Batman XXX (4 Stars)

The full title of this film is "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody", but I don't feel that the title is justified. According to the dictionary a parody is "a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule". Far from ridiculing the original, this film shows that the director has the utmost respect for the 1960's tv series on which this is based. If you extract the sex scenes the comedy is limited to dialog that could have been taken from the original show. The only real parody element is that Batman's costume has "XXX" on his chest instead of a bat symbol. It's more accurate to call this film a crossover than a parody.

My main problem with this film is that the pornography element is foreign to me. But first, let's make it clear that when I say "pornography" or "porn" in this review I'm referring to hardcore pornography. I've long been a fan of softcore pornography director Fred Olen Ray. The two types are easy to tell apart: in soft porn films there are no views of the genitals, and the sex is simulated; in hard porn films the camera shows everything, and the sex is real.

But to get back to what I was saying, I know very little about hard porn. I try not to be a snob and reject it completely, but I've hardly ever seen any. Until this year the only porn film I'd watched in its entirety was Lasse Braun's "Body Love", which I went to see because of the Klaus Schulze soundtrack. I greatly enjoyed it, but I was told that it wasn't typical. So what was different?

I have a friend who owns a lot of porn videos. (Yes, videos, not DVDs! It seems that technology is late catching up with the porn film industry). He lent me videos on occasions, but I couldn't watch more than the first few minutes. For my tastes they were so primitive. No story, no introduction, just sex from the start. Call me old-fashioned, but I like that little something called "character development", I want to get to know the people before they have sex, not just see random bodies rolling around. I've been told that it's possible to be a connoisseur of pornography, but personally I just don't get it. I assume that the whole point of pornography is to sexually arouse the viewer, but for me as a sensitive person the sight of random bodies humping like animals is a turn-off. (Please, if there are any porn connoisseurs reading this, I'd like you to comment. If porn is an art form, explain it to me).

I went to see "Body Love" in a cinema in Berlin. It was a sleazy looking sex cinema. How many of you are old enough to remember sex cinemas? They used to be common, probably more common than mainstream cinemas, but the advent of videotapes killed them. Men used to sneak into sex cinemas hoping they wouldn't be spotted by friends or family. Now they can watch pornography anonymously at home. I admit that on that one occasion I felt uncomfortable walking into the cinema. I felt like I was descending into the underworld, into a den of vice. But I enjoyed the music and I enjoyed the film. In later years I read a lot about the director, Lasse Braun, an Italian director who had moved to Holland. He had a reputation for trying to make "respectable" hard porn films. Maybe that's why the film spoke to me more than the random body humping of my friend's videotapes.

And now I'm reviewing "Batman XXX". I first heard of this film because it had created a buzz among Batman fans outside of the porn community. On reading about it I found out that the director is Axel Braun. Son of Lasse Braun. So pornography can be a family business? It seems like Axel doesn't fit the profile of a typical porn director. According to his resume he speaks five languages fluently and has a Ph.D in Psychology. Judging by Axel's interviews his father made several attempts to persuade him not to follow in his footsteps. Fortunately he didn't succeed.

I don't know anything about pornography, but I do know about films, and this is a good film. My only criticism is that there is too much sex. In the reviews that I've read half of the reviewers (the Batman fans) say that there is too much sex while the other half (the porn fans) say that there isn't enough sex. That's an indication that there is just the right amount of sex in the film. For me personally it's too much. The DVD contains both the X-rated version and a PG version with the sex omitted. The X-rated version is 119 minutes, the PG version is 25 minutes.

Is it worth watching? Definitely! I gave it 4 stars, didn't I? It's not a film to sit and watch with the family after Sunday lunch, but if you like Batman, give it a try. And after watching it tell me what you think.