First off - I told myself this would be a review site on all things comic book movies (Games, TV shows, etc) and not a news site. Well I am definitely not the one to break this news, however I am damn sure going to react to it. Last night as I was watching ESPN MNF (On Thursday) my phone blew up with twitter and facebook posts about Ben Affleck as Batman. I thought it was a joke and then started finding links supporting the facts and I was instantly happy. However, as with anything announced on the net, people get to comment down below and sound off on why things are good, bad, or in between. For the next two hours I spent my time thumbing through comments on IGN, Twitter, Comicbookmovie.com, etc. I was pretty amazed at how many people are instantly writing this off as a "Failure". Sadly most of the thoughts I had last night were covered today by IGN's articles but nonetheless for those who did not see those I will summarize and make a few rational points that some of you moronic fanboys are missing. Are you still reading? If so I applaud you because most would have closed this by now, without any further delay.
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| The soon-to-be best Batman, Ben Affleck |
I would like to re-emphasize some of the things I have seen on the net in the last 14 hours and tear you apart line by line in my personal way in which I do.
"Did you see Daredevil, that movie was a piece of shit - pass!"
Okay, Daredevil was made in 2003 - TEN YEARS ago, on top of that comic book movies as a whole back then were nowhere near as good as they are now. Daredevil, at the time was pretty decent. At the time I think it was in my top 3 comic book movies, which does not say much considering X2 had not been released yet, and Spider-Man 2 was still a year away as well. So we did not have a lot to go on aside from Blade 1 & 2, and X-Men. I remember seeing it and the big deal at the time was Michael Clark Duncan cast as Kingpin. People wrote that movie off for the most part even though MCD played a pretty decent Kingpin, I still would have loved to see a white actor portray him but he is so big I don't think they could have gotten away with a CGI-like Kingpin like you could probably do today. The movie itself had a lot of action, portrayed the origin of Daredevil very well, and his costume was pretty well on point and looked good on the big screen. Anyways, time passed and it was kind of a love or hate project. I personally liked it and then as better cbm's came out it is only natural to tear apart older ones because the bar has subsequently been raised. We are a tad spoiled now in terms of CMB's with films like the Avengers, comic book movies that long ago were enjoying this renaissance and everyone was buying up properties trying to create the next big CBM. There was no "Bigger picture" in the works like Phase 1. I thought Ben was great in a corny movie and did pretty well for where he was as an actor back then. Lastly, if you watch the director's cut of that movie - it REALLY changes the perspective and makes it a good flick. When I actually dive into my review of that movie I will go into further detail of this matter.
"Sorry, we're going to get a movie full of Boston accents - Hurry up and get the Bat-cahh"
Okay this is another dumb excuse. Last time I checked, Ben has grown not only as an actor, but as a director. Go look anywhere on IMDB for "Gone Baby Gone", "The Town", and "Argo" and you'll see a ton of "Holy shit Ben Affleck was awesome", "I didn't know he could direct", "That was a great movie". I am paraphrasing but you get the idea, those movies all elevated the bar for where Ben is as an actor and a director and people who constantly refer to Reindeer Games, Paycheck, Gigli, Jersey Girl (Which is a good movie assholes lol) are simply shooting a gun with blanks. Those movies were forever ago and Ben has been on record about taking some of the movies for the...sorry for the pun, paycheck. Let me ask you something, if you were doing something for ten years would you not improve over time? I sure as hell hope so because if not you are probably not going to be doing it much longer! I did have some fun on twitter last night saying we now need Matt Damon as Aquaman and Casey Affleck as some version of Robin and then we can start getting scenes from the Departed, The Town, whatever movie you associate with cheap Boston accents. The point remains that Ben is on top of his craft right now in front of or behind the camera and I know a lot of people are going to be acting like they never said all the dumb shit they are saying right now. #BetMe
"I'm sorry he doesn't look like Batman - He is too small"
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| The god damned Batman |
Okay this one made me laugh a little harder than some of the other blatant hate with no facts to support the argument. Tell me did Chris Evans not look anything like Captain America before he appeared on screen? Evans had previously played the Human Torch in two other Marvel movies and was a lean 165 on a good day in the Fantastic 4 movies before be bulked up to play Steve Rogers. I could keep going and list actor after actor but it would be redundant because when someone signs on to play a super hero, they go through at LEAST 6 months of training before they ever speak a line of dialogue. I watched Bale go from skinny, to ripped, to skinny, to ripped a few times over between the Batman movies, the Machinist, and The Fighter. On top of that, people forget this is a SUPERMAN movie featuring Batman, which means we aren't getting 2+ hours of Batman. He will be in the cape & cowl for the majority of the film. So you are telling me he can't get in shape and transform his body to fill the tights? Pretty sure Hugh Jackman is 43 and looks like he is 26 and plays his role well. If anything, the easiest part of playing a super hero or super spy is the getting in shape part, these studios hire the best of the best in strength & conditioning to get the actors ready to LOOK the part. The harder part will be playing the role, not looking it. Trust me on that. You could transform me into Wolverine if I was paid to do nothing but eat fish and rice and workout three times a day for 6 months.
I'd like to make a few points on why this WILL work as opposed to why it won't, again semi-paraphrasing from other articles already out but I sat up all night thinking about this.
We have seen this hate before and we all ended up looking foolish.
Does anyone remember when Heath Ledger was cast as Joker in the Dark Knight? Of course not, no one wants to remember back to 2007 when Ledger was announced as the Joker. Well, thanx to the Internet I will share with you a few posts in which people swore up and down how this would "ruin" Chris Nolan, Batman, and DC as a whole (Health Ledger 1599745, mindless fanboy idiots -58)
Heath Ledger Backlash
That right there is enough to shut people up. I read some of those comments where people said "Oh great he's gonna be having sex with Batman the whole time" (An obvious reference to Brokeback mountain). Yeah - pretty sure Nolan's plan on set was, "Hey Heath, can you come dressed as your character from Brokeback and mount Mr. Bale and proceed to penetrate him and make a joke or two while doing it? That would be most excellent since you apparently did one role that homophobic assholes didn't like and therefore cast you as this guy who has sex with men everywhere, kthxbai". What happened was Ledger took his role pretty damn seriously and won an award for best supporting actor (IMO he stole the whole movie but that is just me). Heath was a great actor who people had only seen in rom-com's and Brokeback Mountain and did not give him a chance, just like people are doing now to Ben. The difference here is Ben has a bigger catalog and more acting under his belt. Lastly I will say this, there are FEW times when the greater collection of idiots living at home with their mom complaining about something on the Internet turned out to be right. In short,
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| Ben countered your argument over ten years ago |
The Kevin Smith angle:
Kevin Smith gave Ben Affleck some of his first jobs in Hollywood and has said in numerous interviews he would cast Ben in everything. I know a lot of you don't really know or GET Kevin Smith, he is that fat guy who wears Hockey jerseys and made Red State or Jersey Girl. For those who truly KNOW Kevin Smith would know he is a HUGE comic fan, even wrote a stint of Daredevil and Green Arrow. He is a tried and true nerd/geek and is a close friend to Ben. I truly believe there is no way Ben can mess up this role, Kevin Smith wouldn't let him. You have to know Ben will be getting some "Do's and dont's" from Kevin on this role weather he wants them or not. Those overlooking this point alone are sadly in denial. On top of that Ben CAN ACT - I didn't see anyone seeing Argo or the Town and saying "OMG what a shitty movie, jesus!". The only reason half of you are mad is because he is stepping into the coolest super hero role of all time and you don't want him to succeed because then you will look stupid and have to come up with some new lie to hide behind.
This is the Superman sequel, not a full on Batman film
I kind of touched on this up above but the initial sequel says something along the lines of an older, already well versed Batman that challenges Kal-El and shows him the ropes of what it is like to be a hero. This isn't Batman Begins (Again) where we see hours of him learning how to be Bruce Wayne and Batman while rebuilding Gotham. I am sure there will be some short montage of how he got to be Batman but most of the movie will be Affleck as Batman, not Wayne. If Bale got away with his rape-voice yelling at people demanding to know where Falcone is and be applauded by most as the best Batman ever (Really, is there a slew of actors to compare him against?) then I would think it's safe to assume Affleck can pull off the Batman similar to the one in Justice League Unlimited. The one who is cold, calculated, and will kick your ass and not think twice about it. Honestly, I really enjoyed MoS, I feel like Superman is too hard to write because he is damn near invulnerable to everything and it's a struggle to make a good comic or movie with him in it showing any weakness. He can fucking throw every villain into the sun and be done before I could tweet about it! So you see stupid decisions made in movies to try and humanize him to make it "equal" in movies. He has a kid, on no now he has to care, his powers get stripped so he has to struggle as one of us for half the movie, he doesn't kill so half his rogues get away with murder numerous times before Superman snaps and almost crosses that line (Aside from the end of MoS, which was awesome btw). Most versions of Superman are portrayed as a Super pussy boyscout with his morals and ethics. This, to me is why a Superman/Batman movie works well, they play off each other well. Go back and watch any of the DC animated movies and you will see. Kevin Conroy/Tim Daly have done extensive work together as Batman and Superman and they parallel each other very well. I believe this will work exceptionally well in the MoS sequel because we already know this version of Superman is not a sissy, he is not the Punisher by any means but I like how this MoS trilogy is coming together and am hopeful they continue to make it better. Plus, just like seeing Cap, Thor, and Iron Man fight in Avengers, I want to see this bad!!
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| Bat Bitch-slap |
In closing, I think there is a lot of hate for something that is a good YEAR away from production. I read today before writing this that Affleck has already started working out and preparing for this role. That excites me, I know he is already 41, and will be close to 43 by the time this movie is done but 40 is the new 30 and you can't deny that. RDJ is on the wrong side of his 40's and is putting out his best work as Tony Stark so it's a little unfair to say Ben can not do the same. Just remember when this movie drops, I am going to remember half this stupid hate and be the guy to ridicule you over and over when MoS 2 is awesome. I understand everyone had a "better" choice in mind but the truth is I think the best one was made. My personal choice was Jon Hamm, I think he had the look of both Wayne and Batman down but in the end there are people in positions in Hollywood who know a thing or two while they are not always right (See Elektra, Catwoman, or an
ything from Paul W. S. Anderson) they know more than us. So how about you wait a bit for a trailer before you start acting like ignorant fanboys and proclaiming this movies fate, because like I said before, the score so far is in Hollywood's favor and not yours. Ben Affleck as Batman is happening, you can embrace it now or be one of those jumps on the bandwagon later. Your choice
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@Bark4Soul
