So ANYWAY that M Night Shaniatwain guy played the part of the van driver.
Too bad he wasn't in THE BATMAN which was REALLY SOLID.
Since Paul has gone AWOL this week, I will post the LONG ASS REVIEW (below the badass
fan art by Al Abazzia)
SPOILERS (no tags)
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And so we enter Gotham again, that grey and gritty city.
Mobsters, crooks, and the usual array of near-to-life baddies.
Like the citizens of Gotham you’d best abandon hope…
Because we’re going to be here for THREE HOURS of our lives.
There is something in the way that a Nirvana song opens the film.
Probably because it’s called: Something in the Way.
But it’s a good song. I played it on repeat the entire way home.
It’s so successful at setting a mood that they chords from it as incidental music.
And I think that they nailed a lot.
The City of Gotham is always a bit part of a Batman film. Sometimes it resonates of New York, other times it has a Chicago vibe, sometimes it’s an absolute cartoon.
This Gotham seemed a blend between New York with hints of London.
The public parts of Stately Wayne Manor seemed built inside a church, but a small church, where everything was cramped and gothic. I didn’t like it all that much.
The Batcave wasn’t shown much, but one glimpse made it seem as if it had been built in a grand, forgotten platform in Gotham’s version of Penn Station.
Being able to divorce yourself from the baggage of an actor’s past is important if you want to enjoy a film. Some people made a lot about the actor who played Bruce/Batman. I never saw the sparkly vampire movies, so he was an unknown to me. I thought he did just fine.
I liked that he didn’t do that funny gruff growl thing that the last Batman dude did. Good call on that.
Man have we seen a LOT of bat suits over the past 30+ years.
They’ve gone from Keaton’s rubber suit to Clooney’s nipple suit to Affleck’s truck bed liner material to the more “regular clothes” suit that this version of Batman was wearing (note that this is his 2nd year of being the Batman, so if they do more his suit may evolve).
As Bruce Wayne his hair was a bit long and stringy and greasy, and his eyes were kind of haunted, but more like a heroin addict than a man haunted by the murder of his parents. But when he puts on the mask he’s got a good jawline for Batman (you know, because jawlines mean good movies?).
Getting the cowl (the “mask”) part of the suit to look good has been a challenge over the years, and the designers have mostly failed my expectations. When (in past films) Batman had to turn his entire body to look to his side, it was hard to believe that the suit could be effective. And some of the suits (like the one in the Nolan films) turned the cowl into a helmet. This made sense from a tactical point of view, to protect the guy wearing the suit.
But a smart helmet can’t disguise the fact that we’re talking about a grown man dressed like a bat, trying to fight and do acrobatics while wearing a cape. That cowl should have been fixed many years ago.
They arguably achieve some improvement in this film. His head didn’t look three feet thick from side to side as it did with other bat suits. It was lighter and thinner – better articulated. His cape wasn’t so long that he tripped on it, and it had a COLLAR that was very reminiscent of an alternate history version comic where they explored what Batman would have been like if he had come around in Victorian times (in London, I think?). In that comic he was almost (but not really) a steampunk-ish version of Batman. His cape was more of a great cloak-ish coat thingy, I think?
The actress playing Selina Kyle (Catwoman) really nailed the look of Kyle from some of the comics. Much more like the books than the vinyl bondage suit version from the 90s.
And Colin Ferrell (see I know one actor name!) is starting to impress me as a much more nuanced actor that I had once believed, based on a few things I’ve seen him in lately (including this). He is unrecognizable underneath the makeup for the Penguin, but he’s really good.
The actor who played one of the main characters on Westworld doesn’t doesn’t seem to pick bad projects, so if he is in something I know that it will probably be decent. He plays Jim Gordon in this version of Batman, and yes, he does a good job.
Alfred was kind of “eh” for me. Good job, just didn’t have the right “look” for my tastes.
The Riddler is a decent villain, and the film really does unwind a mystery. It isn’t bad, actually, if we didn’t – I mean, listen, as much as I love the Batman character the world really doesn’t need any more of these films, does it? It’s just… it seems unnecessary at this point. There are new films to be made, new ideas to be explored, new characters to be created – recycling Batman is just part of the religion now.
Batman is a hero in this film.
Bruce Wayne is less of a person in this film, but that will change out of necessity.
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