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New 'The Batman' Film (2021?)

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I watched it a but ago and have to say my favorite moment was
Batman and Riddler's talk in Arkham. You have the whole bit of Riddler crooning Bruce Wayne over and over again, with everyone wondering when he's gonna start rubbing it into Batman's face that he knows the sekrriit identity...

And then its revealed hes just upset at the one who got away and thought he and B-man were best buds forever working together with Riddlers clever clues lighting the way!!! I feel it was the most organic version of the whole "Batman causes his own Rogues" I've seen yet. After all I know I have, and I imagine others have gone, "why not just kill them?" So it fits someone in universe had the same brainwave and decided to follow up on it.

The sudden transition to jilted lover felt really well done and I think it fit the Noir vibe that Batman finds out the final parts of the plot a little too late to do any good. I guess that means Riddler was the femme fetale all this time.
 
Saw it this afternoon. I have many conflicting feelings regarding the movie, I'll try to collect my thoughts later
 
Well, it's been in discussion for a while, but now it's officially gone to order.
www.hollywoodreporter.com

HBO Max Orders ‘The Batman’ Spinoff ‘The Penguin’ Starring Colin Farrell

Farrell will reprise his role as the underworld kingpin in the first official series following the hit film.
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com
The series will be executive produced by [Matt] Reeves, Dylan Clark, Farrell, Daniel Pipski, Adam Kassanand and Lauren LeFranc, who will serve as showrunner.

The limited series will be produced by Reeves' 6th​ & Idaho Productions and Dylan Clark Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.
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Definitely my new favorite Batman movie. I know it has a three hour run time, but aside from the physical limitations of my bladder, I didn't feel it all; I was hooked the whole way through. I've heard it said the last act is a drag, but it's such a thematic capstone that ties together the film's themes and Bruce's character arc that I enjoyed it the whole way through.
 
Saw it a few days ago. Definitely up there for me with Dark Knight and Mask of the Phantasm in great Batman films. Perhaps the best depiction of Batman himself. While having Hush would have been cool, I do like how they handled Riddler here. Though, the reporter that was killed had the last name Elliot. Perhaps we will see Hush eventually.
 
GoukaRyuu said:
Saw it a few days ago. Definitely up there for me with Dark Knight and Mask of the Phantasm in great Batman films. Perhaps the best depiction of Batman himself. While having Hush would have been cool, I do like how they handled Riddler here. Though, the reporter that was killed had the last name Elliot. Perhaps we will see Hush eventually.
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They literally flashed "HUSH" in all capitals over Elliot's picture in Riddler's video, and he used the very pointed language of saying Thomas Wayne offered "hush money." It's the most obvious goddamn sequel seed imaginable to, say, have Elliot's son trying to kill/replace Bruce Wayne.
 
Still liked it just as much on second viewing, though the punishing volume nearly drove a friend to flee the car chase.

Aside from anything else, at the end of the day it's the story of an angry young man learning to look beyond his rage, which I think is to be valued. And it also tackles head-on the way certain unpleasant crowds try to claim Batman.
 
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Saw it on Friday.

Good, very good. Probably dethroned Burton as my second favorite live bat, might even take the spot as favorite from Bale.
 
Very good, though for some Matt Reeves will always be a director I find very skilled, but I never get super excited watching . I just think they are few elements quite managed to pull off, the Bruce character arc to me mostly work on paper, but not quite in execution. It seems like it very much want to have Bruce starts as a fairly mindless vigilante and some it is there (for exemple just how much of this plot could have been avoided had Bruce just paid attention at what was going on with the Wayne's money) but at the same time he's easily one of the most detective-minded Batman on screen, but apparently one of the least efficient crime-fighter since he pretty blind to the bigger picture of thing.

Also what do you think would have happen had Falcone been run over during the funeral?
 
I quite enjoyed it, the atmosphere, the visuals little things like the anti-Drops ad on the billboard, the weather reports saying that the driving rain day in and day out have filled storm drains and completely saturated the ground so there's a flood risk, etc. do an excellent job of setting the stage by showing, not telling. I really enjoyed Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, he does a lot to sell that Bruce Wayne is the mask being worn. It's got a feel that reminded me of the first season of Arrow, minus the whole murder spree bit that Oliver Queen went on.

Jeffery Wright is an excellent Jim Gordon and I really enjoyed the chemistry that he and Pattinson had on screen as partners. Zoë Kravitz was also my favorite version of Catwoman that we've had on screen. My only complaint is that I feel like the back half of the movie could have been trimmed by about thirty minutes, it's kinda stretched out a bit too far with the Riddler plot at the end.

I liked that they took the whole "People who slap the 'thin blue line' Punisher sticker on things don't have any idea what the Punisher represents" track with the Riddler and his band of incel followers who think they're the heroes of this story and that Batman is one of them. It's confirmed that it isn't in the same universe as Joker…but the parallels of the gangers in clown face paint and the juxtaposition of the riots Arthur Fleck sparks in Joker versus the Riddler's movement that Bruce Wayne inadvertently creates as 'Vengeance' along with Thomas Wayne running for mayor in both films is there.
 
In all seriousness, I like why he fails to get those clues right.

The "You are El Rata Ratada" was one that was released in cipher in promotional materials before the movie (complete with a website) and it being both intentionally bad spanish (multiple characters think he just sucks at it and dismiss the error) and a pun on "URL" are things that if you're not in the right headspace you won't get.

As well, I love how "my confession" on the murder weapon can be read extremely literally and not recognizing the tool and its implications or even that there might still be more plans underway is pretty understandable given his mental state by that point. I've used one of those tools and I didn't recognize exactly what it was at the time. Or that the Riddler views this as a cooperative quest/ARG rather than as a serial killer taunting his opponent, which puts all his riddles into a different context.

Also at this point he's focused more on terrorizing crime than actually being a detective. Because this movie is taking every single criticism of Batman and going "Yes". That plus Batman as a form of self harm. I could go on for a while with this but I loved it, didn't mind the runtime at all and really adore the movie. Thank God we didn't see Wayne family murder number 83 on screen and they trust that we know enough about Batman to know what he's feeling when he sees a kid surrounded by cops being asked details about his dead father.
 
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Word of God is that it isn't the same continuity but things like Thomas Wayne having run for mayor and the gang at the start wearing clown makeup similar to what the people involved with the riots that Arthur Fleck started in Joker certainly made it feel like it could be in the same continuity.

I also enjoyed the little bit of what could be inspiration from Telltale's Batman series with the question of Thomas Wayne possibly having had a reporter killed. In the games it does turn out that Thomas and Martha Wayne did actually run Gotham's underworld and the fall out of how that changes Bruce's crusade is a big part of the story.
 
I wonder if Bruce being Arkham by blood is gonna have consequences later on, like him suffering from mental illness like his mom and requiring therapy from a specialist like Hugo Strange, Jervis Tetch or even a Harleen Quinzel.

Yes I know the latter is extremely unfeasible, but I'd love to see Reeves's take on Harley.
 
variety.com

‘The Batman’ Sets Sights on $500 Million at Global Box Office

"The Batman" is nearing a significant box office milestone.
variety.com variety.com
Since the pandemic, only four Hollywood movies — "Spider-Man: No Way Home" ($1.86 billion), "No Time to Die" ($774 million), "F9: The Fast Saga" ($726 million) and "Venom: Let There be Carnage" ($502 million) — in total were able to crack that mark globally. Even though Hollywood has resumed releasing major movies, attendance has not returned to pre-COVID levels.

...

Over the weekend, "The Batman" added another $66.6 million international and $66 million domestically. Those revenues bring the film's tally to $224.7 million overseas and $238.5 million in North America.
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Gul Damar said:
I wonder if Bruce being Arkham by blood is gonna have consequences later on, like him suffering from mental illness like his mom and requiring therapy from a specialist like Hugo Strange, Jervis Tetch or even a Harleen Quinzel.

Yes I know the latter is extremely unfeasible, but I'd love to see Reeves's take on Harley.
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Alfred's bit where he alludes to being in 'the service' (he's been former MI6 or British SAS in the comics) and admits that while he couldn't be a father for Bruce, he could teach him how to fight makes me kinda understand that he wanted to make sure Bruce could defend himself…but considering that he's basically keeping a Unibomber journal and spends time watching his GoPro footage of him beating up thugs on a loop on top of finding out that there's a history of mental illness to the point of being institutionalized for periods of time in his family one might think that seeing about getting him some help would be a thing.

I completely get that this version is pretty much Bruce just venting his rage and self-hatred for thinking he got his parents killed in what amounts to soldiering on until his crusade kills him, but I think he's going to need to get some kind of professional help to actually start getting him to the point where he can be Bruce Wayne in public for any length of time.

Coincidentally, the short lived CGI cartoon Beware The Batman actually did have Bruce going to therapy as a plot point.
 
Saw it last night, liked it but didn't love it. There's a lot I grooved on (making Bruce a weirdo emo virgin loser who listens to Nirvana? Riddler, in full serial killer drag, dorking out with his lame ass Twitch stream? *chef's kiss*), stuff I intellectually enjoyed but wasn't really grabbed by (turns out the real villain was the corruption we found along the way!) and stuff that made me roll my eyes (felt my soul leave my body during the Joker tease, and the mayoral candidate being Not!AOC was a bit much).

On the one hand I want to watch it again, since I feel like it's a film that rewards revisiting, but I also can't shake the feeling that I've seen huge chunks of it before. I dug Gordon and Batman's partnership, but it's also pretty much lifted whole cloth from Se7en. Same goes for the grimy, rain slicked aesthetic and serial killer antics, combined with the Telltale games populist uprising and revelations that Thomas and Martha Wayne were just as dirty as the rest of Gotham's leadership. It didn't have that Sui generis feeling of the Nolan films, which felt almost revelatory in how they repositioned Batman - this feels more like Reeves assembling ideas that have been floating around for a few years, rather than a complete reinvention of the characters.

Also I have zero way of proving this, but I'm 100000% convinced Reeves was pulling directly from Damon Houx's "review" of a fictional 1970's Batman film directed by Sam Peckinpah. Like I said there's no way of proving it, but there's so much of what Houx imagined Peckinpah would do with Batman (the Batmobile being a turbocharged muscle car, making the psychosexual aspect of the character explicit, the brutal fights, the funky soundtrack, you name it) that it's either an amazing coincidence or Reeves was lurking on film nerd sites in the mid 00's like the rest of us.
 
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The Batman
The latest film based on the comic book character. Over a year into his 'Gotham Project' Bruce Wayne finds himself in over his head in a rather urgent case when the Mayor of Gotham City is assassinated. In the course of trying to find the murderer, he finds that events in the city are coming to a head. His established relationship with Jim Gordon and the burgeoning one with Selina Kyle were both well done. The same with Alfred. It forms an emotional backbone for the plot. Then there is the villain, the Riddler. Sure, he was brutal, but it worked, and it added to the mystery.
Gotham City was well realized as a setting too. Overall, the film was rather good. 9.01/10.
 
Gul Damar said:
I wonder if Bruce being Arkham by blood is gonna have consequences later on, like him suffering from mental illness like his mom and requiring therapy from a specialist like Hugo Strange, Jervis Tetch or even a Harleen Quinzel.

Yes I know the latter is extremely unfeasible, but I'd love to see Reeves's take on Harley.
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so... in a lot of ways I did like the twist with Martha and her struggles with mental health being plot point since its played very sympathetically which Is a welcome change of pace for Batman as a franchise. Don't get me wrong I like Batman the character and many of his stories but the series has had an issue since the mid 90s or so when they leaned into the darker adult elements of being... really bad about mental health stuff. Flipping back and forth between demonization of the mentally ill to a sort of fetishization. It doesn't help that the Joker and Arkham has had a running thing of being almost lovecraftian in its horror, demonic and corrupting any innocence of Gotham. Here it's... better? It's still not great, the Joker scene at the end is cringe but the reveal about Martha and thay side of the family handled well, with Martha still being portrayed as a loving mother and not a monster. More over the subtle implication Bruce has inherited some sort of mental instability from his mothers side (a not uncommon thing to have) is treated more as another problem he needs to deal with rather then some dark corrupting influence.
 
For what it's worth regarding the Joker:

According to Matt Reeves, apparently there's a cut scene where Batman goes to meet Joker in Arkham to consult him a la Hannibal Lector. Implicitly, this Batman has already had his mandatory adventure with the Joker. It helps establish this as a Year 2 story, with a Batman who isn't as inexperienced with costumed crime as Bale's. So in theory future stories wouldn't need to go into yet another Joker story, just as this one didn't rehash the Wayne murders. But I guess someone higher up wanted to keep a traditional sequel tease and cut out the above implication. Hopefully Reeves is able to stick to his original intention in the sequels.
 
Riddler's cards had some very obvious meta allusions to the Court of Owls (both the owl one and the eyes on "See You in Hell") and Hugo Strange (the mad scientist). Those would be great villains for this mood and style of Batman, plus the Joker here is… bleh.

And of course, there's the reporter being an Elliot with the "Hush" money in big bright letters in the video. Not subtle at all. His son would definitely want to kill and replace/incriminate Bruce.
 
Great movie, my one hope is that in sequels they bring Robin back. I have no idea if that could work, but I miss the batfamily dynamic.
 
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