What’s strange about the Batman movies to me is the almost total absence of BM getting from point A to point B by swinging on a rope. They have him using that rewinder thing a bunch, but swinging on a rope was all he ever did, at least in the older comics, and the stunt would cost almost nothing.
I think Keaton’s Batman did the same in the first one.
If we go by the comics canon that Bruce was 8 years old when his parents died, then Pattison’s Bruce is 28, which I think is close enough to his real age that it works.
This is definitely the best Batman movie IMO and I wouldn’t mind a sequel. I liked that we were spared yet another reenactment of the Wayne murders and the detective story aspects. I’m not all that crazy about the Joker cameo at the end - the character’s been done to death and I’d like to see some other antagonist for Bruce in the future.
I don’t think anyone ever actually called him “Batman” once during the movie, which was a nice touch - he’s always “the batman”, “the vigilante”, or “Vengeance”, and I liked his revelation at the end that Gotham doesn’t need vengeance, it needs hope. The flood and post-flood scenes had a strong 9/11 - Katrina vibe to them which worked well to elucidate that point.
What was the deal with the vial Bruce injected himself with in the final fight? Was that supposed to be Bane venom? I’d be surprised if it doesn’t become a plot point in the next movie.
Saw it yesterday, and I really liked it. My only complaint is they could have tightened it up by 15-30 minutes. I laughed when they came out and embraced that Bruce has to apply mascara every night.
Strange as it may seem, this is straight out of the comic books. For most of the 1970s, Bruce Wayne lived in a penthouse in the Wayne Foundation building in downtown Gotham City, with the Batcave in a sub-basement accessed by elevator. Wayne Manor was locked up and uninhabited during that period.
My friend pointed out it was a post COVID movie for that reason. In most movies, the protagonists may suffer some stinging losses, but they manage to stop or at least greatly mitigate the major disaster. And the few times it does happen, it gets reversed…see Avengers Endgame.
Post pandemic this might become a recurring theme.
Maybe Deep Impact was the last movie where the big disaster did happen?
I liked it. It gets rid of the white circles around the eyes and makes live action Batman look more like comics Batman.
(From Private Eye)
I can’t find any examples, but when the Nolan movies came out there were plenty of memes of Michael Caine carefully applying black makeup to Christian Bale.
“Post COVID movie”? Has your friend not seen Watchmen?
No and neither have I.
In all fairness, Watchmen was meant to be subversive.
I wasn’t expecting anything from this movie. Speaking as a comic book fan myself, I think that we are in the realm of oversaturation of superhero movies and shows. I’m especially bored of the Marvel format.
While D.C.'s first few efforts were dismal, I have liked the last few outings and I quite enjoyed The Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Shazam!, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman. I like that each of them has its own mood, style, and setting.
I also have seen every Batman movie going back to 1966. And I’ve never really seen a good Batman movie. The Adam West one was hilarious. The Michael Keaton ones were … okay. The Val Kilmer and George Clooney ones were dumb. The Christian Bale ones were … booooooorrrrrrring.
I liked Ben Affleck’s portrayals of Batman and Bruce Wayne, but the movies he appeared in were … not great.
So I wasn’t expecting much. Mostly I went in thinking … “Hmm … three hours. When will I take a restroom break? … When we go into one of those endless, dull fight sequences.” That has been an effective strategy for me with most superhero movies, especially Marvel ones, whose endless, dull fight sequences come up like clockwork.
So, surprise No. 1: There were no endless, dull fight sequences. In fact, most of the fight sequences were quite short.
Surprise No. 2: No boring stretches in this movie at all. I was engaged the whole way through.
Surprise No. 3: No re-hashing of Batman’s origin.
Surprise No. 4: A take on Bruce Wayne that I can’t remember ever seeing before. This really seemed like something new.
Surprise No. 5: I didn’t really have a lot of preconceptions about Pattinson. I just looked at his IMDB credits and as it turns out, the only movie appearance of his that I have actually watched was Harry Potter, and I had forgotten that he had portrayed Cedric Diggory. I, of course, am very aware of Twilight, but I never watched any of it, because it just didn’t seem like something I would like. I have seen clips from those movies here and there, but they never really left a strong impression of me regarding Robert Pattinson. Whatever about his past; in this movie, he was good.
Conclusion: This was a good movie, the best Batman movie I have ever seen, and not even a close call. Takes on the characters–Bruce/Batman, Alfred, Selina, Penguin, Commissioner Gordon, Riddler–all fresh and unexpected, very engaging … and all the actors did fantastic jobs. I won’t say that these are my favorite portrayals of these characters. But they were well-written, and well-executed.
Comments like the following are … not worth reacting to …
While I disagree with most of your post (especially Marvel having boring fight scenes), I have to concur on Pattinson. If you want to see a fantastic Pattinson movie, watch The Lighthouse. It’s streaming on Amazon Prime.
This was the first superhero movie in a long time in which there was actual sexual chemistry between two characters.
I also like that, for the most part, the Riddler was always a step ahead of Batman, even though he was caught at the end.
I have seen so many Marvel movies, and collectively, the biggest thing they have in common for me is that I was bored during the fight scenes.
I reserve the right not to spend money on movies starring actors/actresses I don’t like.
You know what my problem was with the movie? Too many shots of Batman coming into rooms through doors. Batman doesn’t walk through doors - he either comes down from the ceiling, or he just appears in the room when people are looking in the other direction. That’s the whole point of Batman: the stealth, the gadgets, the cool. Pattinson’s Batman simply had no chill. He was just a guy in a suit who solved crimes.
It was a little off putting for me too at first that he was just kind of walking around but I think their entire take on the character was intended to be that he was just a messed up guy in a costume who solves crimes and they wanted to make that be his reality.