that sounded like it came from a balloon bubble. It's insane how well this movie did. Look at it this way: according to IMDb.com, it made more money in the first six days of its release than Batman Begins made in its ENTIRE run. As Brian Fellows would say, That's crazy! Oh yeah, you should know Begins made $205 million. Crazy! (By the way, TDK made over a billion dollars around the world.)

Gotham:

Obviously, the look and feel of Batman's hometown differs in all three films. There's a very 1930s New York vibe to it in '89. It doesn't look like a place I'd visit because of its dark and gritty appearance. I read a review that said the exterior shots of the city looks like "a diagram of an artificial city" and yeah, I have to agree. Of course, this film came out twenty years ago, so of course the special effects are going to be outdated and crappy. I'm sure twenty years from now we'll all have a good laugh over how big the cell phones are in TDK.

If Burton's Gotham looks like a place I wouldn't want to visit, then Schumacher's vision is a city I would avoid at all costs. Good Lord. His Gotham makes Las Vegas look like the small Iowa town where my mom grew up. There are neon lights everywhere and the GCI exterior just looks cheap. Forever's Gotham gave me a huge headache and can you imagine living there? Ugh! Nolan's Gotham is a real place where real people live. Of course, that's because it's Chicago, but they film it so it's not obviously Chicago and it works. No stupid and cheap made-up Gotham.

Batman/Bruce Wayne: Keaton v. Kilmer v. Bale:

In all three movies, I prefer Bruce Wayne to Batman because I cannot take a grown man in a bat costume seriously and all three actors are way better when playing Wayne. Keaton is charismatic as Wayne but it bugs me he didn't alter his voice as Batman and the delivery of the line about "dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight" to the Joker is just awful. Another thing that bugs me is the scene where he's sleeping hanging upside down. There are so many things wrong with that. First of all, Batman is human, not a bat, so WTF? And if he was a bat-human, wouldn't he be sleeping during the day? Duh! And second of all, Vicki Vale was there and saw him; wouldn't she be suspicious? It was just stupid.

Kilmer at least attempts to change his voice as Batman, but he gives off a very metrosexual vibe (perhaps it's the nipples on the Batsuit?) as Bruce Wayne as in he wouldn't want to break a nail. With Bale, you could totally see him taking some names and not afraid to pull a punch. Now his Batman voice is unintentionally funny but you have to give the guy credit for at least trying. Maybe he should've used his natural accent as Batman, though people would all be "why the f--- does Batman have a British accent?"

The Women: Basinger v. Kidman V. Gyllenhaal:

The love story in the Batman films always seem like filler to me and they're just thrown in there to fill a quota. As photographer Vicki Vale in '89, I thought Kim Basinger looked better with her hair pulled back and wearing glasses then when she was "glammed up" in those ugly pouffy dresses. She has so much hair that it's almost her supporting co-star.

As Chase Meridian, Kidman's role in Forever is pretty much only to seduce Batman and make booty calls and come off as desperate. See, she's in love with Batman, but Bruce is in love with her (she's his psychiatrist - and whose therapist looks like that anyway? Please!) and she doesn't know her patient is the Caped Crusader. Hijinks! So of course everyone knows Katie Holmes played Rachel Dawes, Bruce's childhood friend and love interest in Batman Begins, but due to "schedule conflicts" (please, Joey Potter, we weren't born yesterday!), Maggie Gyllenhaal stepped in for her in its sequel. So here are my thoughts about TomKatGate:

I like Maggie, but I found her to be the weakest link in TDK only because I didn't really care for the character of Rachel and found any scenes with her to be boring. While I was semi-spoiled about her death (when I was walking into the theater, I walked past these guys who said, "I can't believe they did that to Batman's girlfriend!" So yeah, it wasn't that hard to figure out something terrible was going to happen to her), and while I felt bad for Bruce, I was kinda glad she was gone from the movie at that point. Oh, well, at least a certain someone's sister played her so I can write hilarious captions like this:

"Hey, didn't I make out with your brother once?"

The Joker: Nicholson v. Ledger

It's the age-old question that's been going on for decades (okay, under two years): who was the better Joker? Who do I prefer? I was a teenager when 10 Things I Hate About You came out, so who do you think? Hey, I don't discriminate...against hot Australians. Okay, I may be a bit biased with my decision. I've always been a Ledger fan (and yes, that was an awful day for me). Plus I heard that Nicholson said that he would only be cast as the Joker if only Burton billed him first? Uh, shouldn't the guy playing the MAIN TITLE CHARACTER be billed first? Dude, get over yourself!

But actor preference aside, let's just focus on the acting aspect. Now I have no idea whose Joker is more like the original one (probably Jack's since his is more like a comic-book character), but if I watched a clip from '89 without knowing who played the Joker, I would have said Nicholson in a second. His schtick is he falls in a vat of chemicals and his skin turns white (not burned as you might think) and he has a permanent smile. He kills people by using a cute array of deadly gags like hand buzzers that electrocute and acid-squirting flower pens. He's a happy clown! He likes to twirl his cane and dance to Prince. (WTF, I know). Creepy, yes. Scary, um, not really. He plays it very campy. Now I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but I really don't see what the big deal about his Joker is and I remember when it was announced Heath was playing the new Joker and everybody was saying he would never do Jack justice and how he was going to suck and ruin the movie. I'm sorry, but if John Lithgow (who was actually considered for the part; I bet he wouldn't have demanded to be filled first!) had played the Joker the EXACT same way as Jack did, nobody would be saying anything about his performance. And now it's funny that people are saying Heath was the better Joker (except for the stubborn Burton fanboys). Now if I saw TDK and didn't know who played the Joker, I would have never guessed in a million years who it was. (Well, except for the three second he's not wearing make-up, then it's pretty obvious). I think the voice he used (which Entertainment Weekly described as "Al Franken mixed with a nerdish pedophile" - thank you, EW, I couldn't have said it better myself) was the big reason that made Ledger almost unrecognizable. In real life, Heath's voice was like buttah, but his Joker voice is so damn creepy! Now, undoubtedly, he is scarier than '89 Joker, but I would dare say that he is funnier too...and he didn't even have all those cutesy gags. I laughed when he overheard one of his goons describe him as "the crazy clown in the cheap purple suit" and tells him "Oh, by the way, my suit wasn't cheap. You should know; you paid for it." And by the fourth time he asked somebody if they wanted to know how he got his scars, all I could think of was '08 Joker at some dinner party, asking guests that same question and people thinking, Oh, God, not this schmuck again!" Also, did anyone else think he rigged those detonators on the boats so they would blow up their own boat instead of the other one?

Two Face: Jones v. Eckhart:

In Forever, Two Face is every bit the comic book caricature with his 

"normal" side and his 

"wild" side. Not only is his appearance and suit divided into

two, but also his headquarters and he has two, uh,

concubines, I guess: Sugar and Spice. We never see him as D.A.

Harvey Dent, although there is a quick explanation of how he

turned evil, but I didn't really understood what happened to him 

physically. 

In TDK, Eckhart doesn't actually become Two

Face until the third act; we see him as good guy Dent for the

first two. His Two Face makeup is definitely more gruesome

than Jones'. In

fact, the only thing I would say is not very realistic about TDK (well, besides, some of the Joker's 24-style terrorist activities; seriously, you would need to know some serious access codes to pull off what he does in that movie), is the fact that this man is walking around with half of his FACE burned off right in the open. Even if you lived to survive that, there's no way anybody could go out in the open like that and not get infected. But that said, it is still a Batman movie. I have to give Eckhart props, because even though Heath Ledger steals the movie, he definitely held his own. Harvey Dent is also featured (in a very small role) in '89 and played by Billy Dee Williams. Burton never got to use him as Two Face, but there was some serious foreshadowing when he reads a letter from Batman at the end of the film and states, "If the forces of evil should rise again, call me." Hmmmmm....he was talking about himself! And speaking of foreshadowing, there was some of that in TDK when Fox tells Bruce that his newest weapon of choice "should do well against cats". Whoever could he be referring to?

The Riddler and Robin:

To get a good sense of Jim Carrey as the Riddler in Forever, take Ace Ventura and the Grinch and smash them together, multiply that by ten and you have the Riddler. Carrey is ridiculously over the top and I have a feeling that Schumacher was encouraging him to be as obnoxious as possible. Unlike '89 and TDK where the villains are feared, I never got that sense with the Riddler or Two Face. They were used more for comic relief, and honestly, they weren't that funny. While I wanted more scenes with the Joker when I watched TDK, the Riddler couldn't get off my screen soon enough when I watched Forever. Now I've seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I know Carrey is a capable actor, but man, he is awful in this. There's even a scene where he says something to Batman, then asks, "What that over the top?" YES! Yes, it was! The real person we should feel sorry for, though, in

this movie (after all, Carrey laughed his way to the bank), is Chris O'Donnell. Not 

only did he have to play the useless Robin (who is Batman's answer to Scrappy-Doo), 

but he is the only one from this film who went on to be in the even worse Batman and Robin - which I've never seen and never want to judging from the few clips of it I have seen.

Okay, to wrap things up, because I'm sure nobody is reading

this anymore, I actually preferred

Michael Gough's Alfred in '89 and Forever to Michael Caine's in TDK because with the former

that's the only character I've ever seen him play, so he is

Alfred to me. With the latter, I've seen

Caine in other movies and at award shows, so I just saw

Michael Caine. (Though he did have

some funny lines). Commissioner Gordon is hardly used in

'89 and Forever, but is very much

used in a great storyline in TDK and Gary Oldman is right

behind Ledger and Echkart in terms

of performance.

Why so...Sirius?
Somehow my font keeps changing and and I have no idea why and this review is going to look really messed up and I'm about to go all Christian Bale on this stupid site, so I better wrap this up. Anyway, here is my final evaluation of the movies: Batman: See it if only for it's a classic and it did jump start the whole franchise (which is a good and bad thing). And if you don't compare Nicholson's Joker to Ledger's, he's not entirely that bad. I still think Lithgow would have make a better '89 Joker, though. Batman Forever: This movie sucks. Don't see it if you haven't already. The Dark Knight: This movie is awesome and if you haven't already seen it, you must live under a rock. There's a reason this movie made a boatload of money: because everyone and their grandma went to see it...multiple times!