As I said in the title, this is not a review of The Batman, because I won’t get to see that until the day after I’m releasing this. This is more of a cathartic exercise for me. I’ve gotten way too excited for this movie, and I want to get rid of some of the thoughts I have about it so I don’t get strangled for talking about it all the time. This is also going to replace my Ruddtrospective for the week because I have midterms and have been unable to rewatch the movie I had planned to cover there. So instead it’s Batman week here at my weird blog, because DC has once again tricked me into getting really really excited about a movie that might be terrible. Today I’m going to cover some of the more exciting elements of this movie that those of you with lives may not know about, and on Friday I’ll be putting up my (maybe)spoiler-filled review. I’ll do a non-spoiler review if I don’t have a lot to say, or I’ll maybe do half and half. We’ll see. The point is if the movie is good, I’ll rant about it, and if it’s bad, I’ll rant about it. So let’s dig in to why this movie has won me over so far. And be prepared: It’ll be a little nerdy.
I may not have made this clear, but I’ve always been a pretty big comic book fan, and I know way too much about the Marvel and DC universes in general. I wouldn’t say that I’m a big Batman fan though. I’m not averse to him as a character, and there have been quite a few good storylines written about him. But I don’t understand why he’s become the world’s favorite superhero. I have always found each of his sidekicks, as well as the rest of the DC universe at large, to be more appealing. Except for Captain Atom. He’s a boring dickhead of a character. And there are way too many Batman comic books. Like too many. Because so many comic book writers grew up loving Batman and came up with some great idea for a Batman story they wanted to write. And then they became comic book writers and did. And they all sell a good amount of money, because both Warner Brothers and DC are painfully aware of the fact that Batman makes them a shit ton of money. They’ve spent years avoiding putting out more creative stories about lesser-known characters that could become cultural icons themselves if given the chance. Like Steel, the awesome Superman character in the metal suit who they made a bad movie about in the 90s and have done nothing with since. But I digress.
I didn’t think I was going to be so excited for this movie, but a few things have turned me around. First off, the trailers are incredible. If you haven’t seen any of the trailers for this yet, then go do it now. They’re awesome. The cast is also just incredible. I had my doubts about Robert Pattinson as Batman at first, but it seems like he’s done a great job. Also I just watched The Lighthouse, which is pure insanity. And he’s really good in that. I might have mentioned this in my recap of the 2021 movies, but I’m a big fan of Jeffrey Wright, and I’m super excited to see his take on Jim Gordon. Andy Serkis is awesome, but I don’t know how I feel about him playing Alfred. He doesn’t really seem like the type. But he is a great actor, and I’m sure he’ll be good. I haven’t personally seen Paul Dano or Zoë Kravitz in anything, but it seems like they were both well-cast. And I love Colin Farrell in everything. It doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to tell it’s him playing the Penguin, but I’m excited. As for the directorial side of things, I’ve only seen one Matt Reeves movie, which I thought was solid but confusing. But I kind of figured I’d be confused watching War For the Planet of the Apes, since I hadn’t seen the others. It looks like he did a really good job with this, and he used a lot of interesting movies as inspiration for this that I’ll mention below.
As I mentioned above, there are lots of good Batman comic books, and this one is based off of some great comics. Batman: The Long Halloween, by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale is a great comic about Batman in his second year fighting crime. Batman, Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon have to figure out who the Holiday Killer is, and why he’s decided to kill only on holidays. It came out over the course of a year, too, which is cool. And this movie is apparently about the Riddler going on a year-long(?) serial killing spree of corrupt government officials. The sequel to that comic, Batman: Dark Victory, is also very good. I think I prefer that one actually. The killer in that calls himself the Hangman, and every time he kills someone he hangs them with a little game of hangman attached. I kind of like that theme. Also they introduced Robin in it. The other great comic that inspired Matt Reeves’ script is Batman: Ego(Written and drawn by the late great Darwyn Cooke), which is about Batman having an almost Dickensian confrontation with his psyche. Reeves also took inspiration from famous noir detective movies like Zodiac, Se7en, Chinatown, Klute, and All The President’s Men. The last one was apparently a huge influence on the political conspiracy aspects of this movie. Because this is a detective movie!
This is the main reason I’m so excited. Batman has always been known as the world’s greatest detective in comics. And that’s cool, right? But when has Batman ever solved an actual mystery in any of his movies? Oh, what’s that? He never has? The world’s greatest detective has never solved a mystery in any of the seven dozen movies he’s appeared in? Huh, that’s weird. This is going to be a noir-thriller detective movie with Batman in it. And that’s awesome. I’ve just loved every stylistic element that’s gone into this too. I love the costume, the batmobile, the city, everything.
And that’s what’s great about this. Even if I don’t like this, it’ll still be a great-looking movie with great performances and great music(I’ve listened to the score twice now, and I’ve never listened to a score before I’ve seen a movie. I’m going insane.) that will completely make up for any problems I have. It just looks different than everything else I’ve seen. It’s not a Batman movie focused on the villains, like every other Batman movie. This is about Batman. And it looks cool and I’m so excited and that’s why I wanted to talk about it. And it also doesn’t look like just another superhero movie! It looks like a detective movie that happens to have superheroes in it! Marvel can’t say that about anything they’re putting out currently, because it all looks generic. And don’t get me wrong, I will watch every Marvel thing no matter what and probably like half of it. But if this movie succeeds DC might have the confidence to do more with other characters, now that their golden boy is no longer in jeopardy. I really liked The Suicide Squad, as I said before. I thought Peacemaker was solid. I have no interest for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Black Adam looks interesting. And The Flash looks like absolute garbage, but that’s irrelevant currently. DC’s track record is spotty at best, and I’d love for this to be good. If this is good, other good things can be made. So I hope it is! Anyway, watch this movie! Obviously I am.
As I said above, I’m gonna try and have my review up on Monday, but we’ll see how things go. Worst comes to worst, I’ll put it up on Wednesday. Anyway, check back then to see what I think, and in the meantime go see this movie!
Too Many Servings Of John 