The XXX-Factor: THE DARK KNIGHT XXX (2012)

Like all good Video Junkies, I keep a log of all the films I watch yearly.  While cataloging my 2012 viewings, I came to a scary realization – porn director Axel Braun comes in third in terms of directors whose work I’ve seen the most this year (even scarier is the fact that Nick Millard is a runaway in first).  Braun, the current king among XXX parody filmmakers, stands at a record of 1-1 right now for me.  His STAR WARS XXX parody was a pitch perfect labor of love that knocked it out of the park with inspired performances (really!), genuinely funny moments and decent FX.  On the other hand, Braun’s THE AVENGERS XXX parody was a rather lazy affair in terms of satire that cynically knew people would “watch” regardless of plot because it had superheroes screwing and Chyna naked.  So when it was announced that he would be tackling one of the most revered cinema trilogies of the past decade, I had to wonder what kind of film he would deliver.  Are we going to see something that expertly spoofs the Christopher Nolan source material (after all, these are all appearing under the guise of parody)?  Or will we end up with something that just throws sex scene after sex scene resulting in basically a XXX version of cosplay?

THE DARK KNIGHT XXX opens with an impressive shot of some snow covered mountains.  Oh yeah, somebody doled out for some stock footage.  Gotham’s top crime fighter in disguise, Bruce Wayne (Giovanni Francisco), is living in self-imposed exile.  Well, at least that is what we are lead to believe as no one really tells us, but the longstanding cinematic hint of 5-day stubble let’s the viewer know something is up. After throwing a Batman ninja star into a tree, Wayne has a flashback to a time where The Joker (Brendon Miller) held Batgirl (Penny Pax) and Commissioner Jim Gordon (Tom Byron) hostage.  The Joker rips off Batgirl’s mask to reveal she is Barbara Gordon, the Commissioner’s daughter.  In order to release her father, she tells the villain, “I’ll do anything. Just let him go.”  Uh oh, wrong words to say in a porn movie. Soon The Joker has the Commissioner tied up in a cage and is doing anything and everything to his voluptuous daughter (who remains in her Batgirl costume throughout).

Once they finish, she goes to free her father and is shot in the back by The Joker, who exclaims, “I guess she took two in the backside.”  Wah, wah, wahhhhhh.

These events have obviously disturbed Wayne, but (here comes plot nerd) why is he privy to such graphic info about the events?  Does he just have a vivid imagination?  Or did Gordon survive and describe in great detail to Wayne how his daughter did every position imaginable with The Joker?  Regardless, that is the last we see of The Joker and Commissioner Gordon.  To quote Han Solo, “I have a bad feeling about this.”  Wayne isn’t finished sulking and now sits by the fireplace and has his second flashback at the 27 minute mark.  He remembers a time when Nightwing (Brian Street Team) disobeys him after falling under the spell of Poison Ivy (Dani Jensen).  Seems she has some toxin to release onto the city and the Dark Knight ain’t having that.  Or maybe he is.  The two men have a short fight (it is good while it lasts), before Batman splits and Nightwing fails to heed the advice from the 50s song by The Coasters.  Yup, he’s gonna need an ocean of Calamine lotion because he and Ivy get it on in an empty warehouse.

Post-coitus, Nightwing gets up and is tased by Batman (if I had a dime for every time that happened to me after sex). Okay, so this Batman is a bit of a jerk, but he stops Ivy’s plan from spreading and speeds away in his Batmoblie as her hideout explodes.

Back in the cabin, it seems we might finally get some semblance of a plot at the 42 minute mark as Wayne is brought back to reality when an injured Catwoman (Aiden Ashley) stumbles in. He nurses her back to health and she starts to talk about how Gotham is a mess without Batman around.  This terse dialogue sums it up:

Catwoman: “They need you.”
Batman: “They don’t.”
Catwoman: “I need you.”


You know that is only leading one direction and The Dark Knight finally rises (insert your own “Deh-Shay, Deh-Shay, Bah Sah Rah. Bah Sah Rah” chant) and gets it on with Catwoman.

Finally, around the 58 minute mark, we get some plot action going.  Catwoman talks about a “huge, brutal” terrorist who has taken over Gotham and kidnapped Wayne’s girl Kathy Kane (Andy San Dimas).  Wait a sec.  We’re just now finding out about Bruce’s love interest?  C’mon, Axel, you’re killing me.  Anyway, the name of this super villain?  Bane! Not to be confused with Bain Capital, Mr. Limbaugh (although I’m sure he’d love to hatch a drug-addled theory on the XXX Bane being an attack by liberal porn filmmakers who think Romney is screwing folks).

So Wayne decides he must don the Batman suit once again and his first order of business is to…go visit a stage show by The Amazing Zatanna (Christy Mack).  What?  Her not-so-amazing routine involves making some balls disappear onstage (get your mind out of the gutters, pervs).  She retreats to her dressing room where she gives a blowjob to Constantine (Clarke Kent, whose sobriquet no doubt messed with crew members’ minds).  C’mon, Axel, this is just blatant padding at this point.  After she finishes, Wayne shows up and asks for her help.  We never know exactly how she helps as we fade to black and then come back up on Batman sneaking into Bane’s lair.  I assume she told him Bane’s whereabouts, but I feel somewhat insulted that I have to connect the dots in a skin flick.  Anyway, Bane (Derrick Pierce) and Batman fight (again, brief but well choreographed for a porno) and then duplicitous Catwoman shows up. Batman knocks them both out and goes to free his girl Kane, who promptly stabs him in the gut with a knife.  Damn, seems like Axel’s team got some insider info on THE DARK KNIGHT RISES big twist.  Of course, this can only mean one thing – time for one final sex scene.  As Batman lies dying on the ground, Bane gets it on with Catwoman and Kane in a threesome.  You know, just like it went down in this summer's blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.  All you Bane fetishists, get ready!

After some vigorous action (thankfully devoid of Bane’s augmented heavy breathing) we get one final shot of Batman’s fingers twitching.  Our hero lives. THE END!?!

The Batmobile in the film's FX highlight

Okay, so what did we get – inspired parody or lazy porn product?  Sadly, it is more of the latter.  Much like the aforementioned THE AVENGERS XXX, Braun seems content to give his viewing audience nothing more than scenes of characters in costumes having sex.  Now, before we get carried away, I realize this is a sex film and its main (sole?) purpose is to get people off. As I said in my write up of THE AVENGERS XXX, it just seems Braun could do better than this.  I understand that the material he is copying is more current (hell, the latest Batman wasn’t even out when this was shot) than say STAR WARS, but that is no excuse for such sluggish screenwriting.  The film’s narrative is a complete mess.  There is no other word to use for it.  The first 40 minutes are spent in flashback with stuff that has nothing to do with the film proper.  Yes, goddamn it, I’m crying about the lack of focused plot in a porn film.  Likewise, the parody factor is nil.  If you put “a porn parody” in your title, you better have some jokes in there.  Parody in the adult industry today just seems to mean having characters that look similar to the source subject.  Placing “parody” there is nothing more than a legal loophole to protect the porn peddlers from lawsuits. But are you seriously telling me you guys sat around and couldn’t come up with some funny stuff to insert into this film? No Bane voice gags?  No Batman being hoarse jokes?  There is potential there, but Braun and company fail to mine it.

It is really a shame because, as always, Braun has delivered another solid looking production.  The sets are better than most (“We’re giving five dollars to recreate a sixty-million dollar film,” quips designer Andy Appleton amusingly in the extras) and the costumes by Tiffany James are all well done. In the “behind the scenes” supplement, Braun even mentions how he drew inspiration from the Batman: Arkham City video game for his suit.  That is some real geek service there.  Yet any lady (or fella) hoping to see Batman actually getting it on will be sorely disappointed.  Yes, the film is so lazy that we never, ever see Batman having sex in costume.  To paraphrase Oran “Juice” Jones, “That’s like cornflakes without the milk!”  Even more disappointing is that Braun has collected an enthused cast willing to give their all.  Brendon Miller does a solid impersonation of Heath Ledger and Derrick Pierce is the spitting image of Nolan’s Bane.  On the female side, all of the ladies are attractive and essay their roles well. Special notice goes to Aiden Ashley as Catwoman.  She is definitely the cat’s meow and I’m sure will have a legion of fans after they see her in that latex outfit.  Interestingly, she mentions in the BTS featurette that she has an exclusive contract with Braun to do boy-girl scenes.  Let’s hope a Catwoman feature is somewhere down the line.  The end threesome between Pierce, Ashley and San Dimas (“San Dimas high school football rules!” -- if you get that you’re awesome) is probably the film’s highlight.  It seems that in this last third of the film that Braun was finally getting his footing on properly mocking the revered Nolan franchise.  In copying the recent Batman films, however, Braun has done what the highly praised Nolan is most guilty of - taking the source material for his film too damn serious.  Sadly, it was a case of this DARK KNIGHT not rising to the occasion.