The Death of Batman

I know this a fan made movie, but good god is this cheap. Watching this 29 minute film was the most awkward experience ever.

So Batman somehow gets captured by a petty thief who then chains him up for the next 30 days, and that right there is the biggest error of this film. Batman is smart and always on his feet, and I don't think chains and some random druggy will stop him.

What kind of fan made film is this? Batman literally gets raped, beaten and addicted to drugs. Batman is a little bitch in this and is way too emotionally triggered by everything that the thief says, which is really hilarious to watch.

What a load of crap. I've seen fan made movies filmed in someones back yard more believable than this.

I guess I can see the point this guy was trying to make, but first why did it have to be Batman who ended up making a mistake? Couldn't a cop or DA also make that same mistake? Furthermore, this is a hard sell when it comes to Batman, given his continuity as known by fans. We're talking about a man who saw his parents killed right in front of him as a boy; got hell from all his trainers as he prepared to become Batman; saw a close friend's double personality destroy him; after failing save a girl from drowning, got addicted to a steroid pill for which he had to lock himself in the cave for a month to recover from it(hence the unbelievability of the heroin addiction part); had his second Robin brutally murdered; had another sidekick (Barbara Gordon) paralyzed at the hands of the Joker; saw his other best friend, Gordon, stripped naked, tortured, and tormented with pictures of his daughter, also stripped, just after she had been shot and paralyzed; after going a week with less than a day's sleep rounding up all of Arkhum's inmates after they had escaped, got his back busted by steroid-laced madman; saw his beloved city have its own Black Death from the "Clench" virus, then further carnage when it got leveled by a near 9 point earthquake.

With all that, why would Batman give in after finding out he unintentionally sent an innocent man to the slammer, then sent into a heroin trip, and raped? The man's been carrying guilt over his parents, Harvey Dent, Jason Todd, Barbara, Gordon, and recently his former mechanic Harold. What would be so special about this thief that he would take his own life, believing his crusade was in vain? If you want to do one better than Alan Moore (Watchmen) in debunking the whole concept of a hero, this ain't how you do it.

The first line of dialogue in this indie short is Batman saying "Not a good idea" and that accurately sums up the whole project. The original concept, writing and approach to the character in 'The Death of Batman' are not good ideas and, in fact, the entire short is a extremely bad idea. This short has nothing to do with the other fan-based indie shorts, 'Batman: Dead End,' 'World's Finest,' and 'Grayson,' which are essentially mock-up trailers for films that fans would like to see developed and are intended for presentation at comic conventions. Whereas those three shorts are created out of a spirit of fanboy reverence and earnest enthusiasm for superhero movies, 'The Death of Batman' feels like it was made by a person expressing severe angst toward the concept of the superhero. I hesitate to use the word disturbing to describe this short because that word suggests an emotional impact that a skilled filmmaker could achieve, in the way a horror movie or an art film can be both disturbing and rewarding. 'The Death of Batman' is disturbing without being rewarding in the slightest. I think I understand what the director had intended; Batman as a Christ-figure (the short's last image is a stained-glass image of Jesus). So the less-than brilliant rationale for this indie short appears to be that for the Dark Knight to work, cinematically, as a Christ-figure he must be brutally tortured and die. The director seems focused on every type of taboo that could never make it into a studio superhero movie, such as having the hero tortured, sexually assaulted and then pointlessly killed with a heroin overdose. Personally I like a darker Gotham than most and I have imagined what an R-rated Batman movie might be like, however 'The Death of Batman' is unrewarding even in simply seeing it as a for-adults superhero story because all of its extremeness and shock value is all it has to offer. This short is nothing more than somebody's perverse imagining of Batman's death with no redeeming character insight and a failed Christ comparison. This is not a funny short, as others on this sit have suggested - it is not amusing or entertaining or even thought-provoking.

If you are someone who cares about the character of Batman, this short is only an upsetting and angering experience– Do yourself a favor, DO NOT WATCH THIS SHORT. I don't mean that as in a trekkie telling you not to watch 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' because it fails to meet certain expectations or do not watch 'Batman & Robin' because it's a waste of time, I mean that if you watch this short could ruin Batman for you. I wish I had never seen it.

After Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher, here comes one. A franchise died in 1997, but this one sort of personifies that. The premise was good, the cast was good and the darkness quotient was fine. But the director should not have been explicit about certain matters. The ending should have been refined. There was no consistency in Batman's character and no effectiveness in the combat and counter-combat sequences. Other than that, this had the makings of a tolerable film. And please, do not make Batman appear so ineffective. There should have been a fight. Or if the director wanted to kill Batman with a whimper rather than a bang, he succeeded.

Batman is a detective; he wouldn't make a mistake by thinking the punk was part of the gang that he had busted. and batman couldn't be taken down by a tazer. it wouldn't work on his suit, plus bruce wayne is prepared for eventualities. batman/bruce wayne isn't cocky("I hate it when they put up a fight"). even if a tazer had some effect, it wouldn't make him unable to make a move against the punk. bruce blames himself for his parents death so he wouldn't kill himself because a punk took his own life, or kill himself because he was raped/got aids. and he certainly wouldn't OD. he wouldn't lower himself to that level. the film's story is dark(the only good point), but too dark to the point of lame in how it portrayed batman. the person who made the film obviously hates batman and wants to discredit the character(and is probably more of a marvel fan). it should not have been made.