Ben Affleck is the new Batman!

Ben Affleck has been announced to be Christian Bale's successor to play the Dark Knight in Zack Snyder's sequel to Man of Steel.

I personally consider Chris Bale's performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Trilogy to be definitive and as one of the best by a leading actor in the superhero movie genre.

Ben Affleck has won Oscars for his work for Best Writing (Good Will Hunting, 1997) and Best Picture (Argo, 2012). He is one of the most talented people of his generation.

Interestingly, Ben also portrayed the Marvel Comics superhero, Daredevil in the poorly received Mark Steven Johnson directed movie in 2003. He is one of the few actors to play characters from both DC and Marvel Comics, along with Halle Berry (Storm in the X-Men movies and Catwoman) and Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern and Wade Wilson/Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

I am not still sure about this casting decision. I am interested to hearing from readers about their thoughts.

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Image Sources: Warner Bros. Pictures, Wikipedia

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TV Review: CBS Elementary

After reviewing the cast, here is my second post in my blog series about the first season of CBS Elementary.

Confession time: I was eagerly looking forward to Elementary's pilot episode.

I liked the first season of BBC Sherlock and “The Hounds of Baskerville” from the second season. But certain aspects of “A Scandal in Belgravia” and “The Reichenbach Fall” struck me as odd in a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. I was hoping that Elementary would rectify these (what were in my opinion) issues.

What happened was the exact opposite: Elementary only made me enjoy BBC Sherlock even more and made me appreciate how tough it is to make a modern day adaptation without sacrificing the essence of the characters and the trappings of the Victorian era stories. BBC Sherlock accomplishes what every adaptation sets out to do: pay a loving homage to the legendary creation of Arthur Conan Doyle, while retaining its own unique identity.

Elementary, on the other hand….

The show had a weak start with the Pilot Episode and "While You Were Sleeping". The third episode, "Child Predator" was excellent. The fourth episode ("The Rat Race") was OK and the fifth one ("Lesser Evils") was remarkable for the way Joan Watson came into her own for the first time.

The sixth episode ("Flight Risk") is one of my favorites as Miller finally started growing into the role of the fictional detective. This was the time, when I thought: here is a contender for Benedict Cumberbatch’s title as the best modern version of the world’s greatest fictional detective. Boy, was I mistaken.

Click on the link below to buy your copy of Season 1:

The next few episodes were so-so. The series again reached its high in episode # 12 ("M") when one of the famous characters from the Canon made his appearance: Sebastian Moran. As played by the ever reliable Vinnie Jones, Moran remains one of the best aspects of Elementary.

The show maintained its standards with the Super Bowl episode # 14, "The Deductionist".

And the decline started from there.

Episode # 15 ("A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs") was only passable, despite the presence of guest star, John Hannah.

Episode # 16 ("Details") was one of the weakest with the main plot focusing on Detective Bell. Even worse was a running gag that involves Miller’s Holmes conducting surprise attacks on Joan to “prepare” her for any unforeseen life threatening situations.

Episodes # 17 ("Possibility Two") and # 18 ("Deja Vu All Over Again") continued the uneven trend by being boring and interesting respectively.

Episode # 19 ("Snow Angels") was interesting due to the plot element of power shutdown and the introduction of the next important Canonical character: Mrs Hudson. As played by Candis Cayne, Miss Hudson is a transsexual and is hired by Miller’s Holmes to work on a weekly basis.

If the viewers were expecting to see Miss Hudson as a recurring figure, they were in for a big disappointment. Miss Hudson has never been seen again. Perhaps, she is busy being someone's muse. Only Season Two will clarify this (or I hope it will).

Episode # 20 ("Dead Man's Switch") was Elementary’s first attempt at adapting a original story: The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. A novel attempt, but eventually proved to be another one of the mediocre episodes.

Episode # 21 ("A Landmark Story") is memorable for the character of Daniel Gottlieb. F. Murray Abraham gave a very subdued and a mesmerizing performance as Gottlieb, one of the more cerebral agents of Moriarty. I was hoping that he would indeed turn out to be Moriarty, but no such luck.

Episodes 22, 23 and 24 sounded the death knell for the show, at least to me.

The “reunion” of Holmes and Irene Adler in "Risk Management" marked the exact point, when Miller’s version of Holmes proved to be a completely different person from his namesake. His emotional breakdown at the sight of his “lost love” was nothing like the detective I read in the classic stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.

"The Woman" would further prove this point, as we get to see Miller’s version of Holmes and Natalie Dormer’s Irene Adler/Moriarty getting very intimate with each other.  At least, Guy Ritchie had the courtesy to leave such things to the viewer’s imagination during the Holmes-Adler encounter in the hotel room in the first Sherlock Holmes movie.

To add insult to injury, Miller’s Holmes is busy protecting his lady love to pay attention to seemingly trivial things like apprehending Moriarty. He is content to leave such tasks to Joan.

Joan does prove to be the "Heroine" and traps Moriarty using a simple-minded plan that Miller’s Holmes already used in Episode # 2. Not to be outdone, Miller’s Holmes names a newly discovered species of bees (yes, those bees again) as "Euglassa Watsonia" after Joan.

In the next post, I will make some suggestions (that if implemented), I think will help justify naming Miller's character "Sherlock Holmes".

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Image Source: CBS

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