The Dark Knight Falls Flat On His Face!

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back!

Tonight, I'd like to address why I think the Dark Knight trilogy sucks as far as a portrayal of Batman goes.

To start off, I really like all three movies, and I think they are brilliant on so many levels. The problem I have with all three is that the Batman they presented is the wrong...fucking...Batman!

Let's start from the beginning: What is Batman?

He's got no super powers or anything, he just relies on other qualities. He's highly intelligent, he's designed tonnes of very useful gadgets, he's got more or less limitless wealth and he's in extremely good physical shape, he's always Crazy Prepared and a master businessman. The words "World's greatest detective" have frequently been lavished upon him.

Too bad all of it is absolute bullshit in the Dark Knight trilogy.

We'll start with his intelligence. He's dumber than a bag of wet mice. Remember that line from The Dark Knight where he goes "[The Joker] must have friends!", and the gangster goes "Have you seen this guy?!"? Yeah, that's how pretty much everyone would react. Bats is showing signs right there of not being the sharpest bulb in the elevator.

Do you also remember that scene where he uses subtle interrogation methods to try and make a criminal reveal part of his plan through manipulation? No, neither do I, because bats just tries to beat the shit out of them instead. Very intelligent!

Oh, and what about that bit where Batty forgets to turn off his mobile-phone-sonar-thingamajiggy and therefore gets beaten up by the fucking Joker? Are you shitting me? The Joker is many things, but physically intimidating in close combat is not one of them!

But he does in fact have a ton of useful gadgets, though. Can't argue with that one. Oh, wait, he didn't actually design those, he just embezzled funds from Wayne Enterprise for the purpose of designing toys for him. Great going, Bruce!

Come to think of it; beating people up instead of using his brain, going to an associate of his and asking "What've you got for me today?" to receive his toys of the day that will be trashed by the end of it?

For fuck's sake, he's James Bond!

At least he's rich, that's one thing even I can't take away.

And he is in pretty good physical shape. Notice how I said "pretty good", and not 'extremely good'. He's fairly fit, but he can't stand up to Bane in a fight, can he? And this isn't even Bane with venom injected, this is just a rather beefy guy with a funny voice. Are you telling me Buttman can't handle one single guy who's done some pushups?

As for the crazy preparedness? *sigh* Guess how this is gonna go...

Look, there's this part in The Dark Knight that perfectly exemplifies it; Roy Batty here is hanging on to a van at the beginning of the movie, and reveals a thingamabob that he has that can cut through metal. It's a silly, flimsy, bulky piece of shit attached to his glove that does no good whatsoever before he's thrown off of the van. He can't prepare for a bowel movement, let alone fighting crooks.

Or how about that bit in the Dark Knight Rises where he flings a bunch of tiny smoke bombs at Bane and all the evil walls surrounding him? They do absolutely fuck all. Why the hell did he even bring those?! They don't conceal anyone worth a shit, and they sure as hell don't even smart when they hit you, which most didn't even do.

He's at least great at doing business though, right? RIGHT?!

Fuck no.

If nothing else, no matter what Lucius Fox says in the Dark Knight Rises, the secret applied sciences division is not off the books. There is a fucking plot point in the second movie where a chartered accountant figures out Bat-shit-bonkers' identity by looking through the shit that applied sciences has developed.

And there's also the bit where he drives Wayne Enterprise into the ground. See, in the Dark Knight Rises, it's explained that the reason why youth activity centers aren't getting any funding is because that funding is based on a percentage of the profits from Wayne Enterprise, and there aren't any. As in, there are no profits. Fox explains this quite clearly; Wayne Enterprise is in the red. Every single penny is swallowed up by some ill-defined boondoggle to save the world that Brucey hopes will make sure he doesn't have to be Batman anymore, because fuck Gotham, that's why.

But now comes the final nail in the coffin; he's a crap detective as well. What are the characteristics of a great detective? Being able to see the whole picture, being able to pick up on subtle clues, being able to figure out what's really going on beyond any possible smoke screens or the likes thereof.

Yeah, Badman does none of that.

See, there's this bit in The Dark Knight, wherein Bratz knows that there is going to be an attempt on the life of the mayor. So, what does he do? Case the joint, try to find possible venues of attack or particular security risks, like the fucking guys shooting fucking guns ten feet from the fucking mayor?

Nope, he hops into one single apartment building, finds some bound and gagged guards, and immediately goes to fidget with a telescope in the window. Dammit, Stevie Wonder has got a better idea of his surroundings than this guy!

Or what about the part in the Dark Knight Rises where Bane and his folks bust into the Gotham stock exchange and hack into it to sell Wayne's assets with his finger prints (presumably through magic, because I don't know how the hell that would work in real life) while Butty Boy is off hunting down some blokes on motorcycles? Did Bedman think that they broke into the stock exchange and take hostages just to have a fun little chase sequence with three or so witnesses?

Come on, any idiot could have seen that something bigger was up, but Bruce Lack-of-Forsythe here just didn't have a fucking clue what was happening.

And that whole situation is just stupidly out of place for Batman. Had it been the real Batman, he'd have had some kind of anti-identity-theft spray to prevent it. Heck, when he's told, he just does fuck all, even though there are hundreds of witnesses and countless cameras all recording the fact that some guys broke into the stock exchange and ran some kind of hacking thingamafuck there, and then magically Bruce Wayne supposedly makes the worst business decision in his life, and does it electronically with no witnesses and via using finger prints (You know, those things absolutely everyone in the whole fucking world can get a hold of on you, from as little as a photograph off of glass?)?! Do you realize how fucking quickly every single corporate monitoring agency in the whole world would be all over that shit like flies on...well, shit?


What bothers me the most about the Dark Knight Rises in particular, though, is neither of those things. It's the simple fact that Batty Boop doesn't succeed through sheer determination or willpower. No, he succeeds through dumb (with a major emphasis on 'dumb') fucking luck. He's just lucky enough to share a cell with the one guy in that prison-well, or indeed the whole bloody world, who can heal a broken back by punching it very hard once (presumably through the same kind of reality-defying magic that enabled the aforementioned hacking), and is also quite willing to do so to someone who is the enemy of the guy he's hired by. And then Bat an Eyelid is plain told straight out what Bane's weakness is, IE you need to break his mask, so he can defeat him in spite of Bane being far superior in a fight.

I hate it when moviemakers do that. They leave the success of the hero up to sheer luck, instead of any real quality worth mentioning. Isn't Batman supposed to be awesome and badass? Not some moron with a good physician?

Bah, screw that, I'm going to watch the Avengers again!