Last week Aaron Schoenke released his fan film City of Scars, starring, as you might be able to guess, the Caped Crusader himself. The film was shot in less than a month, and for only $27,000, but it certainly doesn’t look it.
Visually, and especially as an amateur film, City of Scars is a considerable accomplishment, and we want to lay that out there to begin with. But in terms of originality and narrative, it falls short. If it was a monthly comic I’d picked up, I’d throw it in a long box, never to be seen again. It doesn’t compare favorably to its older brother fan film, Batman: Dead End, which, while its dialogue was also pretty blah, knew its weaknesses and was much more action focused.
It is worth watching for appearances by the Joker, Harley, Mr. Zsasz, Scarface, and the Ventriloquist, and for one more famous element of Joker stories that I miss dearly in the Nolan movies: fatal hilarity. I also really appreciated the ice cream man.
Uh… you’ll get it when you see it.
