Coo, Boss
Outside the heady and heavy supervision of various characters’ inner psyche, the makers of the recent Returns films did a fine job portraying the story’s incarnation of Robin. A female this time around, Robin starts off as a Batman admirer who pledges to return a life-saving favor and ends up actually preventing Batman’s demise a short time later. Carrie Kelly is clever, charming, and outright funny in some scenes, constantly toeing the lines of Batman’s threats to fire her and forging an endearing bond with Mr. Wayne where most everyone he meets has failed to do so, be it his fault or theirs.
As for the crossover, the implications of this are interesting. For all my quips with Marvel films, one thing they have down to a science at this point is comic relief. Comic relief in Man of Steel or the Nolan Batmans, on the other hand, often felt stiff and forced, as if someone stepped in and mandated it at precise intervals throughout. Did anyone actually laugh at “this isn’t a car?” I mean sure, the Pee-wee Herman rendition was funny, but David Goyer can’t be given credit for that.
Luckily, Snyder doesn’t have to copy Marvel’s style if he doesn’t want to, and Carrie Kelly’s Robin is a perfect means of wedging some lighter fare into the equation. In Returns, she plays on Batman’s temper in an adorable fashion, improvising on his orders but still always pulling through. In one scene she tampers with the Batwing’s voice controls so that its rocket boosters respond to her teenage lingo, while elsewhere Batman’s instructions are met with a blithe “coo, boss.” The fact that this character is available to Snyder is a massive opportunity, and including her could payoff two and even threefold, handling comic relief while acting as a lighthearted foil to Batman and a stroke of color in an abundantly bleak and troubled cosmos.
I want Snyder’s latest undertaking to succeed. I really do. With flying colors, if at all possible. My bitterness stems only from a deep-rooted desire for Batman and Superman films to remain in the upper echelon of superhero filmdom, where I personally believe they belong. Like with most things, if Zack Snyder respects his source and stands on the shoulders of the giants that came before him (in this case the very same year), then his upcoming superhero extravaganza may just have a chance after all.
