Is Robert Pattinson Truly The Batman?

It's time for another super hero movie, and you know I had to get my The Batman fix on ASAP!  Is it the best of the caped crusader's live-action representations?  If not, it sure has one of the most intriguing casts for one of these with the likes of Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell to name a few.  This gritty and dark version, those words may sound similar, and no this is not part of the DCEU, but this is the best version of Gotham I have seen captured in film in ages.  But riddle me this loyal listener, did you like this movie, love it, or have a different opinion?  Let me know on social at @NickNackMovies or @NickNack_IC on Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and more!  

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S3E6

-Intro/Jingle

-What’s good fans?  It is your podcast host Nick of Nick Nack Goes to the Movies here.  So we are coming back to back for the first time in a while, and it is nice to be back and to have just one movie to focus on, and boy is it a good one.  If you are keeping abreast of my letterboxd account you could think I am talking about the Bollywood classic Lagaan and the video game adaptation that brought Pokemon to the real world.  But you would be wrong, and some of you may know it is finally time to get more super hero content since the start of this season.  And they don’t get more interesting than the latest from DC, The Batman.  

-I will try to keep this localized on this new Batman universe.  But I have to mention the overall DCEU and I guess just DC movies as a whole.  So yeah, I am on the train of I wanted and still hold out hope that we will one day get the completed 5 movie arc for the Snyder vision of the Justice League saga.  I know this won’t happen since they are straight up killing of Ben Afleck in the next Flash movie, unless the Discovery merger can save things putting all these movies on hold.  The Snyder cut added so much to the Aquaman first movie which was cool, and I would be interested in seeing Keaton reprise the role, but it is gut-wrenching that they are closing the door on Afleck and obviously Cavill and Fisher, which should not be happening.  And if they want that Ayer Cut to come out as well, I won’t say no.  The DCEU is a mess with projects all over the place that don’t make sense.  But yeah, that rant will be over, so let’s see focus on who is in this newest iteration of the batman in live action!

-Actors

-So with this new batman, yes I am cool with there being multiple batman universes out there.  I was excited putting my DCEU feelings aside after seeing both the trailer and the cast list.  And while I am excited to see what Michael Keaton will do even though that almost assuredly means that the end of the Batfleck is nigh, I was curious for what Robert Pattinson would bring to the role.  I still have yet to see Tenet which if the trailers are anything to go off of, he kind of had the Bruce Wayne classic vibe.  Now, this was not the direction they went with the assignment of this version of Batman and Bruce, but we will get to that.

-Along with Pattinson, or as I refer to him more often than not, Cedric Diggory, Zoe Kravitz, who is no stranger to the super hero genre with x-men first class and into the spiderverse.  Oh, and she was pretty good in the fantastic beasts’ sequel, which I feel like people forget about, can’t do that now with the third coming out next month.  

-I was probably most excited for Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell.  While Serkis didn’t get a ton of time to shine, his live-action roles never do, I think the start to his Alfred was a nice touch for what is to come with the inevitable sequel and most likely trilogy.

-Jeffrey Wright, who was great as a villain in Boardwalk Empire, a lovely part of the Hunger Games, and the latest Bond iteration of Felix Lighter; he did a great job in the next role of Gordon.  I think the weirdest of these had to be the eventual realization that as much as I like Colin Farrell in most things I see him in, even if the overall movie or show isn’t the best, he is just good.  His last super hero outing was not the most well received, especially with how much everyone loves the latest Daredevil entire cast, but you’ll quickly realize, you like his acting, but you will not be seeing him at all with all the makeup and prosthetic work that went into him transforming into the Penguin.  He is super fun in the more realistic version of the character as opposed to the previous live action movie version done by Danny DeVito.  He is more embedded with the mob, and like the rest of the people in this movie, this is an origin story for almost everyone of note for those standard rogue’s gallery that you’ve met so far.

-I did not nor do I really know a lot about Paul Dano, but for the role he was given, I think it all worked out well, I guess he was in There Will Be Blood which is one of those long movies I saw once and was just not in the right spot to watch and appreciate it, down the road for more Daniel Day-Lewis content.

-Barry Ko-gahn is slowly ending up in more of my movie viewing with Dunkirk, Eternals, and while barely in this, he is confirmed to be the Joker of these batman movies, which I am super curious about with how this Riddler version, the second portrayal after live action movie Jim Carrey, is more like the Joker than before, so I would love to see those 2 characters play off each other in future titles.

-And lastly for this loaded exciting cast, John Tur-tur-OH, who I knew I recognized from somewhere but I couldn’t place his look, the voice was familiar.  And turns out it was from an HBO miniseries I never got around to finishing, not even half way through it, and it is The Night Of, which is also one of the bigger things that introduced most people to Riz Ahmed outside of Dead Set where you can see a super young him.  But Tur-tur-OH was spectacular as the charismatic Italian mob boss, and there are a ton of those characters in this most realized version of Gotham to date, which in and of itself feels like a character, and that should take us into talking about the story and the role the city of Gotham itself feels in the narration of this tale!

-The Batman

-So to the plot of this movie.  It starts off strong with a fun rear-view window Hitchcock reference, we love a good Hitchcock homage outside of like The Birds, that was a bit goofy.  And the whole stalking aspect at first you wonder if Batman is stalking a criminal and then when you see a kid you wonder if these are the Wayne’s and we will see Thomas and MARTHA die again.  But turns out it was our first look at the Riddler.

-This Riddler of course being very different from the goofy Jim Carrey version seen before, but not exactly the look we were used to with the hat, suit, and a bit more grounded, this was the proposed look for the potential casting of the Nolan movies with Johnny Depp as the character.  

-Instead, this The Batman version of The Riddler gave us a more unpolished looking character with a cool looking question mark jacket, the mask might have been a bit jarring at first, but the whole world of Gotham is creepier, grungier, and yes, everything feels more grounded and homemade overall, this was a Pinterest DIY at its finest.  And no, not like what we all use it for, Animal Crossing New Horizons inspirations.

-In this same spirit, this version of Batman is a bit different.  He is a bit more aggressive, not unlike the version we saw from Ben Afleck, but the detective parts are more center stage here.  And of course, his size and mannerisms are different.  I think the best Bruce Wayne we have gotten in most movies has to be Christian Bale.  But the actual Batman of this movie, Robert Pattinson has to be the strongest.  He is a bit darker and more conflicted overall about everything going on, it is a fun and interesting new take on the character.

-This is a more inexperienced Batman.  In recent times we saw the rise and fall of Batman in Gotham from Bale, and we saw a Batman who had given up on people until a fateful sacrifice from Superman gave him a new goal in life from Afleck.  We never saw the end of that arc, but I will hold out hope.  But this Batman has already had an uneasy alliance with some members of law enforcement, specifically Gordon, bug shocker I know.  This starts off a train of people being killed off in positions of law enforcement and Batman having an unwanted pen pal.  First the mayor gets it in a messaged and moderately symbolic way followed by the previous commissioner.  There is a big track record of these commissioners of old getting stomped at some point to make the way for eventual commissioner Gordon.

-But Batman being invited to the crime scene not just for his letter, but overall just to have the detective angle, it is cool to see him do this part of the character that is crucial to his existence.  This stuff honestly played out similarly to the Telltale games of Batman source material.  The tarnished legacy of the Wayne family, more mob stuff, and honestly more lived in Gotham stuff.  I had an idea of where this was going with the trailers having it known Bruce, not Batman, was a part of this story overall.  

-Just having the Iceberg Lounge as a location was an exciting batman thing.  I am gonna talk a lot about the video games, but one thing people will appreciate this movie, hopefully the whole franchise, and the Arkham game series, the world, I can’t stress that enough how it all felt so realized.

-I have talked about it before, I don’t at all like the Saw movies.  But this is as close to that as I would get probably, that or the very good And Then There Were None.  Traps and irony aplenty for all of the fatalities.  It might be a bit more overall heavy-handed here, not exactly as clever at times as the Riddler could be.  But it gets the job with this version done.

-With that in mind, having the thumb drive be attached to a literal thumb was the right level of dark humor.

-So it may have been not my favorite way to introduce Catwoman protecting another woman with those motivations and her dad being the mob boss and an illegitimate daughter without the family name.  The whole arc was not exactly what I was looking for, but Zoe Kravits was amazing in the role, and I can’t wait to see her come back in this role.  The chemistry she has with Pattinson is easily one of the best parts of the movie.  They worked together more than I am used to, but in general she is rarely a villain these days anyway.

-It is a nice change of pace to see Penguin, who is done wonderfully here as a coming up through the ranks mob man.  His partnership as a right man, not muscle, just a right hand for one of the two normal Italian bosses.  It will always be carmine falcone and Salvatore maroni.  In this instance Falcone takes center stage with Maroni being arrested prior, which is the whole inciting incident.  Gotham was always a down on it’s luck place with a small percentage of madly wealthy people.  But here the corruption feels second to none and obviously a huge part of Gotham.  And that is why the Riddler is after them after all.  District Attorneys, Mayors, commissioners of police, all of them conspiring and being greedy, and the eventual realization it is all about hunting down people who wanted to make money and have a fake public drug crime bust, you can feel the decay in the city mixed with the good funded with blood money parts.

-That funeral scene with another bomb threat that eventually kills the DA in the latest saw trap, it is all just so good.  I wish we had more Bruce in the world, but I guess his whole thing is being a recluse and less of a play boy billionaire philanthropist.  

-The Riddler is terrifying in this movie, and his cause is one most people would be down with, getting rid of corruption, sounds grand.  Now there is this thing I have heard with villains overall but especially comic book villains.  They have causes like Killmonger who are good like fighting injustice, but when they look and feel to sympathetic they have to commit a war crime or kill their girlfriend to make them evil again.  I don’t think this Riddler could be sympathetic, and that is because he is just so creepy, no matter what his cause might be, and we will get to where things fell off a bit with his cause.

-But before we do that, the few mob moments, the drug bust Penguin chase, was fun and action packed, and Colin Farrell as an Italian mobster is pretty fun, he really did great in the role too, overall strong acting in this movie.  But the Bat-mobile itself was not my favorite version of these, I do like the more tank feel.

-Having his parents not be mobsters but get caught up in some Arkham stuff, we have barely even seen true Arkham in most movies, and tying the Wayne’s and Arkham legacy to not infallibility, it does make it more personal.

-Now speaking of Wayne family legacy, normally Alfred is the one to help with that.  And while Serkis really didn’t get much to do as Alfred, it was a nice start to the character, even if Bruce is a right prick to him the whole time.  Like he gets blown up, in a coma wakes up to Bruce whining a bit, come on man, have some tact and read the room.  Alfred god done dirty here, but hopefully they can explore the better healthier relationship between them in the sequel.

-And this leads to a few fake outs of Bruce’s dad being in bed with the mob to protect his wife to that same mob group most likely being responsible for killing his parents.  It is at this point we have a few different ends to the movie that we will go through here.  The end of the Riddler, the end of Falcone, and the end of the riddler goon squad, one of these is lesser than the others and made me a bit bummed at the end and things a bit predictable and out of tone with the rest of it.  And I say that all still saying this is a very good movie.

-So first, Falcone’s end.  While Selena wants to get him got, and Bruch has every reason to think about doing this, they just arrest him and things are going well seemingly.  But jokes on them, it was all a clever ruse to show he was the rat, give Penguin his time to shine, and to get the Riddler to seemingly kill his final target.  I like this end.

-Next is the end of the Riddler, he gets arrested and while this seems like the end of his crime spree.  He got everyone but Bruce, they really had us going for a sec thinking he knew Batman and Bruce were one and the same, he wanted to partner with Batman and kill Bruce, so he didn’t know everything after all.  And I kind of like this too, the end of the crime spree is rooting out corruption, a tough take on the slippery slope of being a vigilante, and even after getting arrested, the Riddler has made his mark and is not done yet if we know anything about Arkham.

-My issue comes with parts of this third end, the end we didn’t see coming.  So the cult following and internet fandom is a fun take, it worked for cult favorite cult show the following with the all-star cast of Kevin Bacon, Shawn Ashmore, and James Purefoy.  And seemingly that was the initial take they were going to take on Scream 3.  But here it gets a bit lost in translation.

-Taking out the new mayor who seems to be good for the city, innocent people, and flooding everything to make it a shooting gallery.  None if this last part makes sense, and while the action is good and it makes Batman have to do more for the city instead of just be the spirit of vengeance, no not the marvel one from ghost rider, this is the DC one.  The meaning behind it is good, but the execution was just missing something for me.

-And I am excited for Ko-gahn’s Joker, I still want other versions of the character that have yet to be fully realized like the leto Ayer/Snyder one, but the deleted scene seems to be fun enout for the future of this version of batman, which we are sure to see.

-Letterboxd ratings

- The Batman – 4.5 stars

-wrap and call to action 

-So that is the Batman, what did you think of it and where do you rank it among the other caped crusader cinema representations.  Let me know on Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and more social media places at Nick Nack Movies and Nick Nack underscore IC.  And the super hero fun won’t end here with next episode we will finally see if that Jared Leto Sony/Marvel movie Morbius is good, or if it will just suck.  Let’s find out together next time, so cheers and as always, until next time cinephiles.