{"id":1610,"date":"2022-03-18T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T02:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1610"},"modified":"2022-03-18T22:04:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T02:04:00","slug":"review-the-batman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/review-the-batman\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Batman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Batman has always been my first superhero love. I grew up watching the goofy Adam West show. I was there on opening day when Tim Burton\u2019s Batman<\/i> hit theaters and for the next three installments, although Batman and Robin<\/i> might have cured me of that if it hadn\u2019t completely killed off that series. (Michael Keaton being a better Bruce Wayne\/Batman than George Clooney is something I still can\u2019t get over.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then Christopher Nolan\u2019s films, with the villains I could actually imagine being real people for the first time, made me fall in love with ol\u2019 Bats all over again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(Ben Affleck\u2019s Fratman does not exist in my reality, thanks.)<\/p>\n

It makes perfect sense to me that I\u2019m drawn to Batman. He\u2019s dark, brooding, a very tragic Goth-type hero.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And he\u2019s best when he works alone. I know he\u2019s long been a team player in comics, but I don\u2019t care. For the movies, he needs to be a lone wolf with a few trusted people taken into his confidence. The recent crappy attempts to make a Justice League<\/i> film series to counter the Avengers\u2019 wild popularity just proves my point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, I finally got to a theater to see The Batman<\/i>. I\u2019d been genuinely surprised by the outpouring of positive reviews it\u2019s had; I guess it didn\u2019t have a hard act to follow thanks to the Batdreck that immediately preceded it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I agree with the majority: I enjoyed it even more than I expected to. Although it\u2019s set in the present day, it\u2019s got an odd 90s \u201cThe Crow\u201d sensibility that really worked. There are points when it\u2019s downright frightening in a way that even Nolan and Burton\u2019s films never were.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of that is down to the Riddler, who is two decades and light years away from Jim Carrey in a neon-green bodysuit. Rethinking the Riddler as the Zodiac (right down to some of the cards he sends to Batman, which were based off cards the Zodiac sent to newspapers) was a stroke of genius. And Paul Dano is almost too<\/i> good in the role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the new man in the cowl, Robert Pattinson is a fine Batman. I\u2019ve enjoyed him in most of his non-Twilight<\/i> roles, so I wasn\u2019t surprised. At first, though, I was not sold on his Bruce Wayne. \u201cOvergrown emo kid who reminds me of Brandon Lee in The Crow<\/i>\u201d is a take on Bruce that I\u2019ve never seen in the movies. This is no dashing billionaire playboy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Maybe he’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline. (Old people humor. Sorry.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. This Bruce has seen some shit, and everyone can tell he\u2019s seen some shit. And he\u2019s also an irresponsible, gloomy asshole who keeps neglecting his Wayne duties, to the point that Alfred has to nag him about it. This Bruce is completely relatable to me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The rest of the cast is awesome too. Zoe Kravitz is a natural as Catwoman. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable, but recognizably excellent, as Oz, aka the Penguin. And it\u2019s so nice to see John Turturro in a decent part again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The three-hour running time has been raising eyebrows. My take on that: It\u2019s a fast-moving three hours, although there was a part when things seemed to be wrapping up and I realized we had yet to see that scene from the trailers of Riddler getting caught in the Nighthawks-style diner. At that point, I thought Whew. This is a long-ass movie<\/i>. But that was the only time I realized how long I\u2019d been sitting there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a Bat-fan? Highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Batman has always been my first superhero love. I grew up watching the goofy Adam West show. I was there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,113],"tags":[16,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1613,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions\/1613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}