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Rated The Batman 4/10

Better than I expected, honestly. As a card-carrying Batman fan, it felt wrong to have put off watching the belle of the Batman ball that everyone had been raving about. So today, after redeeming a free 1-week trial of HBO Max on YouTube, I settled in with my beloved partner Cluster to finally check out this film. It probably has the most accurate depiction of Selina Kyle committed to film, at least in its accuracy to the Batman: Year One story by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli. At one point Zoë Kravitz even dons an outfit that could have been lifted straight from the pages of Year One. Not her 'Catwoman' outfit, mind you, another one. I also found myself warming up to Jeffrey Wright's Lt. James Gordon, especially in the genuinely good climax of the film. The way both he and Selina are inspired to help Batman, and how they both save Batman in their own way, honestly made me emotional. As Batman helped guide the survivors out, bringing them light when once he called himself "the shadows," I nodded to myself that they had done good for the climax of the film. 'Shame about the rest of it. It would be much funnier to end the review there, but I have a habit of talking too much and I'm not kicking it today! Boy oh boy, this movie. If there were a competition for worst fight scenes committed to a Batman film, this movie would've mopped the floor with the previous front runners in the Nolan trilogy. If there was a contest for most emptily-uncharismatic depiction of Bruce Wayne in any movie, by god, this one would've left all the others in its dust. A lot was made of this film seeming to believe it invented Rock 'n' Roll, when it came out. Lots of talk of "all previous films were *Bruce Wayne* films, this is the first *Batman* film," so much said about how this film went over how troubled and fucked up Bruce Wayne really is, as if Michael Keaton hadn't done the same thing but far better in the 1989 film directed by Tim Burton. Also, real quick, this shit about this film not being a "Bruce Wayne" movie? Yeah, weird how that gained so much traction, considering the film seems to be making a point about how maybe Batman should be Bruce Wayne more - as it proceeds to skip over Bruce Wayne scenes. No, heaven forbid we waste time on his civilian identity - that, by the way, has zero disconnect with his Batman persona. After years of debate around "is Batman the mask or is Bruce Wayne the real mask?" here we have a film that has Bruce act identically awkward and adolescent regardless of whether he has the cowl on or not, and then has the villain remark that Batman is "the real you" as if it earned that. But sure, have a Batman film where we skip over Bruce Wayne meeting with accountants after we took time to set up he had a meeting with accountants seemingly just to establish that Bruce Wayne did the barest minimum to keep Wayne Enterprises running. Isn't it about time someone explored what Batman would be like with virtually no Bruce Wayne happening ever? Except it's been done. In the 1989 film, and in the comics. Multiple times, including in the current run of comics. It's been going on for years, and we've had the comic all but stare directly at the reader as it says "seems like this whole Bruce Wayne thing is kinda important to the whole business of Batman" before proceeding to not do shit with Bruce Wayne because we're busy doing fan-service. Speaking of fan-service, in every scene Batman is in costume it looks like he could've walked straight out of one of the Arkham video games. In fewer words, he looked like dogshit. All this talk of being a symbol, of being a legend, of being something greater than just a guy in a batsuit - it's all a little hard to take seriously when every step he takes in his militarized bulletproof body armor leaves a loud thud everywhere this "shadowy master of stealth" goes. In point of fact, I take Adam West's Batman more seriously. Not out of childlike innocence, but because Adam West's Batman was at least an adult. Not some mopey floppy-haired teenager who makes one throwaway line about the sleazy guys at the Iceberg Lounge "having a problem with eye contact" as they're staring at Selina's breasts, before proceeding to act completely oblivious to Selina's womanhood and the unique experience she has surviving in Gotham because of it beyond a patriarchal urge to protect her. Like, come the fuck on, why does Selina care about this guy? I'd wonder if he wasn't just an unusually-tall 15 year-old with how he carries himself. God knows I'd never kiss him. One more positive before I conclude this review, The Penguin was fun. The fact they felt the need to rename Oswald Cobblepot to "Oz Cobb," however, is as stupid as it is condescending to the source material. Alfred's last name is Pennyworth, James Bond regularly shares scenes with the likes of "Moneypenny" and "Pussy Galore," I think it might be entirely possible that audiences don't care that fucking much when a fictional character has a funny name. Batman. Did the hype kill this movie for me? I really don't think so. The highest I think I could give it at any point during the film is a 3, maybe a 2.5, but no higher. It's a shame, I like Batman a whole lot and this film did make people happy about Batman! That's nice, I guess. It's good when a film manages to inspire that in people. 'Shame about the rest of it.

#Batman #movie

Published 2025-08-22 23:17 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere