Robert Pattinson... is Batman.

[sully1983]

Originally Posted by Talisman

Not sure where we are with spoilers since this has been out for a while. I'm not going to wrap this, so proceed with some caution if you haven't seen it.

I caught this on HBO Max this week. It was... fine. I really liked the grittiness of Gotham and some of the cinematography was amazing. Great performance by Colin Farrell. Good performance by the rest of the cast. I didn't mind the dgaf/emo take on Batman. And I liked that they were trying to push the detective side of his persona.

My main problem with the whole movie was that it didn't feel like Batman really accomplished anything. He obviously has read a few riddle books, but outside of that, it feels like the police would have moved the investigation forward just as quickly without him. If anything, he was used by The Riddler to further his plan. Honestly, take Batman out of the movie. Does the outcome change? He didn't prevent any of the murders. He didn't prevent the assassination attempt on the incumbent mayor. He didn't prevent the flooding of the city. He didn't even catch the bad guy (who pretty much gave himself up). He... beat up some copy cats who had stranded themselves above an arena and moved one piece of metal to "rescue" some people while holding a flare.

It was way too long for the story it was presenting and got bogged down in surface level detective work that I imagine will be more boring on repeated views. But at least I brushed up on my Spanish definitive articles.

If they can learn a few things from this one, I'd definitely dive back into this world again. Great setting and atmosphere. I wouldn't mind them pushing things even more and going for the R rating. But I'm sure there's too much money to be made keeping it at PG-13 unfortunately.

IMHO I gotta disagree with the notion that this Batman "didn't accomplish anything ". That couldn't be farther from the truth. He saved plenty of lives in this film (him risking his life to save that little boy life from a car running him over. In The Batman,Bruce Wayne is only in year 2 of being Batman and is still "wet behind the ears" and inexperienced / just getting used to the role of being Batman, so of course he wouldn't be some seasoned detective/ crime fighter. He is flawed to the core and beyond ****ed in the head. The use of the word "emo" to describe Pattinson's take of Bruce Wayne just doesn't sit right with me. Anyone that identifies as an emo wouldn't have the balls to fight for any sort of justice.

Also, your criticism of this Batman being "used" like a pawn by the Riddler is definitely true. But imo that was the director's point. The Riddler had been planning all that horrible shit from the get go (you can definitely tell Matt Reeves was heavily influenced by Nolan's The Dark Knight where the Joker was 10 steps ahead of Bale's Batman and the entire Gotham police force. )

I look forward to the sequel!