 I saw the Batman last night and put out a review. This is the second one now, full of spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film and don't want things ruined by the internet, then don't put yourself in these precarious positions. Get off of here, go watch the movie, then come back. Let's begin. First off, I just wanna say I like that Batman's a pervert in this. All refreshing. Director Matt Reeves does these binocular shots that I thought were kind of out of fashion at this point, but no, he brought them back. And they're extended. They're like 14 minutes each. Feels like a fucking hour of it is just binocular shots. That's not fair. I'm being very aggressive right now. The first shot of the movie is bizarre though. It is weird that they open with, I think it is like a couple minutes of just binocular shots going around and it was kind of a weird way to open a film. I don't know. If I could criticize anything, it would be the binoc shots. The second time we see this, he's following Selena Kyle around her apartment. He just kind of lingers. He just kind of does that male gaze as she's undressing, putting on the leather boots, talking to her cats. It's very uncomfortable. Very weird. I liked it. I like that he's a little bit of a perv. It's kind of like in Superman Returns when Brandon Roth is hovering outside of Lois Lane's house and he's using X-ray vision and just seeing what's going on inside. I like that for my superheroes. It grounds them. I love that intro narration from Batman when he's talking about the fear that he bestows upon his prey and how they're scared to do crimes because he could be lurking just around the corner, just in the shadows over there. And then we finally see him in action as he beats up that clown posse, one of which looks like Doug Walker, the nostalgia critic. And he puts him to the ground. He's like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. I will say, it does feel a little bit like having your cake and eating it to scenario. As Batman kind of stomps around like a goddamn elephant because he has these heavy boots and armor on. So he's like, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. But then later he can just like disappear because that's what he does. So Gordon's chatting with him. He turns around, he's gone. How? The move is grounded in plausible situations. Why is Batman able to just like sneak away, play a little hide and go seek? The problem with making your movie too real, too gritty is it's still Batman. There's still Catwoman and Penguin and the Riddler. So no matter how grounded you make it, there's still a guy running around cosplaying as a reject from seven, fighting crimes. Since he's still new-ish to the game, he's only been doing this for two years, I really enjoy that he's kind of built up the scenario that's laid in front of him. The Riddler only became the Riddler because he was inspired by Batman and how he hides behind a mask and he's able to be his true self. Or as the Riddler appropriately puts it, the real you is the guy with the costume on. When you're not wearing the mask, that's when you are wearing the mask. The storyline has a bit of Joker infused into it. When in the final act, we find out the Riddler in fact has a little fan club of his own that he's riled up to rise to power and take on the establishment. It's got some parallels to the real world, of course. There's always parallels you can draw. What I really loved about this movie is how Robert Pattinson progressed as the character over the course of the run. At first, he's vengeance. He's out for justice and the only way he knows to seek it is by putting fear in his enemies. As the movie goes on though, he realizes, oh my God, I'm creating more chaos than I'm preventing. Guys like Riddler are being inspired by me and that cannot happen. So his tone shifts. By the time the movie's winding down, we get that amazing montage where he's helping people out of the wreckage that young kid takes his hand and he holds on to it for an extended period and just gives him a little nod to reassure the kid that things are gonna be okay. There is of course lots of parallels to his situation and the orphan kids that he's rescuing and makes him realize what's going on and how he needs to change and adapt and be better. He has to choose between saving Gotham or running away, going with Selena, having a couple cat kids and living his life on a beach somewhere, although with his complexion, I feel like the sun will just lit him ablaze. There's no coming back. Robert Pattinson is not a tan man. And for some reason, Matt Reeves is really content on showing his body, the back of it, just his back, which is kind of scrawny, a little malnourished at times. Doesn't really have that Batman figure you come to expect, especially after seeing Batflak in the role where he's just like a 300 character, a Spartan. I mean, it's Zack Snyder, what do you expect? But still, that's kind of more how I prefer my Batman, someone that it's believable that he can take all of these hits and get back up. Pattinson, I mean, shit. A strong breeze could blow this guy over. That said, and I brought it up several times in my other review, I really liked Pattinson as Batman. I thought he was freaking great. The voice, that jawline, I'm just jealous of it. I can't do that, but the cowl fits him really nicely. One of my favorite batsuits, the Batmobile is freaking great. They always get good Batmobiles. The Tumblr grew on me. Of course you have Tim Burton's iconic one. And then this, which is kind of a marriage between the old Adam West style and just whatever Matt Reeves has got cooking up. Love it. To go into more detail where the movie does kind of fail for me, and I mentioned the cosplay thing, but I'm serious. I'm a huge fan of Seven. It's like a favorite of mine. And I'm also very partial to David Fincher. I hold his work in like the highest esteem. He got Fight Club, Seven, Panic Room, The Game, Benjamin Button, well, maybe not Benjamin Button. Maybe not that one, but freaking Zodiac, Social Network. The guy has crafted some amazing experiences. So when Matt Reeves comes along and clearly takes inspiration from Seven, that's great and all, but you maybe took it a little too far, especially in the final act where the Riddler purposely gets captured, much like John Doe does. He has a room full of notebooks and journals and they even read a passage from it, showing how unhinged this guy is, just like Kevin Spacey's character, John Doe, or just like Kevin Spacey himself, probably. It was very awesome seeing him be that detective and solve these mysteries. That aspect was really cool. Some of the fighting was great. And other times, it was really hard to see what was going on. It was often in the shadows, which of course it's bad, man. That's what you expect. Still, there's ways to do this, I think, a little better. And that's where I look at Zach Snyder's BVS warehouse fight and I say, that's how I wanna see Batman fight. That shit is great. I also mentioned in my spoiler-free review how some of these characters look the part, but don't sound the part. Their voices don't match their bodies at times, which was kind of funny. But John Turturro is just kind of a miss for me all around is Falcone. I've seen him too many times in silly roles to take him serious and certainly take him threatening, which I didn't. I think Christopher Nolan had a far better Falcone. There's also another mob boss in the movie that they constantly reference and it sounds like Falcone. I can't remember his name, Crony or Corline or something. I don't think he's ever shown. And it was just kind of a muddy execution of that stuff, I thought, where you had to kind of really focus on the storyline and who they were talking about at times and why this guy was prominent and what Falcone did to rise in the ranks and how he has the police in his pocket. That stuff I think could have been handled a little better maybe with a flashback where we actually see the character. I only saw once it's possible some of this stuff was actually in there and I just didn't pay enough attention. I don't know, but to me, that was a little bit of a miss. And also just Falcone again, not the most threatening character. The last thing I wanna bring up is the final act of the film where once again the Riddler is doing the John Doe seven thing. He gets his long monologue to talk about his master plan and how the final act hasn't been revealed yet. How Batman hasn't figured it all out. And this scene is pretty slick because he discredits Batman a little. He's like, oh, I thought you were smarter than you were. You didn't figure this out. But the Riddler himself doesn't realize that Bruce Wayne is the Dark Knight. He hasn't made that connection. At first you think he did because he keeps saying his name, but then you get the shot of Pattinson's eyes kind of light up when he realizes, oh shit, it's not over, he didn't figure this out. He's making fun of me for not seeing the obvious pieces laid out and he didn't put this together himself. What a jackass. And we can't do a spoiler section without the cringy ending. I don't know if anybody liked this. Certainly not the people I went with. We see Riddler in jail at Arkham and the Joker's next to him. I mean, I think it was the Joker. They kind of do close ups. It almost looked like Two-Face, but he sounded like the Joker. And he kind of sounded like Tom Holland, which would be just the worst casting ever. I think basically whoever they put in this scene is probably not gonna be the guy in the next movie anyways, which begs the question, why? We didn't need this forced setup for a sequel. It worked so well in Nolan's film because you get the calling card. The Joker calling card was just great. And it was just like a two-second shot. You know, they didn't overstay its welcome. This goes on for like a minute or so and I'm just thinking, man, this feels so out of place. Like it was shot later than the rest of this film. Please be done. Please be done with this. I did not stay for the credits. I don't know if there was something at the way end. I didn't care. I had to go to the bathroom. It was a long movie. I was ready to be done. I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was good. I didn't think it was the best Batman ever, but I had a good time and I do wanna see more of them. So I think it's a solid first start and I think Matt Reeves will continue to impress with sequels. So those are my spoiler thoughts. Not a ton, I don't think. I probably missed some stuff. Again, I think that it's, it not being rated R does kind of do a disservice. I think it does take away some of the bite that this film could have had, you know, since it really is trying to play up that dark seven moody style on the streets of Gotham. It just misses a little bit of that mark. But regardless, it was still a very good experience. I had some fun and yeah, I'll watch it again at some point when it comes home. I'd love to hear your thoughts below. Tell me what worked for you, what didn't unless everything worked and that's cool too. Subscribe to the channel if you like some honesty. If you like a little humor mixed in. Like the video if you had some fun and hopefully I'll see you next time.