Batman: Dead End (2003)

That was an excellent one.

Boring

Better than most people think

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Batman: Dead End does a really good job of showing what Sandy Collora could be capable of given sufficient resources - visual atmosphere and choreographing action, principally: this short looks really good and comes close to putting a convincing Batman from the comics into the real world (as opposed to the Burton cycle, which featured a comics world, the the Nolan films which feature a real-world Batman).It also provides clear evidence that Batman doesn't need sculpted body armour to succeed on screen, and that Joker makeup can be more effective than any other version seen on screen (and I liked the late Andrew Koenig's nod to Mark Hamill's vocal characterisation).Apart from that, there really isn't anything else here. This is Collora's calling card, and a good one, but nothing else.

I have heard about this short Batman film for a while now and just now watched it (never had high speed internet before). The plot is simple, Joker has escaped and Batman suits up to once again send the insane clown prince of crime back to Arkham. It looks fairly passable at this point, the guy doing Batman is okay even if the suit looks a bit like a Halloween costume. The guy doing the Joker though is no Heath Ledger or Jack Nicholson or heck even Mark Hamill who does the voice for the Joker in most of the cartoons. Well they have a short exchange then it is bye bye Joker as he is apparently killed by an alien. Yes, the very same alien one finds in the films with Signorney Weaver. Why is this alien here, who knows it is not to long before a predator comes along and blows its head off. Yes, the predator is the same too, though it did not look quite as good as the alien. It and Batman have a rather good fight and then very bad looking predators show up (why the red one?). Batman prepares for battle and three or so aliens show up behind him. Well it looks like Batman is screwed and the credits show up five minutes and 50 seconds into the thing, as it is over and you get to see credits to fill out the final two minutes. I guess to pad the short film? Like I said nice effort, better than I thought, but I knew it was propped up to be something better than it was.

I saw this online recently and it was not quite what I had expected. First off, the production quality is, if nothing else, rather, surprisingly top-notch. It obviously would have to go through a lot of arbitration and legal wrangling to legitimately be shown anywhere (think of what Warner brothers and Fox would do in order to get this out there, which might not be much since they already protect their own franchises). But there was a good deal of money put into it, and it looks terrific in terms of the creature design, location, technical aspects on all various fronts. It certainly isn't some kids with Party City costumes floating around with a camcorder on a street. That being said, lets call a spade a spade: it's a fan-boy movie. It starts off with a heated one-on-one with Batman and Joker (not bad actor playing the dark knight, though the one playing Joker, dare I say it, goes a little over the top too much). Then an alien from the FOX comes along and kills joker, and then Predator from FOX also comes along to fight Batman, and this is what ends up mostly being the short. It's action packed and with, well, lots and lots of predators as the film goes on. In the sense of being a guilty pleasure, of watching it and enjoying it even as the better sensibility says that it's pretty stupid, it's really not that bad. But it's definitely not what some people have put on such a high pedestal, which is that it's better than ANY other Batman-related feature ever created. Nice try, but there needs to be a STORY, not just a bunch of crazy franchise-cross-pollinating.

This is by far the most intellectual Batman film I have ever seen. Many fans of Batman may be distressed and confused by the sophisticated storyline and the deep character development but for those of us who are mature enough, this film represents the struggle between good and evil, human and alien in a darkly beautiful way.From the witty dialog to the superbly underrated acting, Batman: Dead End delivers a classic story of predator vs. prey with rhetoric. Truly, this film can only be described as Hollywood's quintessential masterpiece. One could even go so far as to say that it's mankind's greatest achievement and our greatest contribution to human civilization.If I could sacrifice both of my testicles to ensure a sequel to Batman: Dead End would one day be created, I would agree with no hesitation. You should too.