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reader sent me a copy of "Batman: Dead End",
which has been making the rounds of comic book conventions and the online fanboy
community for the last month or so. Harry Knowles at Ain't It Cool News even
reported on it, giving it quite a glowing review. But if you think "Dead
End" is a low budget work by a Batman fan, you would be wrong. The
filmmakers may be fans of the Caped Crusader, but there's definitely nothing
cheap about "Dead End".
"Batman: Dead End" is a 7-minute short by Sandy
Collora, who was probably just as sick and tired with the "Batman"
franchise as envisioned by the hellhounds at Warner Brothers as the rest of us.
Which may explain why he made "Dead End", a mini-movie that is,
surprisingly, more truthful and close to the Batman comic books than any of the
movies have ever come, or tried to be.
Not surprisingly, with less than 10 minutes to work with
(plus credits), "Dead End" has little room for storyline. In a
nutshell, the Joker has escaped from Arkham Asylum yet again and the Dark
Knight suits up to chase the nutcase. He locates the Joker in a dark alley with
a dead end and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. But before Batman can
finish off the laughing idiot, a Predator kills him. Then an Alien creature from
"Alien" (it of
the acid-spewing kind) shows up to do battle. They fight. More shows up. Fade
out to end credits.
I don't want to shortchange "Dead End's" story,
but really, there isn't one to shortchange. What amounts to "plot" is
nothing more than co-writers Collora and Nicolas Alvarez lifting lines from the
Batman comic book and some from Burton's "Batman". Obviously dialogue
isn't the point of "Dead End". Collora throws in what could be stock
footage from a more expensive movie to replace the skyline of Gotham City,
although it could be Iowa and I wouldn't know the difference. There's also a
series of shots as Batman suits up in his Batcave (at least I'm assuming that's
where Batman would be), with the rest of the short taking place in a rain-soaked
alleyway at night.
Collora achieves an excellent look for the Dark Knight.
Batman has shed the rubber suit with plastic muscles in favor of an actor who
has actual muscles. Batman's costume is once again tights, and guess what? These
tights look good! And I'm not talking about "good" in the
homoerotic way, but in such a way that it's believable. Most filmmakers have
shied away from faithfully translating costumes used in the comic book onto the
movie screen. The one exception has been Superman. Here, Batman is wearing
tights, and his cape is actually a cape. I.e. Batman doesn't look like he's
wearing about 50 pounds of rubber.
The above is the good news. The bad news is that Batman,
although he appears very mysterious for about 30 seconds, ends up being a back
alley bruiser for the rest of the short. At one point even the Joker gets the
drop on Batman. Clark Bartram, the actor playing Batman, doesn't look like he
knows martial arts. Remember now -- the comic book Batman spent decades
traveling the world learning all manners of martial arts; the guy was as lethal
with his gadgets as he was without them. As Batman, Bartram looks like he should
be in a boxing ring slugging away, not delivering fatal strikes with precision
and grace.
"Batman: Dead End" isn't the best Batman as I've
heard it being called, but it's close. It certainly has the look and feel down,
although tossing in the Predators and Aliens was a bit superfluous.
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