I just did something stupid and I totally regret it · 8:09pm Jun 10th, 2014
Hey.
Recently I got some spare time so I decided to see Beware the Batman.
What can I say? I didn't watched it when it first aired (mostly because I live in another country) and since every reviewer, critic and fan everywhere said it was sh*t, the series being cancelled without even finishing the first season didn't helped its case. So I decided to hold my distance from it.
Random reader: Then why the bloody hell did you saw it now?!
To be honest, I was more curious than sensible. Also, I remember that MTV's Spider-Man series that had a similar reception and ending. I loved that series so thought that maybe Beware the Batman could be a similar case. I made a serious mistake.
I expected this:
But instead I got this:
Yes, Beware the Batman is to Batman what The Phantom Menace is to Star Wars.
Let's take a look:
First, is the intro. The intro is what practically sells the series to the audience. It has to show the series plot and character and even its world. It's not an easy task and various series fall in this category for that. Also it has to have a them that goes with the series's style.
Now. This intro doesn't give us too much to see. Sure, we see the animation style and I actually liked the theme. The art has that neo-noir air with some ideas from Frank Miller's style, which is pretty fitting when you think about it. It also show us the main characters doing... doing something for the camera and there's the first thing I didn't liked about the series. The characters.
I got some big problems with the characters on this show.
At some point we see an obsessive man and his companion who constantly tries to cal him down. Now, for the regular Bat-fan, this would mean that Bruce is the obsessive and Alfred is the calmed.
WRONG!
For some reason that avoids my tries to explain it, the writer thought that it would be a good idea to reverse Bruce and Alfred to make Bruce the relaxed one an Alfred the serious guy. Now, this dynamic could have worked with other characters like the Green Hornet or Iron Man. I fact, this is the actual formula of the Green Hornet and Iron Man. Bruce is Britt Reid/Tony Stark and Alfred is Kato/Pepper. This is mostly illustrated when Alfred is training Bruce (yes, you read that right) is Bruce who says that is enough and Alfred the one who points out the flaws on the exercise.
Then Katana appears and NOW we really got a Green Hornet/Kato duo on screen.
Yeah, actually.
Bruce seems to be a Year One kind of approach. But instead of focusing on the "trained but inexpert" characterization we saw on Year One, we got a more "massive idiot ball as plot requires" version of young Bruce.
Alfred is Bruce Willis. That's it, he's essentially and animated Bruce Willis working as Bruce's butler.
The rest of the cast doesn't even deserve to be mentioned, it just a parade of DC characters in the worst case of out of character I've ever saw.
And to conclude, the plot is something that had been already made a lot of times before: Random villain abducts various rich guys and ends targeting Bruce Wayne. Ugh, that one is overused.
But to be fairly honest, if this wasn't a Batman's series I would have liked it. The creators obviously put some effort to this, the animation is good and the soundtrack is mostly well done (I still liked the intro). My only real complain is that it's plot and setting doesn't fit with the characters they're using. So, maybe, if this series was about another character, or even a new character, it would have more success and wouldn't have been cancelled so early.
Well, that's it.
Oh! And go watch Godzilla, it IS that good and I would even put it on Pacific Rim's level. In fact, stop loosing time reading this and buy your ticket to see Godzilla.
What? You already saw it? Then go and watch it again! You know you want to.
okay.......i understand why i shouldn't watch beware the batman..... just with the pic there's one big wrong thing......Alfred is using guns......i mean GUNS he's supposed to teach Bruce to be Batman but he can say Fuck off the no killing rule ?!
we got a girl version of Nightwing....., Killer croc is a now a frog
Bane is a pig , Black cat got fired from the spider man series so she worked a bit for Batman but she got a new haircut before that.
the only thing as you said that realy i a big mistake is Batman being trained by Alfred , i mean it's because he travelled around the world and learned all he could to become the best detective in the world that he is , not because he trained with his butler for a month.
about Godzilla i still haven't saw it but i plan to do it soon
They actually stated that. At some point we see Alfred worried that someday, when he dies, Bruce won't be ready enough. So he trains him to be sure he will be able to stand by himself.
To be fair honest, this would be a great mentor/pupil relationship for any other character BUT Batman.
And if you think that Mister Toad is replacing Killer Croc. You're giving this show too much credit.
About Godzilla, go ahead and watch it, you will not regret it.