DEAD END
creators' Web site
Web site for downloading @ TheForce.Net

review written 7/24/2003

This film took with it a strange kind of hype.

It was a hit at Comic-Con. Some proclaimed it the best Batman movie ever. Images and interviews hit the more ‘mainstream’ Internet media. Fans went nuts. TFN hosted it, their first non-Star Wars fan film hosting choice ever.

I couldn’t wait to see it. I’d seen the pictures of Andrew Koenig as the Joker, and they blew me away. Sure, we’ve all seen Jack Nicholson’s Joker. But the bar has been raised here, in terms of characterization, performance and especially makeup. This is the Joker for me as far as I am concerned.

The rest… well.

The film opens with tasteful credits set in Copperplate Gothic, a nice choice (for a Batman film, mind you!), and shortly thereafter, a stunning helicopter shot. How the filmmakers got their hands on the resources for this aerial pan, I’ll never know. But it floored me. Of course, Sandy Collora and his crew are professionals. This film would not be judged by the same standards as I would judge something made by a bunch of high schoolers.

Batman is dressed the way he is in the old-school comics and serials. Gray suit, black bat on the chest sans yellow oval, no body armor. I could do with seeing more of this in the Batman film universe. The bandaged hands were a wonderful touch as well. And the Batsignal, a bat-shaped beam of light piercing the rain-dappled sky, made me happy.

And then we have the Joker. I can’t rave enough about him. His voice, his eyes. And the dialogue is among the best I have ever heard in a fan film.

Yes, I’d call this a fan film, despite the professional work that went into it. He’s not charging people to see it. He did it to show off his talent and because he likes Batman.

He also seems to like another movie franchise.

I won’t spoil the twist, but Batman faces some non-Joker enemies in this film, and I don’t think it’s a good choice. Yes, I know there were comics where this happened, and I don’t care. The new enemy looks good, but the cuts to his POV were extraordinarily distracting, and, more importantly, I spent the entire time wondering why he was there.

And the film just goes downhill on a nearly vertical slope when he shows up.

When this ends, the film ends. It just sort of stops. Dead End, indeed.

I may be too generous with this rating. But when a fan film attracts this much attention from the outside world, even to the point of making life safer for fan films set in the DC universe, you gotta figure that something big is happening, and Dead End is a pioneer. Watch it for the Joker, and all of a sudden you’ll forget Tim Burton ever existed.