What I mean is, it's an over-the-top and campy comic book movie that still takes itself seriously and is well made. Don't you agree that Schumacher's Batman movies, especially Batman & Robin", at times feel like spoofs?
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/hov7wu/dick_tracy_is_an_underappreciated_comic_book_movie/
I don't think spoof is the right word but it's no secret they were aping the style of the Adam West show, which was famously campy and ott. But back to Dick Tracy, that is actually a shockingly good comparison. If Schumacher directed his Batman films more towards that direction, it may have worked better. I do legit love Dick Tracy. It's style over substance, but in the right manner.
shareI never considered it until now, but Batman & Robin kind of strikes me as a slightly less deliberately ironic, superhero version of The Last Action Hero (also with Arnold Schwarzenegger):
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/if0uih/the_last_action_hero_1993_is_very_beloved_butshare
Which brings me on to maybe the biggest problem, which is the tone of the film. It's completely all over the place. We are lead to believe that the world is extremely non-serious and over the top sequences of danger are to be laughed off, but throughout the long runtime there are several moments where the mood is supposed to be solemn and heartfelt. It's very hard to care about Arnie's dead child because the whole film has been developing him as a live action cartoon character with canned lines and predictable reactions. The film also likes to swap back between silly and serious schizo-style with no smooth transition. It's honestly jarring.
Now this may have all been a little more tolerable if Arnie was a good actor. But he isn't. He's an iconic actor. I'd even go as far to say he's charismatic and obviously likeable. But meta jokes about the tropey action hero he plays only land because he's playing his own typecast. He has some comedic talent, but he's too wooden to be consistently funny and almost no ability to be dramatic.
The 'meta' of this film is actually really frustrating. While it has a novel idea of poking fun at the 'nonsensical generic action movie.' It can't seem to keep to prevent itself from being a nonsensical generic action movie. Cue the defenders to bring up the film being 'self-aware' as if that makes all the aforementioned problems go away.
That's a good comparison with Dick Tracy, the movie is heavily stylized but in a good way. I loved the awesome cast of villains.
shareI don't think Dick Tracy was too far out of bounds like Joel Schumacher's Batman. The coloring in Dick Tracy was basically made to match the coloring of the Sunday paper from back in the day. There were really only something like four or five colors in that movie. I thought it was done pretty well.
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