Let's face it Batman, we make better kid action figures than movies.

Remember the days when George Clooney was Batman? When director Joel Schumacher had actually descended the Batman movie franchise into a campier universe than the 1960s sitcom starring Adam West?

Batman, the most twisted noble hero of comic lore had become a terrible joke (rather ironic considering his arch nemesis, yes?). The franchise was raking in big name stars like the Governator, Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, and so on, but these actors were playing CARTOON characters, not the deeply disturbed personas created in the shadowy comic. Don't even get me started on the dialogue of those movies. Ick.

So many of us utterly lost all faith in the Batman franchise, when it once held so much hope. It almost seems like Alicia Silverstone and Chris O'Donnell were so embarrassed they went into hiding.

But then Batman began, again.

The joke, it seems, was on us. Or atleast, Joel Schumacher's vision of a Gotham City that looked more like it had come from The Matrix.

So here we are, nearly 2 weeks from the release of "The Dark Knight." And we're talking about how Heath Ledger's re-invented Joker is the most brilliant chaos to ever fire a bazooka on a big screen. He's an atomic bomb of a character that quite literally surprised everyone who knew him mostly as "that aussi who played a homosexual in a controversial cowboy movie" (Brokeback Mountain).
There's even Oscar talk.

Suffice it to say, we've come a long, long way from Poison Ivy's cringing persona in Batman & Robin.

There really isn't even a point to this particular blog, other than the fact that July 18 can't come soon enough. And I'm glad the past is behind us.