ABC Family manages to make ‘Batman Begins’ a romantic comedy, somehow

We’re filing this one under ‘positively ridiculous’…this 30 second advert for the ABC Family network premiere of ‘Batman Begins’ ignores that the film was a much darker, melodramatic and gritty take of the Batman mythos and carefully selects shots of a smiling Christian Bale and Katie Holmes and a few out-of-context lines to paint the film as a romp more akin to a romantic comedy. Somewhere among the “he fights for family…and lives for love” line, you almost forget that Batman spends the first half hour of the movie stabbing ninjas and blowing up temples, before finally saving a drugged up and crazed Gotham City from itself, and ultimately losing the girl.

While it may be an incredibly deceptive and ridiculous advert (“He fights for family” being especially hilarious, when you think about it) that ignores the entire point of the film, this is an excellent example of how a trailer can be recut to give a film the appearance of an entirely different tone and plot. One has to wonder if a similar tactic would eventually be used for ‘The Dark Knight’. If anyone wants to try and make that trailer for ABC Family, I’d love to run it.