 Yeah, I saw it. I saw the film. Yeah, mom. You already saw the reviews from other people. You don't care what I have to say anymore? Well, that's like your opinion, brah! Oh, Chris Stuckman liked it. Well, okay. What a shock! I'm actually recording my review right now, so I need to let you go, okay? Mom? Hello? And she hung up on me. Well... Let's talk about the Batman. First things first, I'm a realist. Drop this and let the whole world feel this. This is gonna be a spoiler-free review. Yeah, I'll do a separate one, because we have to cash in on this as much as possible. It's the big thing right now! Come on! So let's just go over things. It was directed and co-written by Matt Reeves, who did Cloverfield, some of those Don of the Planet of the Apes films, I believe he did Don and War. The titling of those are atrocious, but well, it's for another time. Naming conventions aside, I really like those films. I think Matt Reeves is a very good director. And based off what I saw in this 2022 three-hour Batman film, Matt Reeves thinks David Fincher is a great director, too. And that's cool. It's fun when directors appreciate other people's work. They should. Maybe just don't copy it. I'm being slightly dramatic, but if you leave the Batman and tell me that this doesn't have a lot of seven put into it from the overall story structure, and especially the final act, I don't even know what to say, like you're a liar. And a coward. Probably a thief. The premise, the bones of the story are pretty solid, pretty basic. We have a year-two Batman, he's still getting his wings wet, he's still trying things out. Some have heard of him, some haven't. They know he lurks in the shadows, he's fear, he's vengeance. This word is gonna come up a thousand times in the movie, he's vengeance. And a prominent player has taken note of his existence, the Riddler. Throughout the film, the Riddler's gonna be toying with the police officers and Batman as he gives him little love letters, little clues for him to decipher. Riddles, if you will. The storyline weaves Batman through the underbelly of Gotham City, where he's gonna come in contact with some unsavory individuals. Let's talk about Robert Pattinson as Batman. He's got a lot of time on camera. If you're looking for a Batman movie that's more Batman than Bruce Wayne, ooh, this is the one, he's on camera a lot more than I thought. And I was all there for it. Pattinson is great! I'll say that right now, he is great! He doesn't get a ton of time as Bruce Wayne, so we don't really see the two sides of the coin. He definitely changes the voice, he definitely gets more into the character. But this is a very moody, brooding emo film. He's got the black makeup on, he's very depressed throughout the whole thing. The Dark Knight is kept in the shadows when it comes to his history. We don't really learn much about, you know, how he learned how to fight, how he trained. This is just, I guess, assumed at this point, or the mystique is there, just because it's not really that important. He's a rich kid with dead parents who has a score to settle. That's really all you need to know. The movie plays things very seriously, again, kind of like Seven, but even in Seven I think I chuckled a few more times than here. And I think that is one of the places where the Batman stumbles a little bit. Since we really are focused on the Dark Knight and occasionally Catwoman Selena Kyle, there's not a lot of chemistry between characters. And that chemistry is oftentimes just very dry dialogue. With Seven you have the young rookie cop who wants to get out there and put people behind bars and the old dog who's on the verge of retirement. So you get those clashing viewpoints. And that back and forth dialogue that's snappy, it's got some wit to it. That's just not really what this is. So yeah, Twilight Sparkle, fantastic as Batman. I think all the Batman's we've had have been pretty damn good outside of George Clooney. I am George Clooney in a cape and cowl. Let's fight some crime. I brought up Catwoman. She's played by Zoe Kravitz, who does a good job. This is the smallest Catwoman yet. The actress looks like she weighs 75 pounds and I could just put her in my pocket, save her for later. But she does give a good performance and some of the action is pretty solid. And I do like that when she goes up against Batman, she doesn't kick the shit out of him when they have their little quarrel, their little lovers fight. He puts her down pretty damn fast. She's tiny. She's like this little thing. It would be ridiculous if she kicked the shit out of him. I just, I think that's so silly in films when they do that. Like, we understand it's a superhero film and there's a lot of like believability thrown out the window. But when I see this tiny little thing go up against a dude in full body armor. I mean, come on, let's like ground it a tiny bit. And Matt Reeves does that often. There's a lot of grounded work here. I rarely noticed any CGI at play. I'm sure there's a ton of it, but you know, bravo to the directing here because it was very hard to point out. I am, however, a little disappointed there were no Easter eggs of apes on horses with guns, so. But whatever, I'll get over it. Batman is nothing without his villains. In this case, we have the Riddler. We got Penguin coming and going throughout the film Oz. The Riddler shrouded in mystery and the reveal doesn't come till the end, so I'm not gonna say anything more about that character. But Colin Farrell as Penguin, aka Oz, aka Oswald, couple pot, I believe, unless that was just a Batman Returns thing. I don't read the comics, so I don't actually know his real name. Colin Farrell is so good in everything he does. This guy's underrated, very underappreciated, except for by me who really does appreciate all the work he puts in. He is unrecognizable here as Penguin. The makeup, the body suit, or whatever the hell he was doing. I don't know if he gained the weight or not, but man, just a great performance as this character. Jeffrey Wright is always a solid supporting actor. Here is no exception. He's playing Lieutenant James Gordon, and then there's Andy Circus as Alfred, another character that I think they've nailed every time. I like every interpretation of Alfred. At times, he sounded almost identical to Michael Cain. It was pretty surreal. And speaking of voices, we have to do it. There are two or three characters that come and go throughout this film that have voices that don't match their body types. I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but it was just really funny to me. One of them in particular was a short stocky cop who comes up, he's grizzled, he's got the beard, and as soon as he talks, he's like, so what's going on here, guys? I was expecting a much deeper, brassy voice. It's so good. Who let the Batman in here, huh? You're not a cap? I know a lot of people reference that Batman v Superman warehouse fight when we think of pinnacle Batman action sequences. How does this stack up? It's not as good. It's better than BVS in my opinion by like 1,000 miles, but the fighting, it's a step down for sure. A lot of this is done in kind of foggy, almost out of focus camera shots. Like nothing's really that crisp because the director Matt Reeves puts a haze over everything in Gotham. It's a bit of a bummer. There are still some very cool action set pieces, especially one where he goes through a nightclub and he's throwing weapons back at people. He's blocking, he's punching. Whoosh, whoosh, king, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Takes his grappling hook, which he often uses as a spear gun and it's just like, whoosh, whoosh. Goes through a guy's leg, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Ah! Pulls him back, whoosh, whoosh. And the highlight of that film is the Batmobile. Oh my God, the Batmobile is awesome. The way the engine fires up. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. There's like a 10 minute chase sequence that gets pretty insane. He's weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. You get the close-up of the tires spinning as the rain's pouring down. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. And then there's that epic shot from the trailer where he blows through the fire and you can see his cape swinging off the side of the window. It's so good. And then it's kind of ruined for a second. You're kind of taken out of the film because Oz looks back and he's like, oh, that freaking Batman. Oh, it was so bad for just that few seconds. It took me out of the awesome action and the epicness of the scene when he goes, oh, Snapple, there's Batman again. Cracker Jacks. Like, come on, drop an F-bomb. I know it's PG-13, but that's also kind of a hang-up I have. Because this so badly wants to mimic the seven formula and it does a damn good job of it, there's lots of master detective stuff going on, lots of writing things down on floorboards, ripping panels up, looking at things, charts on the walls, trying to figure out the murders and the mystery, it's all well done. But it's missing the teeth. It's missing that hard R that you need for a movie like this, especially when you're trying to go so dark and brooding. You can just see how Matt Reeves is forced to kind of pull his punches sometimes. Another high point and low point in tandem is the music. Listen, I like Nirvana as much as the next guy. But did I need to hear the theme song four or five fucking times? No fam, you play that once. It was already in the trailers enough. So to have it continuously, it's like the theme song for the film. Set that aside though, there's other moments where the score is just fantastic. It's got almost an ex files, a horror vibe to it. You hear the like, when a villain's hiding in the shadows or when Batman enters a room, there are multiple montages, three to four minutes each that are some of the best stuff I've seen in a Batman movie. One of them is right away at the beginning. Robert Pattinson narrates over the top and he's flawless by the way. His voice is so good in this. Just talking about how he stocks his prey, how they fear for their safety when they see that bat symbol up in the sky. And then Matt Reeves brilliantly just does slow zoom ins to shadows. And you see the reactions on these criminals faces as they have no idea if he's gonna be there or not. Brilliantly executed and it really showcases why Batman is such a cool superhero. And the fact that Matt Reeves revisits this concept at the end of the movie, what takes it in a different direction because our hero has grown over the course of these three hours. That's just good old fashioned writing right there. So if we look at the full picture, what do we have? Well, we have a Batman movie that's standalone but clearly wants to make more. There's characters that are kind of forced into this film from time to time, especially towards the end where I was kind of rolling my eyes a little bit. It felt out of place. We have a tone that's consistent throughout but because it's three hours can definitely feel a little cumbersome. It's not the most exciting thing to sit through but it is gripping. I didn't feel like there was a lot of moments I could pull out of this film. It doesn't overstay its welcome but at the same time it's very alienating to the audience. There's not a lot of people that will go out of this film thinking, wow, that was the best thing ever. Definitely will be some but as far as my family goes, my wife's not gonna have interest in sitting through a three hour Batman movie. My kids who really like the Christopher Nolan ones and even the Michael Keaton ones, they're not gonna have interest either and that sucks because my son loves Batman but I'll let him try it out at some point but I know their taste as well and this just doesn't have the inclusiveness that the Christopher Nolan movies do. I don't give scores or ratings on this channel. They're so subjective and every person has different preferences. What I try to do is just lay out the pros and cons as I see them, give you an idea of what to expect from a film but ultimately you're gonna find different things you like that I didn't and vice versa. So I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. Did you see the Batman? Did you love it? Is it the best thing ever? Or you like me where you thought, hey, it was a good movie. I had a good time. Not the best thing ever by any means. I still think it's a little bit below the Christopher Nolan films but I wanna see more. I thought Pattinson was great. Matt Reeves did craft a different Gotham, one that's a little bit more grounded and serious and depressing. But there's enough there that warrants another run and maybe we just tighten up the runtime, get a little bit more exciting with things. We don't have to be so much the crow. We can lift things up just a little bit. Just a little bit. Maybe make it a little bit more inclusive for people and then I think you have a real winner. All right, that's my review. Hope you enjoyed it. Like the video. If you liked the video, subscribe if you haven't already. And hopefully I'll catch you next time. Hey, since you stuck around, maybe think about joining me on Patreon at patreon.com slash adamdoesmovies or right here on YouTube be the join button. It's just a nice way to show your support for my channel. I'm a one man operation. Just trying to get things done for you. I'm also on Twitch at twitch.tv slash Adam Olinger. That's my first and last name. I play video games over there. It's a good time. I know it's irrelevant to movies but I just started up again. It would be great to have a little bit of an audience.