The Batman has finally been released, and I was thoroughly entertained by it. (No Spoilers in this review) It's probably the most like a Batman comic of any live action adaptation so far. Batman is finally a proper detective and the movie is very much a film noir. The cast was uniformly excellent. Zoe Kravitz and Colin Farrell are easily my favorite live action versions of Selina Kyle and The Penguin, I look forward to seeing more of both in the movies and on streaming shows. I wanted more of both Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, but they were also excellently realized, especially in their interactions with Bruce Wayne/Batman. Paul Dano was very effective as The Riddler, even if the character was a few steps too far away from his comic book counterpart for my taste. Robert Pattinson himself made for a great Batman, though his Bruce Wayne was missing the bored socialite act - but that is an element that can be explored in future installments, he's still perfecting his dual roles at this point. The fight choreography was very well done, you could actually see what was happening. Gotham looked fantastic and felt like a real place and the score was moody and thrilling. The Nirvana song worked, but we'll see how much it dates the movie like Prince's contributions to Batman '89 as the years pass. I didn't mind the 3 hour run time, though that may change with repeated viewings. I absolutely loved that we got a little bit of Batman voice over narration just like in the comics, and hope we get even more the next time around. The costume looked better onscreen than I had been expecting, and I look forward to seeing what upgrades he gets the next time around. I still miss the white eyes, but I don't know if we will ever get them with this ultra grounded version of the character. In fact, that's my only real quibble with the movie - it is so gritty and down to Earth, that I don't know how any of Batman's more fantastical foes like Man-Bat or Clayface could ever fit in here - let alone connecting it to a larger DCU with Superman and the Justice League and so forth. Matt Reeves has expressed interest in using Mr. Freeze, though, so maybe this world will broaden its comic book horizons going forward. Cant wait for it to hit HBO Max in 5 weeks so I can watch it again!
Sorry, Ross. But, we'll have to agree to permanently disagree re: THE BATMAN. I found it even worse--even more dismal--than the Joker flick with Joaquin Phoenix!
ReplyDeleteAs for this cover-sim? I'm sure the Silver Surfer will have something to say in rebuttal to Mephisto's pronouncement.
The cover leaves a lot of questions to be answered: who is the magic specialist, how did they travel there (and back), and what is their goal? Am I looking forward to reading it? Definitely.
ReplyDeleteNo movie yet.
I just saw this on youtube: Mystery of the Bat-Man! "The Lost Serial" 1939.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqEQ6wkjQt8&list=PLX0I1A3rnJ55CC4fQ7Evrvq8PhXb62T47&index=1
fun serial style.
I have many of the same questions as Tobor. This cover is puzzling, but not in a bad way.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good cover, but I hate the Outsiders so much.
ReplyDeleteIt was DC's effort to get interesting again, and they failed miserably b/c they didn't address the core issue: their writers sucked in the 80s.
Outsiders was just an effort to come up with some characters to match the X-Men, but it was one big failure
Overpowered characters with ridiculous powers. What makes Wolverine so interesting? Not his claws, but that someone took a simple concept, healing factor, and asked what you might do with such a power. "Give him an adamantium skeleton!" Hey, now that starts to get interesting.
Instead DC we get the ridiculous GeoForce and the dull Halo.
No character development. That's what stories do. We get to know characters, we watch them change, perhaps mature, through conflict and friendship. Peter Parker, Kitty Pryde, Ben Grimm. That's an edge Marvel had with those characters. Meanwhile DC was still writing bad pulp fiction like the 1950s. Even after some 70s Action/Superman arcs were developing the character more.
And the plot. It all started with a storyline so ridiculous I think I repressed it. More likely I just honestly forgot it b/c I only read it once it was so bad.
No Spoilers!! Ross, I agree 100% with your review. This was FINALLY the Batman film I have been wanting since I was in High School with Michal Keeton's Batman first premiered. THE DETECTIVE first, and not the super gadgeted/Ironman-like armored superhero he became for filmmakers. I always felt Batman should be a cross between the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes films/ Seven/ and a touch of horror ala From Hell. My only slight quibble is the lean athletic Batman has yet portrayed. I grew up reading Batman in the early 1980s to mid 1990s (after which I could no longer relate to directions the writers were sending him. My Batman was a determined, globe-trotting, multilingual, detective, master spy, scientist, master of disguise, soldier, intellectual. When I attended college, then grad school, then law school- whenever I faced tough times, I imagined myself as Batman, studying hard, working out/lifting weights, taking foreign language classes and studying overseas all to come close to being was Batman was. Superman was unattainable, but it was possible, maybe, to be Batman.
ReplyDeleteDr. Torch, I couldn't disagree more with you opinion of The Outsiders. They were hands down, my favorite team book of the 1980s. I will admit that eventually Mike W. Barr lost steam and went into lackluster directions by the late 1990s, and Jim Aparo was probably getting bored too by then, but at the height of the 1980s, BATO was selling as good at the Teen Titans and X-Man. I was sad to see Brave and the Bold go, but BATO was an excellent replacement.
ReplyDeleteYou tell him, namesake!
ReplyDeleteThe first issues and origin story of Batman and the Outsiders was classic 1970s/1980s globe-trotting (Bond influenced) Batman. A violent coup d'etat/revolution is taking place in some far off Eastern European country and Batman must get his friend Lucius Fox out of there, and maybe even stop the coup. The Justice League won't help, so he quits that team and recruits Black Lightning (classic Brave & the Bold set up)to help him. Here already is the Batman I love: 1) an adventure can start in the grimy back alleys of a Gotham ghetto but can take him to the streets of Budapest, Tehran, or Casablanca. 2) a story have real socio-political intrigue taken from real headlines, I actually learned about the world from reading Batman 3) teaming up with interesting colorful characters that contrast with the Dark Knight. Batman inspired me to - attend graduate and law school to intellectual push myself, learn foreign languages (French. Arabic and Turkish) through study abroad programs to communicate with people from other lands and cultures, and lift weights/workout athletic to keep myself is top physical form ("Sharp body equals sharp mind" Bruce Wayne once told Dick Grayson. So yeah, Batman is kinda my hero! ha ha
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