RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books MICHAEL Moore's "Twilight of the Superheroes": A Review

DC Comics, desperate to have a hit comic book movie after the back to back failures of "Catwoman" and "the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," have turned to maverick film director Michael Moore to give a new spin on their classic heroes.

Moore's resulting work, "Twilight of the Superheroes," is brilliant, but ultimately flawed film, depicing the beloved icons as stooges for the multinational corporations which create all the evil in the world (except, of course, for AOL/Time Warner/CNN).

The film opens with a frail Adam West, quoting Noam Chomsky and then moves directly into the plot.

In Moore's world, Bruce "Batman" Wayne, is a evil billionaire, using his wealth to curry favor with the Bush administration so that he might win lucrative defense contracts and continue with his nocturnal activities without interference. In a clever spin on the old sitcom, Moore shows the Batsignal on top of the White House, being operated by Dick Cheney.

The film shows how Wayne and Cheney cooked up the Iraq war and 9'11 itself, as a pretext to get cheap foreign oil for the batmobile.

According to Moore's sources, which are never identified, 9'11 was actually caused by flying Wonder Woman's invisible jet into the twin towers, in order to frame Osama bin Laden.

Moore next switches to Metropolis, where we find Clark Kent, a mild mannered reporter for a corporate media outlet. Kent has proof positive, through his x-ary vision and superhearing, that Bush and Rumsfeld have been drowning kittens in the White House toilet with Ken Lay, but is forced to spike the story by Rupert Murdoch, the daily planet's new owner.

Immediately thereafter are a few really funny scenes, where Moore walks up to republican politicians and asks them why they won't admit the Batman-Cheny link on camera. Moore perfectly captures the discomfort on their faces as they try to pretend that Batman is a fictional character. Ha ha!


The film soon turns poignant, however, when Moore returns to Flint Michigan, the site of his film Roger and Me. Moore interviews yet a few more residents of that shuttered factory town, all of whom complain that they haven't had enough money in 20 years to afford prestige format books. Moore intersperses these interviews with cuts of Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luthor, chuckling over a joke with Charleton Heston at a 20 year old Hollywood fundraiser.

Moore ends the movie with a shot of Green Arrow going to a MoveOn.org meeting.

Don't forget the scene where Moore claims a bank is passing out Green Lantern rings to whoever opens an account there.

I can't wait for the Academy Awards where he'll talk about the fiction of Batman and the fiction of Superman.

Truth is stranger than fiction...

Sounds like a great spoof documentary -- wish I could see it.

Farenheit 9/11's release is really eating you up i see.

Laughter is the best medicince.

If Michael Moore existed in the DC Universe, he'd have a field day with President Luthor. Holy shit...

If Michael Moore existed in the DC universe with a President Luthor, he'd be dead already.

Actually, there's a chance his metagene might be activated.

In which case, he'll keep being brought back every time he dies.

This reminds me of an idea I had for making Moore a supervillain. His power was that everything he declared as fiction would disappear from existence. So there would no longer be an orange alert, duct tape wouldn't exist anymore, etc. He ends up being defeated when he realizes his entire life has become fiction, and he disappears forever.

That actually sounds a little like what Joe Casey was doing on Adventures of Superman last year.....only not as dumb.

I wonder if I can use that to get a job at DC.

DC Editor: What are your qualifications to write comic books?
Me: Well, my ideas aren't as dumb as Joe Casey's.
DC Editor: YOU'RE HIRED!!!

Yeah, but after Chuck Austen pulled that same stunt and promptly proved his ideas WERE as dumb, DC swore never to be fooled by that line again.

Yeah, soon DC realized just how many people had ideas that weren't as dumb as Joe Casey's.

Anyway, back to the film...

Another key scene is where Hawkman is shown at an NRA meeting, chortling over school shootings and concluding by holding a musket above his head and intoning "from my cold dead hands."

Curiously, however, Hawkman's appearance changes from sentence to sentence, or even from word to word. Sometimes, he's a blond American, other times he's Egyptian looking and, in other moments, a hawk-human hybrid.

Critics have charged that Moore edited together snippets from several speeches by several different Hawkmen to completely change their meaning. Moore on the other hand claims that this is simply a result of "hypertime."

Heh, that's actually pretty funny.

ZOD thought Moore was smashed to death under an Oliphaunt's foot?

You of all people should know that no one stays dead in comics these days...

I wonder if Moore has a theory on why Krypton realy blew up.

Or why Wayne's parents were shot.

The Wayne family obviously had ties to the bin Laden family...and the Nazis.

Krypton blew up because of lack of affordable socialized medicine.

Moore ate Gumby!!!

MOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEEEE!

I thought Krypton blew up because the President considered Kryptonians weapons of mass destruction and had coalition forces sent to destroy it.

You moron -- Krypton did not have space travel! America was never in any danger. The United Planets weapons inspectors were working, dammit!

Actually, the real story with Krypton, as Moore reveals, is that the Bush family arranged for the Phantom Zone criminals to escape prior to the planet's destruction.

It's true, it's damn true!!!

More scene's from Moore's film:

The Bush administration denies that their federal court nominees are picked with the help of Harvey "two face" Dent and his double sided coin.

Moore interviews John Stewart to show that the typical member of the Green Lantern Corps is an African American from the inner city, forced to live on "slave wages."

The biggest revelation in the movie, is that the American Goverment supplied money and technology to the Anti-Monitor in the early 80's, seeking to cause a multi-earth Crisis that would decrease the price of Anti-Matter.

Blasted Reagan administration!

Unfortunately, until we find a good replacement for our Antimatter Economy, we will be continually forced to buy antimatter from terrorist-sponsoring planets like Qward and Apokolips.

Speaking of Qward, Moore's film reveals that the Thunderers of Qward were actually trained personally by the wizard Shazam, who is still holed up in one of the caves on the Rock of Eternity and who is the REAL intellect behind al-Qaeda... didn't anyone notice how much he resembles Osama bin Laden?

And he IS middle Eastern...!

Maybe they should pursue the Egyptian link as opposed to the Saudi one?