tanman

i agree. I think Batman is the most diverse Comic book character. He can range from a campy onomatopoeia ladden Adam West Batman to an absolutely horror filled Arkham Asylum Batman and I'm all for every iteration of him.

tanman

I just watched the New Rockstar's breakdown on the movie and the thing that really hit me was when he said that Batman and Gordon utterly failed in their Riddler investigation. I really like this perspective. I thought the goal of the movie was to show a smarter Batman but it wasn't. He's still new and learning and even though he can figure out the simple riddles on the cards he totally misses the important parts and it costs him. He fails at protecting Alfred, he fails at protecting the DA or any of the other victims, he fails to find Selina's hot blonde friend or figure out who did it and Selina has to do it herself, he fails to figure out the biggest clue of the carpet picker which could have saved Gotham. In fact he doesn't really save anyone (arguably the mayor's boy) and probably killed a bunch of people with his stupid useless car chase. The reason why goes back to vengeance. He says that's who he is not because that's who he's acting as, but that's his motivation, his only reason for living. The only reason why he's out on the streets at night. The Batman that says he's vengeance that goes to town on the somewhat harmless joker thugs in the beginning isn't the same one who realizes vengeance can't be his motivator at the end of the movie. That Batman sacrifices himself, is baptized in water, and resurrects as a new Batman. One that actually saves people, not by beating up thugs to fill the hole in his heart in the name of vengeance, but by being a source of light and hope and leading people away from danger.

DaveyJoe

Yeah, I think this film has the most nuanced character arc for Batman; and the slow burn pace helps the film breathe and focus on characterization instead of action.

Hokeyboy

Actually now that I think about it, Val Kilmer had a much stronger Bruce Wayne/Batman character arc in one movie than Michael Keaton ever had in two. Too bad it was in such a shitty film.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, but you've said that Batman & Robin is your favorite out of the live action Batman's, so your taste is in your ass.

OldBoy

i wouldn't remotely call any of Villenueve's movies boring. mesmerizing with a grand and unique visual style, yes, but boring? absolutely not.

stvn1974

Batman And Robin > The Batman > Batman Begins > The Dark Knight > Getting Kicked In The Balls > The Dark Knight Rises

whotony

Invalidates further movie opinions.

Michael Corvin

I quote you twice tanman but you're just giving me a springboard for discussion (none of this is directed at you):

It's kinda funny how a few short years ago destruction porn and superheroes killing people was bad, because... Snyder? But destruction porn and Batman killing people is okay because?... not Snyder?

I think the simplest explanation is, people didn't like those movies, we like this movie.

And it's not just the chase scene. What about flooding the entire fucking city? 1,800 people died in Katrina, so could we expect similar in Gotham? Or are we operating under the assumption that Batman single handedly saved all the people?

Another double standard that was mentioned by someone above... Affleck's Batman was too indestructible in the Snyder flicks and not realistic. Yet this Batman takes a bomb to the face, machine gun blasts to the chest and electrocutes himself. I don't recall Batfleck being that indestructible.

I pointed out as much a few weeks ago. All I heard leading up to watching it was "finally, the world's greatest detective Batman on screen!" "finally Batman doing detective work! (like Bale's Batman didn't have to figure shit out). What we got instead was a couple of scenes with Batman standing at a crime scene and? ... solving 2 basic riddles? Finding a drop of blood a CSI team would have found anyway? Letting a rent-a-cop solve the most important part of the case because of carpet? He's two steps behind during the entire movie. He's a joke. But that's fine, my problem is the explaining it away like you say. "It's okay because he's new at it." Well which is it, because it can't go both ways. Is this the greatest Detective Batman we've seen or not? He's shit at it, so I'd say no, but to explain it away is a silly excuse.

Dude, like it or not, it's a flawed movie. Flawed movies come with people pointing out said flaws, especially as more people see it now that it's watchable at home. Unfortunately that means breaking up the circle jerk of those that think this is the 'greatest Batman ever!' in discussions. Telling someone to go watch another film is just being a dick. Don't like the movie discussion, go read another thread. That's what you sound like.

OldBoy

Hokeyboy

As such, equating people who really enjoyed the movie and/or found it a top-tier Batman movie as some kind of "circle jerk" is totally just as dickish. The movie has flaws (like every other superhero movie ever made, yes Marvel too) but we can we stop internalizing loving or hating it as some kind of character flaw already?

Why So Blu?

These people that are so in love with the MCU are quick to point out the "flaws" in The Batman but stay quiet when it comes to the MCU stuff. There's a double standard when it comes to DCEU and Batman movies. They all suck and nothing in the MCU sucks.

rocket1312

Why can't we just evaluate each movie on their own merits? Why does everything always have to be an us vs. them thing? And it goes both ways. The constant "if you don't like this you must be on team a and if you don't like this then you must be on team b" is exhausting.

stvn1974

I dislike both Marvel and DC movies. Marvel is just a little bit less shitty.

Draven

Black Widow getting blasted out of an APC when a grenade goes off and walking away in Civil War is as stupid as Batman letting a bomb go off directly in his face in The Batman.

Now can I criticize this movie?

Also a Google search would have turned up that carpet tool. I can be the World’s Greatest Detective too!

Why So Blu?

I agree. Why can't we?

Draven

For the record, I did not compare this movie to the MCU. I said that I think the concept of a secret identity is old-school comic book mentality and that the MCU had demonstrated it didn’t need to be a thing anymore. In the comics, Tony Stark went to great lengths to hide that he was Iron Man, but the first Iron Man movie said “fuck it” and tossed that away.

I was simply saying that IMHO I would like to see a Batman movie try it too. THAT’S IT. I never said the MCU was infallible. I never said it was perfect. As flawed as The Batman is, it’s better than 5-6 other MCU movies.

Why So Blu?

Batman/Bruce Wayne is not Tony Stark. You can't do that with that character. It's the antithesis of who he is. It's a horrid concept, BUT, if they did ever do it then let them test the waters in a graphic novel format instead of a fucking film outright.

tanman

One of my favorite things about BvS is how he kind of took all the wanton destruction of metropolis in MoS and made it one of Bruce's major motivations to prepare to take out Superman. It was a cool way to acknowledge the critics, at least in someway, in universe. ......but then he put machine guns on the Batmobile and had Batman just literally mowing down bad guys

I'm totally with you on the world's greatest detective aspect. I really thought that's where they were going with it and was excited at first but then at the end I was baffled because he didn't do anything. It didn't sit well with me because basically he didn't effect the movie at all. Everything happened according to the Riddler's plan. I'd need to watch it again to really analyze it but it might be another Raider's of the Lost Ark situation where the main character doesn't really affect the events of the story at all. That's when the movie sat better with me. When I realized it was part of his character and not all poor writing. Like the carpet picker thing. It really bothered me how convenient it was until later I realized it was his failure. He missed this clue and failed and because of that Gotham was flooded. And I do think it was intentional because the Riddler even mentions that he overestimated how smart Batman is and when Batman gets called the world's greatest detective it's in irony from the Penguin after going on this ridiculous chase for absolutely nothing.


As already pointed out there are plenty of critics of MCU films. Have you looked in the Eternals thread? Everyone is shredding that movie. And objectively speaking based on overall reviews, score aggregates, audience approval etc. the DCEU has had a lot more variable output then the MCU in general. That's not a double standard. As far as Batman films it seems like (exception being our one crazy member here who thinks BaR is the greatest Batman movie) there's a pretty clear overall consensus on which ones are good and which ones aren't.

Totally agree. That's the way the whole world is with everything. There's no more meeting ground, no more neutral zone, no more gray area. It's all us vs. them.



I don't know why can't we? At least in this thread you're one of the ones that keeps bringing up the MCU in this Batman thread movie and making this an us vs them thing.

And I love both (not every movie). I must be a unicorn.

I hated it more when she took an RPG to the car in her own movie and walked out. That totally took me out of the movie as well and the moment I knew this would be another MCU spectacle. Up to that point I was hoping they would play more on the part that she's a regular human spy.

Draven

You absolutely CAN do that with that character. It just takes a movie team talented enough to pull it off.

whotony

It’s unnecessary.
There isn’t one single good reason to do it.

tanman

I'm loving this mashup of the different Batman themes. Very well blended.

Draven

A Batman movie without the same basic premise as every other? I dunno, I think that might be interesting.

I look at it like the Superman RED SON series. Landing in a field in Kansas is pretty integral to that character. But change it up and you get something completely new and interesting.

And then they can just reboot Batman back again in a few years like they always do. What’s the issue? If you don’t like it, just wait like 3-4 years and they’ll reboot it.

Michael Corvin

You're right. So apologies if anyone was offended.

That's what some of us are trying to do while others but the end result is getting called MCU homers because we didn't like the movie.

For the record (and I'm pretty sure I've said it above), I can't stand the MCU. The entire 20+ movie run wallows in homogenized mediocrity. Only a select few rise above and are interesting/fun, Guardians being the main draw for me. I much prefer the DC heroes. I tend to cut them more slack (WW84 isn't near as bad as everyone made it out to be) but for a character like Batman whom we've seen numerous times at this point? Yeah, I'm going to be more critical.

I mean this movie is basically that already. Bruce got like 10 minutes of screen time. I doubt people knowing would have changed the plot much. Riddler's attack on the elite is still the same whether it's Bruce or Thomas Whayne.

devilshalo

I thought it was fine, easily could have been a short run series with the way the beats played out.