Bateman Begins: An American Psycho

I’m torn on this edit. I’ll get the obvious out of the way; old fanedit, bad tech ratings. Now the tricky part.

I knew this was going to be a goofy “what if” type story so I didn’t expect a coherent narrative that felt like a “real” movie. I enjoyed it a lot, the overall concept worked (to a degree) but the Batman angle felt totally out of place. The third act was nicely done. It would have been much more effective as a 30-40 minute short.

A/V Quality - 7
Editing - 7
Narrative - 6
Enjoyment - 8 (originals: American Psycho 10, Batman Begins 8, Machinist 9)

Recommended drink: Tequila and Mountain Dew

the concept of combinining these two films is extremely funny but in practice its not that interesting. this is actually just like 80% american psycho normally with a few occasional clips from batman or the machinist. as a narrative it doesn't work and the story is not very cohesive. the title is the funniest part.

I think Neglify said it best when he said it would be better as a 30-40 minute short. The transitions between every scene is incredibly jarring and too noticeable to create a coherent narrative. There wasn't enough inter-cutting of the three films to create something more than just shorter versions of the original movies (American Psycho in particular). The first 15 minutes is Batman Begins, the next 50 is Psycho, and the entire third act is Machinist. The whole project really feels taped together: Every Batman scene is completely out of place and doesn't connect well with the other stories, and the audio editing during some cuts is really bad.

This edit employs a great idea, but fails in execution. Maybe if it was just Psycho and Machinist? I'm not sure, but it could have been much better.

I really enjoyed this one. A very interesting take on Bruce Wayne's madness. Edit did a great job of mixing parts of batman begins, american psycho, and the machinist, as well as the infamous christian bale rant audio.

My favorite part was how Patrick Bateman could not get a reservation at Dorsia, but turns out that Bruce Wayne owned the joint, purely awesome.

The technical editing on this was incredible. The audio and video flowed together very well, with no sound feedback or jarring cuts in the clips to draw attention to the fact that they didn't originally go together (with one exception, which I will address below). Technologically, this was a masterpiece.

The narrative, however, I found very weak. There were such long stretches of just "American Psycho" that I didn't feel it tied in very well with the "Batman" story. The characterization also needed to be more tightly cut; Bateman's inner monologues, such as the one about his hygiene regimen, don't really fit the Bruce Wayne-going-crazy idea, and should've been trimmed down, excised, or dubbed over with music. Alfred's appearances are so sparse and scattered that it's difficult to figure out why he's there at all. I just didn't feel like I was watching one cohesive movie. I was very conscious of the fact that I was watching a blend of three.

One audio thing I feel the need to mention was the inclusion of Christian Bale's on-set freakout from "Terminator." It was not cut in very well, and was very startling. Plus, since Christian Bale speaks with his real English accent in the freakout (which neither the Bruce or Bateman characters speak with), it took a minute to even connect that voiceover screaming to the characters on the screen.

Overall, I think that the edit shows great technological prowess, but a loose grasp of story.