jason_parallel

I must be one of the only people in the U.S. that hates this movie. Not just dislikes, but HATES. That's right; I despise this flick. Let me explain why...

When I was in high school, Tim Burton's Batman came out in theaters. I remember it being one of the most enjoyable movie-going experiences of my life. Goofy bat-props aside, it was epic, colorful, and operatic. It was what any true comic book movie should aspire to. I still consider Burton's movie the best superhero movie ever made. Yep, you heard me right.

I will be the first to admit that went into Christopher Nolan's version with a biased opinion. How could Nolan, a director known for Hitchcock-like suspense movies, ever beat Burton's dark vision? After viewing Batman Begins, it turns out I was right to question everything I had heard about it. This movie sucks.

Nolan is best left to directing off-kilter thrillers. Given his unique directing style, I have to admit that I was excited to find out that he was going to be helming this one. Unfortunately, he shows none of the originality that seeps through in his other flicks like Memento and The Prestige. How can such a good director turn out uninspired, boring schlock like this? Batman Begins is so ham-fisted and pretentious that I felt like I had been forced into watching a Baptist tent revival for two hours. The characters love sermonizing about "good vs. evil" and "morality vs. immorality". Especially Katie Holmes and Michael Caine. Now, I am a big fan of Caine's work (I won't even comment on Holmes; how she got cast in this movie is beyond me), but turning Alfred into a nagging I-Told-You-So moralist is completely aggravating. David S. Goyer should be smacked for writing such pandering drivel.

I am a huge fan of Christian Bale. I have a ton of his movies in my collection. I had big hopes for his turn as the Caped Crusader. He is the only actor in this movie that even pretends to care about what is going on, despite his very wooden performance. Gary Oldman is one of my favorite thespians of all time, but he was a braindead zombie throughout the whole flick. Ditto for Holmes, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, and Ken Watanabe. How could so many great actors sleepwalk through one production? It's all mindboggling.

The whole thing feels like a project that had a ton of energy at the beginning, but everyone involved slowly lost interest and just decided to finish it so they could collect their paychecks. Very Sad. This had such huge potential, and it turned out to be just another Hollywood cash cow.

There were some highlights for me, though. The final train showdown was really cool, as was the appearance a psychopathic Scarecrow on the streets of Gotham looking like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Ultimately, Batman Begins is marred by poor scriptwork, poor direction, and even poorer acting. I am consistently amazed by reviews that herald it as "the movie of the year" or "the best superhero movie ever made". Uggh.

I'll stick to Zebraman, thank you very much. At least that has some creativity to it.

Takashi Miike was given the daunting task of translating the MPD Psycho manga onto film, and no other Japanese director could have done it as successfully as he has.

Let me clarify my above statement: the MPD Psycho series is nowhere as good as Audition or Ichi The Killer, but given the material and the constrictions of Japanese television, Miike used his experience to craft a tense, psychological story that hits a nerve with me every time I watch it.

Miike has a knack for exploiting weaknesses in the scripts he's given, and MPD Psycho is no exception. The manga is dense with plots, subplots and characters, and I get the feeling that Miike recognized the fact that translation would be difficult, so he chose a schizophrenic approach to making the series. This approach works for any viewer (like me) that has enough patience to watch the entire series from beginning to end. Watching one episode will get you confused, but watching them all in chronological order is a satisfying experience that eventually unfolds a colorful and chaotic story.

Technically, the series - on first look - suffers from a low budget, but once again Miike exploits this as he has on several of his other films. Colors are saturated and sharply contrast with each other, light and shadow are over-accentuated, and it all give the feel of seeing the world through the eyes a synesthesia-suffering psychopath. The special effects are overdone (neon rain, urine-colored skies), but it all adds to the effect. It's like watching a serial killer music video from the early 1980s.

The plot is probably the hardest thing for people to get around. I had to watch the entire thing from beginning to end several times before I finally understood what the hell was going on; there are so many subplots and twists that the viewer becomes overwhelmed after the first ten minutes. In addition, Miike's use of flashbacks and juxtaposition, while adding to the schizophrenic feeling that underlines the series, makes it hard to follow the storyline without feeling slightly unbalanced at the end of each episode.

There are so many characters introduced by the end of the second episode that you start to lose track of who's who and why they're doing what they're doing. That's why it's a MUST to watch it all chronologically. Some of the characters don't have their motivation or importance in the story explained until way after their introduction. At points, some characters disappear entirely until they make another reappearance further down the line. It's all rather overwhelming but very rewarding- each character is entertaining and has some sort of story to tell. My favorite is police chief Sasayama (wonderfully played by Ren Osugi), who goes through so much crap to expose the truth that by the end of the series you've got to feel sorry for him.

All in all, MPD Psycho is certainly not one of Takashi Miike's best works, but it showcases his talent and showmanship more than any of his other projects. Watch it through its entirety and you won't be disappointed, especially if you're a Miike fan.