Jim Gordon is Bad at his Job…

 

It’s right there in the title, and I mean it.  Jim Gordon is not a good policeman.  Let’s jump off with the series that chronicles his eventual rise to police commissioner, “Gotham”.  This is a detective that isn’t very effective.  Sure he starts with that white-knight thing going, the one incorruptible cop in all of Gotham, and he has a really good start, but then cracks start appearing in his veneer.  As the cases escalate in craziness, he starts going more and more to the local criminal element for help.  On more than one occasion he sought out aide from Fish Mooney and Cobblepot.  His relationship with Cobblepot has been, without a doubt, the worst for his credibility, but to make matters worse, he double-crosses Penguin.

Regardless of what I’ve said in the past about Batman’s tactics, there is one indelible truth to the man.  He doesn’t double cross.  Even when he’s had to team with his own villains, he never does it at a compromise to his own integrity, and he never lies to them about the terms of their “cease-fire”. 

And it’s not just in the series “Gotham” where this is evident.  Throughout the various incarnations (with the exception of the 1960’s where it’s apparently acceptable to have a masked vigilante do your crime fighting) the very fact that he associates with Batman and allows him to operate within the city compromises his integrity.  Batman as a vigilante cannot affect an arrest regardless of the circumstances.  Any time he stops a purse snatcher or a jay walker, never mind anything higher, that case cannot be admissible in a court of law.  In order for these cases to stick, some serious blurring of facts has to happen.  Gordon didn’t eliminate the corruption of the police force, he just tweaked it.

In the Nolan Trilogy, Gordon is aware of the ethical challenges in associating with a caped lunatic, however this is taken a step further in “The Dark Knight” when he covers up the facts surrounding the death of Harvey Dent and allows Batman to take the heat for Two-Face’s crimes.  This was at least addressed in “The Dark Knight Rises”, but the failure in that instance is that Gordon is still unethical.  He may have been unethical for the right reasons, but if he’s supposed to be the last ethical man in Gotham, he’s failed in that effort.

In the Tim Burton films he ends the first film allying himself with Batman, and the second film basically endorsing violent crime every time the Bat-Signal is lit.  I won’t address the Joel Schumacher films because, as I said in a previous blog, they are just 1966 Batman with a modern spin.

In the famous animated series, he again has to compromise himself in order to work with Batman and condone Batman’s methods.  Other police officers are seen as heels or bad because they look down on this relationship, but as law ENFORCEMENT personnel, they should look down on it.  It’s a violation of public trust to say that these crimes are bad but this crime is okay.  His hand-shaking with Batman make Bruce Way the most successful violent criminal in Gotham’s history.

Well, that’s all I’ve got.

Have a great day.

 

1997's Batman and Robin: A Second Look...

Hello I’m back!  After a devastatingly long hiatus, I’ve returned to give my totally unsolicited opinion about something nobody is really talking about any more.  As ya do on the internet.

But given that we are but a stone’s throw from Batman returning to the big screen via “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about one of the less than reputable moments from the Caped Crusader’s movie career.  That’s right, a film so polarizing you either love it or…well you probably hate it.  1997’s “Batman and Robin”.

Taking place in what we are to assume is the same cinematic universe as Tim Burton’s films, this particular film stars none other than George Clooney and Chris O’Donnel as the respective dynamic duo.  Giving them an assist is Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl and filling in the roles of villains are Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, Arnold (get-to-da-choppah) Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, and Robert Swensen as Bane.

There is a lot wrong with this movie, and you don’t even have to be a fan of the comics to find it.  The acting was phoned in at its best, a crime since all of these actors are actually really talented, and the characters were dumbed down from literally every other incarnation.

Well, hang on…ANY other incarnation?

Part of what irked fans of the franchise, myself included, was that we remembered quite fondly the Michael Keaton films, and even gave a pass to “Batman Forever”.  Watching the Val Kilmer/Jim Carrey film again, one can see the signs of where the franchise was going, but hind sight is 20/20 after all.  Yet somehow we were expected to swallow this neon/black light circus as being part of the same “reality” that had a man electrocuted down to a charred skeleton and an umbrella twirling nightmare trying to kill children.

But that’s if you are trying to link all four films together, which you probably shouldn’t.  How it makes sense in my head is that “Batman” and “Batman Returns” is an adaptation of the comics of the 1980’s whereas the Joel Schumacher films are in fact re-imagining of the Batman series of the 1960’s.

If you take these two specific films away from the context of the franchise as a whole, and put them alongside the 1960’s television series, they match up remarkably well.  Suddenly you see that George Clooney isn’t playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, he’s playing Adam West playing Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy would have worked perfectly with Julie Newmar or Burgess Meredith, but not the Catwoman and Penguin of the film franchise.

I think if you give the latter two of the films another shot in that light, you might find that…they honestly won’t be any better, but they will make a lot more sense.

Even if you can’t find it in your heart to accept them as they are or in this new light, look on this bright side:  It came out along with “Steel” and “Spawn”, forming the unholy trinity that effectively killed comic book films and forced Hollywood to actually put some thought and effort into these properties.  This wouldn’t be rectified until 1998 when “Blade” came to theaters and reminded audiences that films based on comics could be awesome.