Ask the average Joe on the street to name the first superhero that comes to mind and, with all due respect to Spidey or the Man of Steel, he’ll say “Batman”. Superheroes have been a part of our popular culture for over 75 years, and Batman has remained a household name since the ‘40s, even though decades of forgettable costumed crusaders have come and gone since his debut in DC Comics. Whether fans connected with the Batman from the paneled pages of a comic book, the glow of an animated series, or the splendor of a blockbuster film, it’s obvious that the hero has connected with audiences in a way that few fictional characters have. What is about the Dark Knight that resonates with so many people on a deep level?
Legends of the Knight
Director: Brett Culp
(US DVD: 18 Nov 2014)
Legends of the Knight, a new crowd-funded documentary, sets out to answer that question by highlighting a few individuals that have been wholly impacted by the Caped Crusader.The film briefly profiles about a dozen people, adults and children, who have been motivated by Batman; some who do extraordinary things and some who just metaphorically carry the character into their simple everyday lives. While the aesthetic is far from grandiose, the modest film manages to do exactly what it sets out to do by the end of the 76-minute runtime.
There are no major celebrities to appear as the documentary’s talking heads. While you might expect someone from Hollywood like Kevin Smith or Adam West to appear given the topic, even if briefly, it’s oddly stimulating to hear some fresh perspectives about the Dark Knight that haven’t previously been shared on a DVD featurette or podcast episode.
Watching “ordinary strangers” talk about how Batman changed their lives could have been a train wreck of triviality, but, more often than not, the tales are heartwarming and/or quirky enough to draw you in. Director Brett Culp’s film is a touching, serious display of fandom that’s not devoted to cosplay or collecting merchandise. As a result, you meet an assortment of memorable individuals while watching Legends of the Knight.
There’s a rich businessman, Lenny Robinson, who dresses in a professional-quality Batman costume to visit children’s hospitals across America. There’s one-legged breakdancing marvel Daniel Scott, who often wears Batman attire as a symbol of overcoming adversity. There’s Petaluma Batman, a California college student dressed in a ten dollar Halloween mask that serves as his community’s low-budget Dark Knight while appearing at charity fundraisers and putting up flyers to try to help find a missing child. There’s even five-year-old Kye Sapp, who channeled Batman’s strength and determination to help him fight cancer.
Amidst all this fanboy praise is Dr. Patrick O’Connor, who uses Batman comics to help treat young adults and connect with his patients. O’Connor humbly discusses his free resource Comicspedia, an online database containing hundreds of individual comic book summaries, which provides a intriguing contrast to many of the more personal tales that surround his vignette.
Batman movie producer Michael Uslan, an influential force behind all the modern Batman films from Tim Burton’s 1989 version up to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, bookends the film and provides its most notable stories, discusses his fight to get Hollywood to actually take the hero seriously. He is also involved in an ongoing struggle to legitimize study of comics in academic circles.
Unfortunately, amid these many interesting interviewees, Culp uses entirely too much B-roll footage of kids dressed in Batman costumes running around on playgrounds; kids that are never interviewed in the film but are merely there as awkward transition filler.
There are also a few weak interviews along the way; given the singular focus of the documentary, it’s a shame it doesn’t always dig deep. For example, Denny O’Neil, a legendary writer and editor of Batman comic books, appears briefly and is reduced to telling stories that seem underdeveloped, irrelevant, or out of context, which is a real shame for someone of his caliber. For example, O’Neil says there are about “five definitive versions of Batman” but we never find out what they are. It’s this sort of decision-making throughout the film that prevents it from saying something especially original or meaningful about the beloved character.
Yet, in spite of these missteps, the documentary, which is no way officially associated with DC Comics, does succeed in reminding us of the serious impact a fictional character can have on our very real lives. If you’ve ever doubted it, you’ll walk away from Legends of Knight believing that there’s more to Batman than escapist entertainment; that much is certain.
However, all the redundant hero worship that’s included serves as a double-edged Batarang. By the end of the film, the overall message is laid on a bit too thick and the perspectives, as good as they are, feel rather repetitive. The fifth time you hear someone tell the camera they appreciate the Dark Knight because he’s a self-made hero who preserved through tragedy to make the world a better place, it’ll mean less, no matter the sincerity or life application that accompanies it.
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