Movies THE BATMAN (Dragonlord's Review)

If you have seen THE BATMAN, how would you rate it?

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Watching it now on HBO Max. So far its dragging for me at about the half hour mark in.

The cinematography is way too dark, shits hard to see.

And I know its supposed to be early on in the career but he's taking way too many blows to the face and way too much gunfire.

I hope it picks up/gets better.

Edit:

At the midway point and its not getting any better. Bats just survives an explosion point blank with no ill effects?!

Riddler losing his shit and yelling at the DA was odd as fuck and it seems super out of character for what we've seen of him in the past in comics, games, etc. This character doesn't seem like the Riddles at all.

I do like Gordon though. He's nailing the role.

Will update again further on but not exactly blowing my mind so far.
 
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Gonna try watching it tomorrow or the next day if I can find 3 gosh damn hours for a Batman movie.
 
Was extremely disappointed in it. The movie was just poorly written to me.

Pattinson was better than I thought but I felt they gave him an absolute trash movie to work with.

Riddler was should have been an entirely different character. His online, anti establishment persona was absurd. Other than the random bullshit riddles, he had zero to do with his name sake.

Catwoman felt completely shoe horned into it. Wasn't a fan of this version of her. We didn't see any master burglar stuff, any acrobatics, or the like.

Batman having completely bulletproof suit, taking full auto gunfire point blank completely changed the character to me.

Yes this one focuses more on him as a detective but the action portions were trash for me. Him taking a 12 gauge blast in the chest (and basically just being sore), repeated full auto fire etc, just gave the fights zero stakes. Not to mention he gets beat the fuck up repeatedly with absolutely no wear and tear. Knocked unconscious numerous times and only not killed due to plot armor.

This version of Jim Gordon was good though. I really enjoyed his foil to Batman and how he was the good cop face of GPD.

The Penguin was a highlight as well for me. Very practical version.

All in all I was thoroughly disappointed with it but surprisingly not with Pattinson. He wasn't bad but wasn't good either. Maybe with a better writter ans script he'd do better.

I do see some of the "woke" criticism people leveled against the film as well. Everyone white was bad.
 
Protectandserve said:
Was extremely disappointed in it. The movie was just poorly written to me.

Pattinson was better than I thought but I felt they gave him an absolute trash movie to work with.

Riddler was should have been an entirely different character. His online, anti establishment persona was absurd. Other than the random bullshit riddles, he had zero to do with his name sake.

Catwoman felt completely shoe horned into it. Wasn't a fan of this version of her. We didn't see any master burglar stuff, any acrobatics, or the like.

Batman having completely bulletproof suit, taking full auto gunfire point blank completely changed the character to me.

Yes this one focuses more on him as a detective but the action portions were trash for me. Him taking a 12 gauge blast in the chest (and basically just being sore), repeated full auto fire etc, just gave the fights zero stakes. Not to mention he gets beat the fuck up repeatedly with absolutely no wear and tear. Knocked unconscious numerous times and only not killed due to plot armor.

This version of Jim Gordon was good though. I really enjoyed his foil to Batman and how he was the good cop face of GPD.

The Penguin was a highlight as well for me. Very practical version.

All in all I was thoroughly disappointed with it but surprisingly not with Pattinson. He wasn't bad but wasn't good either. Maybe with a better writter ans script he'd do better.

I do see some of the "woke" criticism people leveled against the film as well. Everyone white was bad.
Click to expand...

Agreed with what you said about the action, the script and the riddler. I thought Zoe was good though. And anyone who is worrying about anti-whiteness during the film…needs to chill out.
 
Dragonlordxxxxx said:
Update: March 2, 2022

Dragonlord’s Review of THE BATMAN (No Spoilers, I think)

Bottom Line: A combination of The Long Halloween, Zodiac and Se7en, The Batman is a dark, subdued noir thriller that refreshingly focuses on the detective aspect of the Caped Crusader.

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From The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come to All-Star Superman, some of the best DC Comics stories published are not canon or part of the main continuity. This is evident in their DC animated films where they had a string of successes when they cherry-picked adaptations from the classic “Elseworld” stories but had poor results when they started with a shared universe direction with the New 52 series.

Warner Bros. apparently is learning this lesson as well because after the disappointing outings of Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad and Justice League, the studio waved the white flag back in 2017 and said screw continuity. Let’s just throw anything at the wall and see what sticks. Who cares if there’s two live-action movie Jokers and Batman running around. It seems to be working for them with Joker (2019) was a box office hit and won Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar for Best Actor. And now The Batman.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman is the latest reboot of the Caped Crusader and set in a separate universe than the DCEU. The film is about Batman, in his sophomore year, chasing after the serial killer Riddler who is killing Gotham’s key public officials which forces the Dark Knight to investigate the city’s hidden corruption and his family’s involvement. It’s the most grounded and realistic Batman movie ever made so far and its moody atmosphere makes it arguably the darkest as well, figuratively and literally. A combination of The Long Halloween, Zodiac and Se7en, The Batman is a noir mystery thriller that focuses more on the detective aspect of the titular character.

After the controversial casting of the Twilight actor, my verdict is Robert Pattinson is a great Batman. He has that inner intensity that some of the Batman actors didn’t have. It greatly helps that Pattinson has a fiercely brooding face by default which translates well in his Bruce Wayne scenes, selling the fact how damaged and broken the character is. I’m not a fan of the haircut though but I begrudgingly have to admit it fits with the story. Another thing I liked was Batman had more screen time than Bruce Wayne.

After suffering through years of watching Ben Affleck’s fat batsuit with his oftentimes dumbstruck look on his face and Christian Bale’s ghastly-looking cowl and neck, Pattinson’s batsuit and cowl look amazing and is my absolute favorite Batman costume so far. Inspired from the Batman: Arkham games, the heavy armor-plated suit features some new innovations like the raised protective collar and a collapsible grapple gun connected to the gauntlets.

Reminiscent of the action in the Netflix Daredevil series, The Batman’s fight scenes are pragmatic and more down-to-Earth with Batman getting tagged often but shrugs it off thanks to his protective suit. Batman is more of a brawler in here and uses less acrobatics. Even the Batmobile is given a sensible makeover as it is now a modified muscle car with a jet engine. The first time the car appears in the film was badass as it played more like a horror film like Stephen King’s Christine as Reeves intended and the succeeding car chase was superbly done.

The supporting cast standouts were Zoe Kravitz, Colin Farrell and Paul Dano. Kravitz was a great Selina Kyle/Catwoman. She looked fantastic with the traditional Selina Kyle pixie cut from the comics and the sexual chemistry between Bruce and Selina was gradually well-developed. Catwoman’s fighting style was more on Taekwondo with lots of kicks and spinning kicks. An unrecognizable Farrell in heavy prosthetics was terrific as boisterous Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin. Even though he’s typecast, Dano was still wonderful as the demented Riddler when he was finally shown. John Turturro was pretty good as mob boss Carmine Falcone as well. Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon was just passable for me but I did like the professional relationship between him and Batman. Andy Serkis was just okay but could be a good Alfred if given a more substantial role in the future.

With a running time of 175 minutes, the film is a bit overlong. The mystery and detective story are well executed but when we realized very early on that the Riddler’s victims and potential targets are corrupt officials, the film loses a sense of danger or purpose. But if the Riddler was killing off good people, then the stakes would be much higher and I would have been more invested and scared for the victims. As it were, I just didn’t care for the victims and was in fact rooting for the Riddler to expose the big conspiracy corruption. The big spectacle climax felt a little incompatible with the subdued energy from the rest of the film but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless as Batman does some super heroic feats and it gives us some memorable imagery as well as character growth. Lastly, Michael Giacchino’s magnificent haunting score is perfect for the film’s dark and violent themes.

PRELIMINARY RATING: 8.5 Stars
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My review without watching the movie. 0 / 10 stars.

Reason: enough with the shitty ass superhero movies. And if they're going to make another goddam superhero movie, can they at least pick anything but the thirtieth installment of superman/batman/spiderman for f*#@'s sake?!?!
 
Editing with spoiler tags just in case

Rewatched it. I liked some aspects better that I missed the first time. But i still think it has some major problems. First off, there are moments that seem cool but are pretty inconsistent with what's actually going on. Like how in the opening its established that batman is well known and already has his signal yet he happens to run into the one crew of thugs who doesnt know who he is. Seemed like a forced in way for someone to ask him a question so batman can say "I'm vengeance!"

Also the detective aspect is kinda overrated in this. There are 2 or 3 big moments in the "mystery" where major info on the mystery gets "deus ex machina'd" in. And yes batman uses this conveniently given to him info to fill in the gaps, but it robs him of really getting that moment of clarity and proof of his intellectual prowess and deduction skills.
Like, the slam dunks were cool but were off well placed alley oop setups.

Character development is also an issue.

I mean, I don't want it to seem like I'm hating on it. It has a cool vibe, the story is pretty interesting for the most part, and I thought it was actually very well paced for a 3 hour movie. Not to mention the fight choreography is top notch. It really does have an escapism to it. Almost dreamlike.

To sum it up, it's good, not great. But there is something about it that gives it a charm that elevates it beyond its flaws.
 
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I thought it was good. Pattinson did great with Batman but wasn't sold on Bruce. Penguin was on point. Falcone was miscast. Same thing with Alfred. Reveal of Riddler didn't do much. Another miscast imo. Selina and Gordon were good. I liked the dark and detective aspect of the movie. Overall, decent flick.
 
I liked it. It felt more Batman then most other Batman movies. But a bit long and slow.

Nolan was more "bring on the Hollywood goosebump scenes"

But this one kinda felt more like the black and white adult Batman comic i used to read in the late 90s
 
4/10 and I think that's solely because of Gordon

Pacing was bad, the makeup on Pattinson was completely overdone (pale looking), dialogue was miserable, action was lacking and even the action that existed there felt to be no stakes at all, Riddler wasn't anything close to an accurate adaptation. It tried so hard to emulate the 90s crime/detective movies (especially Se7ven) that it lost sight of what it is, a super hero movie.

Batflceck was a better portrayal.
 
Movie was ass on a silver platter. All style, no substance. Riddler was cool, until they unmasked him and one the most overrated actors of our time made me want to cringe vomit with his laughably awful performance. Absolutely no chemistry between Bats and Catwoman, nor is there much reason given as to why Batman thinks she is this special operative that he can trust to help him. He spies on her once, she talks about some whore that got killed by someone he's looking into, he tracks her down, and then they're all of a sudden partners. That kind of encapsulates the writing of this three fucking hour long movie. Things just happen with no proper build up. There is no logic or pace to anything, from character development to the actual plot. The movie just tells you to go with it, and I could to a certain extent, but the longer the movie drags, the more you start to question things.

Now, it wasn't all bad. The performances were all good, other than Dano's. The sparse amount of action was handled well. It all looks very good, even though I'd say it was a little too dark and dreary, even for a Batman movie. The plot and motivation for the Riddles was...fine, if not a little redundant.

The villain is exposing Gotham's corruption. We're doing this again, eh?

I will give it another shot sometime down the road, as this type of movie tends to not click on first glance, but as far as first impressions go...not very impressed.

5/10
 
Human Bass said:
Also no shoehorned Nolan moral messages also helps.
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LOL wut?

Pretty sure the whole "Vengeance is bad, mmkay. Better to help people than to hurt people" was pretty on the nose. They practically turn him into Jesus at the end.
 
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