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And you can use it from an unlimited number of devices. So, if you want privacy, use the promo code SAGE and you'll get 83% off plus 3 extra months free. Again, that's promo code SAGE for 83% off plus 3 extra months free. Gotham City felt alive. The rainy, pulpy, grimy city felt lived in. A city built only for something like the Batman to change it. A parasitic city that will never change. And as this film progresses, we are constantly reminded of that. By its citizens, by its main characters, by its history. This is a city that is built upon corruption. The Waynes, the Arkham's, the Falcon family, the Moroni family, the cops, the lawyers, the judges, everyone. In every direction Batman looked, Gotham City was alive and slowly eating away at the bat, imploring him to decide whether or not he truly cares about the city. Bruce Wayne in this onscreen iteration isn't the one that we're used to. It isn't the sleazy billionaire playboy. It isn't the smooth talking, naive philanthropist. It isn't the perfect secret identity. This Bruce hasn't learned that yet. This Bruce almost doesn't really exist. He kind of floats around everywhere. He doesn't say much, he doesn't do much. He's a bit awkward socially as a result of being a depressed recluse. His fortune has granted him that possibility. Bruce Wayne truly has become a nocturnal animal. But those eyes, they tell us everything, always. This Bruce is emotional. When it comes to his parents and anything that reminds him of them, he seems ready to let that damn burst, but he's trying so hard to keep it in. As a result, he's so angry, so so angry, at himself and at the city that took his parents away from him. He's so angry at the city that put the fear of God into his heart that night. Batman Ego by Darwin Cook is one of the stories that has influenced this film, and it's apparent over the course of the movie, the idea that Bruce is so often consumed by the fear of what happened to him that night and it's that fear that bred the cape and cowl. It's why we don't see Bruce as often as we see the bad. Bruce spends this film fighting that fear, fighting himself. And the fear is what feeds his anger. Fear creates that wrath. Bruce is trying to make sense of it all, and the idea to tie the unraveling of Batman in a noir detective focused story, to me was an important and necessary choice for this film. Batman at his core is a detective, with an unending desire to solve the mystery of Gotham City, and ultimately to solve the crime of who killed his parents. He is a man trying to untangle his past and his mind, a mind filled with so much rage. This rage comes out when he puts on the cape and cowl. This rage comes out in the way that he fights. This Bruce Wayne wants nothing more than for everyone to feel the pain that he felt, the fear that he felt that night. He wants nothing more than to truly embody whatever vengeance truly is, whatever he feels it is. Batman's first appearance in this film demonstrates it. His slow methodical entrance, the heavy menacing boots that put the fear into his enemies' hearts. He's accomplished the first part of what being Batman is. But in combat, you can see and feel his rage. It feels like he overdoes it. The extra punches, the brutal nature of some of his blows, the taser gloves to the throat, all with that look in his eyes. It all seemed excessive. This Batman isn't polished. He doesn't pick off his enemies strategically. He isn't that master tactician just yet. There's hardly any smoke bombs, bad ranks, barely any gadgets, unless they're used to reinforce that brutal fear. The chase on the highway had a recklessness about it, as the highway ended up in flames, again that look in his eyes during that entire sequence. He's so angry. And the music contributes greatly to that feeling as well. Director Matt Reeves mentions in an interview that every criminal Batman sees, he is immediately brought back to his parents' killer. And that idea that fear has created inside of his head builds and builds as Giacchino scores swells in unison with his rage. A masterful score that perfectly encapsulates Batman's emotions. This is a big screen portrayal of the Batman that is unlike many others. It's Batman raw and unfiltered, vulnerable. This Batman is less of a creature and more of a human. He makes tons of mistakes. He's not the perfect detective just yet. He misses clues. He lets his emotions get in the way of his work. He relies on others to piece things together. In combat, he gets hit a lot. When he's escaping from the police station, he gets scared and completely botches his landing. He is just a man, and this movie really highlights that. The film asks, what does this rage, this emblem of fear bring to the city? At the beginning of the film, it is told to us that this is his second year, and crime has done nothing but gone up. So sure, people fear him. But again, what is he doing for the city? For the people on the ground. For those who don't and can't inherit a billion dollar fortune. Who is he actually helping? In the first half of the film, Batman walks a fine line between solely wanting revenge and wanting to clean up his city. He tiptoes on both sides of it, but often times the vengeance aspect of things tends to guide his actions. But what this Batman's driving force is, and will forever be, is his parents. The difference is the line that I am brought back to by another comic that inspired this movie, The Long Halloween, by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sayle, which writes that he made a promise to his parents to protect the city from the evil that took their lives. Batman is doing this because he believes that his parents, the Waynes, were removed from said evil, that they had no part, that there was a part of Gotham City that truly was at one point clean, unsullied. As the comic writes, Bruce is his father's son. Bruce holds his parents and his father particularly to such a high standard, and that's where his sense of morality comes from. That his father, a doctor, a healer, was a man who would operate and heal anyone, even crime lords like Carmine Falcone. So when he finds out that his parents, that his father, might not have been the man that Bruce placed on such a high pedestal, he loses his way. He questions why he's doing it all. He takes off the cape and cowl and tries to remove the blood that is on his hands, as the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son. And you can see it in his body when he shows up to the iceberg lounge as Bruce Wayne. Gotham is so corrupt and his parents are a part of that. He is a part of that. Is this the city that Bruce is so desperate to save? He finally understands that this parasitic city really is drowning in its own fill. And it's why he goes out as Bruce and not vengeance. He loses hope in his city. He stops believing in Gotham City. How can he fight for his parents with their morality with him if they are not the pristine, perfect individuals that he believed them to be? And now Bruce has to deal with this idea and with the great aspects of the world, a world that he once believed to be fairly black and white. He has to face the fact that not all criminals truly are his parents' killer because his parents were involved in some form of it as well. Bruce himself is involved with a cat burglar. In mentioning Selena Kyle, she is a thief who Batman says compromised herself for money. Who he believes compromised herself to get close to Penguin, Falcone, etc. By his standards, she is very much morally corrupt. She's a criminal. And yet, she is still one of Batman's closest allies, someone who he comes to care for. Selena Kyle challenges his perspective. She is all of these aforementioned things, but she saved him. She's helped him. She's on a hunt to find and save her friend. She's not a bad person and Batman wrestles with this concept. The reason Bruce is able to have such a narrow-minded perspective is due to his immense privilege. The reason he's able to look down on her and what she does is because Bruce never had to struggle to survive, struggle to make ends meet. The cat argues that goodness under Bruce's definition is a luxury afforded only to the rich. Selena Kyle is an orphan just like he is, but one who didn't grow up with billions. And in turn, she's able to understand and agree with the Riddler's motives up to this point, which is taking down the root of their troubles. Because as she says, the city only cares about the white and privileged, those with money. So again, Selena begs the question, what is Batman doing for the people on the ground? For the people like her and Onika? He's able to go about fighting off any criminal because it makes him feel good instead of going after those who are truly in charge. Because those in charge don't hurt people like Bruce Wayne, people with money. Instead, they hurt people like Selena Kyle, like Edward Nygma. Bruce has to balance his new perspective that Catwoman offers him, as well as his new information about his parents, all while trying to solidify how he wants to make a difference, all while trying to figure out if he still wants to make a difference. Further, he comes to learn that the man he's chasing after Riddler is a man, a persona, born under the same circumstances that he was, fear and vengeance, as the Riddler tells him in their lone meeting. Foyles are the Batman and Riddler, Bruce and Edward. In the prequel novel Before the Batman, it is told to us that he and Bruce made eye contact the day Thomas Wayne opened up the orphanage in the Old Wayne Manor. Edward had come to resent Bruce Wayne for his privilege because he didn't suffer in that orphanage where they fought for their lives every night, where he was a delivery driver by day who was berated by Gotham's citizens and got bullied back at the orphanage each night. While orphan Bruce Wayne washed over Gotham's city from his warm mansion and with his butler, two orphans who in this film emerge out of the darkness, literally. The Riddler was born out of Batman's ideology. We see that as one of Riddler's enthusiasts calls himself vengeance. Fear and vengeance alone only breeds anger and contempt. It breeds people like Edward. Bruce is in a position to have hope because of the values he's been taught by his parents, by his father, and by Alfred. He's in a position to have hope because he has money. The Riddler never had any of it. He never had anyone. So his anger led him to become something different, similar to the bad but different. There were no values, no kindness, there is no hope in the Riddler's story. Only vengeance. Edward has no reason to believe in Gotham's city nor does he have a reason to believe that it can change or be renewed. Because it never has been. That renewal fund money could have changed Edward's life but Gotham's city never changes. It can never change. Moving back to Bruce, Alfred's words in that hospital along with Catwoman's motivations had Bruce reconsidering what it means to be the Batman. I think the moment he changed the action that changed him was saving Carmine Falcon's life and Selena's all in one go. And this comes right after learning the truth of it all that while he watched his father save Falcon's life, Falcon was quite possibly the person that had his parents killed, the one who put that fear into his heart on that fateful night, and yet Bruce is able to put his anger aside and save him. In that act he saves Selena as well from crossing that line. When Penguin pulls a gun on Falcon outside the iceberg lounge, Batman attempts to save Falcon's life once more. Bruce Wayne is his father's son and in this moment he honors his parents, even knowing that his father was not the man he set him out to be. That he was not a perfect man but he does it because it's the right thing to do. At this stage in his story, Bruce tempers his rage. At the beginning of this film he fought angry, recklessly and brutally but now he shows his growth. Look at the way he enters the iceberg lounge for the final time, compared to the first time. Now as the intelligent bat we know and love, he enters strategically. Instead of charging headfirst at his enemies like he did previously, he now takes them out in the darkness, in his element. Against Riddler's men he uses gadgets, smoke bombs, grappling hooks, adrenaline. It's not perfect but he fights with his head rather than a raging heart. And finally this takes us into the most iconic scene of the film to me. Batman, amidst the flood, the danger, and having just taken a rifle to the chest makes the choice to dive into the flood, literally becoming Gotham's beacon of hope. He becomes the light in its darkest moments. That color red paints Batman's rage and his vengeance at the beginning of the film but at the end it illustrates his hope and his desire to protect their city. I've asked what is Batman doing for the people on the ground, and the closing moments of this film and that moment show us what he's become, who he has become. His face, his suit is all muddied and the sun is rising behind him. Batman has been here all night. He is just a man and yet willing to put so much of himself and his abilities into saving the city, and him actually saving lives helping real people humanizes this man tremendously. It shows us the power of hope as it contrasts the man he saved at the beginning of the film who feared for his life when looked at by Batman. In this disaster, the Riddler's speech in the prison, it shows us why Bruce Wayne has to be a symbol of hope as well. It shows us why he is so important. Edward knew about the Gotham renewal project because he was a forensic accountant, and Bruce has no interest in the inner workings of the Wayne industries and of the legacy that his parents left behind. Edward exposing that fact gives Bruce another reason to care about what happens to him and his legacy as he stated he didn't before. It gives Bruce the understanding that Batman needs Bruce Wayne to save the next generation of orphans, of children, of Gothamites from becoming the next Riddler. That it's up to Bruce Wayne to not let the next renewal fund fall into the hands of Gotham City's parasitic clutches. Batman has to be the knight. He has to be fear, vengeance, all of these things. That aspect of his persona is important, but he cannot only be these things. He has to be hope, because hope will change their city. It will impact real lives. Moreover, Bruce Wayne cannot become fully consumed by them. He cannot lose himself in the temptations that fear offers. He can't lose himself over the sheer rage that he might feel. Bruce Wayne cannot cross that line. This inner conflict is at the heart of this movie. It's a very human conflict for a very human portrayal. This vulnerability, this humanity that was brought to this character both by Pattinson, Reeves, and everyone involved makes him my favorite live action portrayal of Batman and especially of Bruce Wayne. This film showed me a broken, scared man who was trying, trying to believe in himself and believe in a city even when his world was falling apart, even when he was falling apart. To me, this is what Batman represents, and it's why I love this film.