Category Archives: DC Extended Universe

The Batman May Not Reinvent The Wheel, But It Is The Roundest Bat-Wheel Yet

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I’m of the opinion that The Batman is the best live action Batman movie ever made.

To be clear, anytime anyone says something is “the best” it is a purely subjective statement. I’m going to make my case but, if you happen to read this post and disagree, I’ll thank you to not lambaste me about how very wrong I am, and I shall extend you the same courtesy.

One more point to clear is that my take is stating that The Batman is the best, top-to-bottom, live action Batman movie. That does not mean that every part of it is better than every part of previous Batman movies. For example, I still believe that Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight is the best performance in a Batman film, and that Danny Elfman’s score used in Batman – Batman Returns – Batman Forever – Batman & Robin is still the best score.

I’m also, at this point, going to stop referring to them as “live action” Batman movies. While I enjoyed many of the animated films, I like to consider animated films in-general on a different scale than live action films. Neither is better or worse, they’re just different. In this case, I just want to focus on live action. And THAT was the last time I’ll use the adjective in this post.

My relationship to Batman as an intellectual property starts where a lot of people’s does: I was ten-years-old when Batman ’89 came out. My mom waited in line with me on opening night for several hours, so long in fact, that we ended up getting tickets to an 11pm showing. God bless mom for letting me stay up that late in a theater at that age. I memorized every word, and every beat of action. Needless to say, it was my favorite movie for the ensuing five-to-ten-years. That emotional connection that I had during my formative years has made it very difficult for me to view Batman ’89 through anything other than rose-colored nostalgia glasses.

I started reading Batman comics at that point, which led to me reading a great many more comics (DC and Marvel and Image and Valiant). So, I have Batman to thank for preparing me for the Geek Renaissance of the 21st century. But that’s a whole other topic. I also sought out Batman: The Movie from 1966, and the whole run of that TV show. Even as a kid, it seemed “too kiddie” for me and had nothing to do with the Batman I had seen in the theater and was reading about in my monthly comic pulls.

I loved Batman Returns when it came out, it’s still one of my favorite Christmas movies. I didn’t hate Batman Forever at first, but I was sixteen at the time, so it certainly made me wary. Batman & Robin was an absolute disaster, and nineteen-year-old me knew it almost immediately. Then there was a break in Batman movies. A seven-year break. In that time there were a handful of good comic book movies, and a bunch of bad ones. Then, Warner Brothers decided it was time to get back in the Big Screen Bat Business.

Batman Begins presented a much better origin story than Batman ’89 and, while it was much better than the Joel Schumacher films, 26-year-old me still had it neck-and-neck with the Tim Burton films. The Dark Knight came out three years later and – nostalgia glasses or not – I immediately knew this was the best Batman movie. The Dark Knight Rises came out the same year as Marvel’s The Avengers, and couldn’t measure up to the first two movies in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy or what Marvel Studios had been cooking up in their lead up to – and everything since – 2012.

In 2016 we got Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Even at 37 years-old I was super-psyched to finally see those two characters, not to mentioned Wonder Woman, share the big screen. When I heard it would feature Ben Affleck playing an older Batman, I got my hopes up that we would be playing the same Bruce Wayne/Batman from the Nolan trilogy. I was more-than-ready for a true unified DC Movie Universe. This ended up being the most disappointed I had ever been in a superhero movie due, in large part, to my sky high expectations. In hindsight, BvS was better than the Schumacher films, but not nearly as good as any of the Burton or Nolan films. And I say that as someone who also found The Dark Knight Rises to be something of a disappointment.

Justice League came the year after, in 2017, and was bad. The Justice League Snyder Cut premiered on HBO Max in 2021 was was slightly less bad than the theatrically released Whedon Cut. But this was around the time when we started getting real details on the new film: The Batman.

I’m 43 years-old this year, and I still get pumped when a new MCU Movie comes out as Marvel Studios has proven that they know how to deliver the goods (almost) every time. But, with The Batman, my first instinct was a bit more skeptical. After the Snyder films, I lost faith in DC/WB’s ability to make a good Batman movie. If I’m being honest, some of that doubt started creeping in back in 2012.

I also started feeling those Amazing Spider-Man vibes (2012 was sure a mixed bag when it came to comic book movies), as it seemed a little too soon to reboot the entire franchise. In 2007, Spider-Man 3 ended the Sam Raimi series on a very ambiguous note. But I was ready to see Peter Parker/Spider-Man finally be an adult superhero. At the time, I thought Andrew Garfield would be playing the same version of Spidey as Tobey Maguire had played. Much like with Batman V Superman, I was mistaken. Ever since Spider-Man No Way Home came out in December Andrew Garfield has finally gotten proper credit for playing a good Peter Parker/Spider-Man in a pair of otherwise not good movies. However, this precedent was not an encouraging one when applied to The Batman.

That being said, the details of the movie started to give me some hope. I don’t really have a history with Robert Pattinson. I watched Twilight once on TV about fifteen years ago and only saw him in a few other films (none Twilight-related) since then. So, he was an unknown to me. The rest of the cast looked solid with Zoe Kravitz, Jefferey Wright, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, John Turturro, and Andy Serkis rounding it out.

The last actor on that list led me to the biggest nugget of hope. Serkis had previously worked with Matt Reeves on two of the new Planet of the Apes movies. Those movies are awesome, and Serkis is awesome in them (even behind all that mo-cap). In addition to Dawn of the the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes Reeves had directed two other movies that I really liked: Cloverfield and Let Me In. When it was revealed that The Batman would take place in year two of the titular character’s caped crusade, I was relieves that at least we wouldn’t get a warmed over Batman Begins re-hash.

Still, I went into the theater with very level expectations. Not necessarily low, but also certainly not high. I found myself shocked by just how much I enjoyed The Batman. As with many others, I came out of the theater considering just how it stacked up against the previous iterations. Imagine my surprise when I found myself thinking that it was, pound-for-pound, the best Batman movie I had ever seen.

Spoiler Warning For The Batman

Here’s how I measured The Batman up against the previous movies.

Batman/Bruce Wayne – There’s not much of a difference between the two in The Batman, but that seems like it was purposefully done to show that he was still learning how to be “Bruce Wayne” in public. But Pattison’s Batman makes a strong case for my personal favorite.

I was a long time Michael Keaton guy, for reasons noted above. And I found Christian Bale’s portrayal riveting in its own way. But Pattinson’s Batman gets to be a character, even when wearing the mask. He actually talks to people, rather than just grunts and growls about how he is vengeance (though he does say that) or he is the night. Unlike in any previous films, this Batman is actually a detective. That being the case, he’s required to actually have conversations with James Gordon, Selina Kyle, and Alfred Pennyworth. This is really much more true to the comic book than any previous movie characterizations.

He also seems like the most human Batman. As much as he’s figuring out how to be “Bruce Wayne”, he’s also not yet perfected being “Batman” and we get to take that journey with him. He has some great moments with James Gordon, Selina Kyle, and Alfred. But he also comes across as an empathetic person, most notably with the wordless exchanges he has with the young son of The Riddler’s first murder victim. This brings us to the next two categories.

Allies – I’m talking about Gordon, Selina, and Alfred primarily here. Gary Oldman was a great James Gordon, but I felt that Jeffrey Wright tackled the role in a way that worked better for me. The spin he put on Gordon as a homicide detective so fed up with corruption and ineptitude that he embraces a masked vigilante whose name he doesn’t even know like his best friend and only reliable partner. Wright and Pattinson have a great interpersonal dynamic that has a sort of old fashioned buddy cop vibe.

I was introduced to Michelle Pfeiffer’s seductive, dangerous, and vaccuum-sealed-in-black-vinyl Catwoman when I was 13-years-old. Needless to say, she left an impression. The Jekyll-And-Hyde act was fun in Batman Returns, but Zoe Kravitz got to play a more fully-formed character. She steals to help her friend, but also to get back at her absentee mafiosa father (who killed her mother). Her chemistry with Pattinson, playing two wounded souls not really looking for a connection but finding one out of necessity, was a home run as well.

Andy Serkis’ Alfred had more in-common with Michael Caine’s exasperated version than Michael Gough’s grandfatherly figure. We never got to spend enough time with Jeremy Iron’s more sardonic interpretation for him to make much of a dent on the public consciousness. But Serkis got to have a better arc than any of those other Alfreds. This was helped by him being the caretaker of a big secret that Thomas and Martha Wayne had, and he felt obligated to protect Bruce from. But Serkis and Pattison have a scene where the revelation of this truth allows them to finally open up to one another, and admit the strong familial bond that was always there under the surface.

Enemies – Here we can talk about The Riddler, Carmine Falcone, The Penguin, and the slew of nameless thugs that get thrown at Batman.

The Riddler takes Bane’s crown (The Dark Knight Rises Bane, not the bloated oaf from Batman & Robin) as the scariest Batman movie villain. Heath Ledger’s Joker could have been in the running, but he had a sort of charismatic magnetism that made it hard to look away. Paul Dano’s Riddler is harder to watch, as he spastically attacks his victims while making Leatherface-style grunt and squeals. He’s not a guy you’d ever want to spend even two minutes with. Ledger’s Joker could probably talk you into hanging out just long enough for him to kill you, while you’d do everything in your power to avoid eye contact with this Riddler – in or out of his mask. He also has a connection to extremist QA’non types on his Dark Web channel, which means his henchmen the scariest to date as well. Riddler is presented in most scenes like a true horror movie villain, which is also a first for Batman movies.

John Turturro plays Falcone like the creepily charming friend-of-your-parents who only lets on what he wants you to know about him while hiding almost everything else behind a dark pair of sunglasses. He’s the lynchpin of the organized crime angle in The Batman, which is similar to The Dark Knight’s take. But it feels little more legitimate here, both in the way the characters are presented and the places they hang out – most notably The Iceberg Lounge feels like a place you’d stumble across in a back alley and be promptly beaten and chased off the premises by the doormen.

Penguin has only a few scenes, but Colin Farrell makes the most of them. He doesn’t steal the show, but he does justify his place in it. He’s got more flair than Falcone, and less psychosis than Riddler. In the end, he’s set-up as the natural next evolution of a Gotham City gangster.

The best place to discuss the slew of nameless thugs is actually in the next section.

Action Sequences – It took less than ten minutes for The Batman to prove that it would have better hand-to-hand combat fight scenes than any of its predecessors. By the end of the movie, it wasn’t even close. Not many fight scenes spring to mind when thinking about Batman movies. Maybe the Batman vs Catwoman flirt fight from Batman Returns? Or the first Batman vs Bane fight from The Dark Knight Rises? One of the only good scenes from Batman V Superman was the brief battle when Batman took out a warehouse full of bad guys to save Martha Kent, but even that was just one scene.

There are several scenes in The Batman where the caped crusader throws down with henchmen and thugs. Every one of them is better choreographed, and better shot than anything from the earlier films. It helps that this Bat-Costume is actually functional, so Batman can actually move the way someone would in a real fight.

Now, granted, there’s not really any spectacular action set piece. But, let’s be honest, a lot of the time those sorts of scenes end up hurting superhero movies more than helping them. The car chase is pretty bad ass, as is the Batmobile. At one point, Batman escapes from police custody by (reluctantly) leaping off the top of the tallest police station you’ll ever see after converting his suit into a glider. The great thing about this scene is that Batman can barely control his flight, and ends up wiping out in a very painful manner when he tried to stick the landing. His embarrassed, post-crash hobble off into a dark alley was the most relatable Batman has ever been.

Even the big finish works, because it feels like the sort of terrorist attack that could happen tomorrow. It involves using explosives to flood the street of Gotham City, forcing people to take shelter in Gotham Square Garden where Riddler’s cult has gathered in the rafters with high-powered assault rifles. Living in a country were mass shooting happen all too frequently made this hit a little too close to home. But I’d be lying if I said watching Batman beat the sh*t out of those guys didn’t feel damn good.

Bat-Tech – The Batman’s world is a grounded one, even by the standard set by Nolan’s trilogy. So, the tech that Batman uses is pretty basic (by Batman’s standards). His suit does seem like the most functional one, and he seems to have a full range of motion. Hell, he can even turn his head. Which explains the high collar, as it hides the flexible neck piece. The suit is armored, but more aesthetically pleasing than Christian Bale’s mishmash of plates.

The bat symbol itself isn’t quite as prevalent as Michael Keaton’s iconic yellow-and-black, but its more pronounced than most other versions. Also, despite rumors that Pattinson’s symbol was made by deconstructing the gun used to kill his parents, it’s actually a double-edged utility knife than comes in very handy a few times in the movie’s third act.

Pattinson’s suit does come with some other very cool amenities. There is a taser build into one of the gloves, and a Bat-Grapnel that pops out from his gauntlets whenever needed. There’s also the aforementioned ability of his cape to transform into a glider.

The Batmobile is a nasty, bat-out-of-hell muscle car. It’s got flashing lights, and growls like a monster in a dark cave before the attack. Not as sleek as Keaton’s, nor as tank-like as Bale’s or Affleck’s, but still a really sweet ride that is put to good use when chasing down The Penguin.

The last, and most high-tech, gadget is a pair of contact lenses that record everything Batman sees while wearing them. It’s a very clever device that explains how Batman can work on a case without having access to police files. I’m kind of surprised that no one thought to use something like them before, but they are the tool of a detective, and make all the sense in the world for the first real Batman-As-Detective movie.

Gotham City – More of a non-descript cityscape in the Nolan mold than Burton’s operatic, Expressionist wonderland, The Batman’s Gotham City was not especially memorable. The advantage it had over most previous versions, though, is that it feels more genuinely lived-in. We see the interiors of different buildings, and each is distinct in its own way. Being able to see the characters move and interact inside these locations does make one feel more immersed in the world.

This is more of a compliment for the cinematography than the setting itself, but the beginning of the movie sets a real shadow world vibe. In Batman’s voiceover, another new touch that made the movie feel more true to the comics, he admits that the city is too big for him to be everywhere. But a short montage of criminals staring with fear at dark corners, dark alleys, and dark stairwells emphasizes Batman’s other point that his the fear he instills comes from the fact that – even though he can’t be everywhere – no one knows where exactly he is either. In some ways, that’s almost as good as being everywhere at once.

End Spoilers For The Batman

I‘m going to wrap things up with my new personal ranking of Batman films. Take it or leave it, as I said in the beginning, these things are always subjective.
But here we go:

The Batman
The Dark Knight
Batman Returns
Batman Begins
Batman ’89
The Dark Knight Rises
Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice
Justice League: The Snyder Cut
Batman Forever
Batman: The Movie (1966)
Justice League: The Whedon Cut
Batman & Robin

Justice League: The Snyder (Un)Cut

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Like millions of other people, I watched Zack Snyder’s Justice League (to be referred to in this blog post as The Snyder Cut) over the weekend on HBO Max. And like almost everyone else who watched it, I’ve decided to post some thoughts.

I watched it over two nights, splitting it to about two hours each night. The chapters that it was broken up into didn’t really seem like especially natural break points, so I set my own viewing schedule, since I didn’t really have any desire to burn through four hours in one sitting. This felt like the right way to watch it to me, so my viewing experience was probably about as good as it was going to get.

I will be getting into spoilers, so consider this your warning.

Unlike Snyder, I’ll be cutting to the chase, and getting immediately into my main gripe with the movie. This thing is every minute of four hours long, and the Justice League never actually throws down with Darkseid himself. The closest they get is tossing Steppenwolf’s decapitated body through a portal to Apokalypse. At which point, Darkseid essentially grunts, shrugs, and walks away. I found this to be massively disappointing, and that sentiment was only compounded by the fact that the last time we see Darkseid, he’s gathering up his armada to invade Earth. So, we’re left with a cliffhanger of a movie that – as of the writing of this blog – there are absolutely no plans to make a sequel to.

This all begs the question of what the extra $70 million dollars, and two hours were even for? I have a hard time imagining Warner Bros agreeing to pour that amount of additional budget, and give Snyder that amount of runtime, back when this was intended to just be the first part of a trilogy. I’d figured that the extra budget, and the extra 90 – 120 minutes were given to Snyder to film some sort of completed version of his Justice League story. Sadly, I was mistaken. This really was always just going to be the mega-over-stuffed version of his first-of-three movies.

This is not a breezy four hours, I’m not even sure four hours could ever be described as “breezy” regardless of what you happen to be doing. It felt like an hour of it was filled up just with all the slow-motion shots, and the actor reactions shots that lasted twice as long as they should have. This is especially egregious in the first two hours, which may best be summed up by the fact that Batman and The Flash don’t even put their costumes on until a full two hours into the movie. Superman doesn’t show up until a half-hour later than that.

There was also some strange stuff that could have been dropped from the film without losing any effect. There is a scene where Martian Manhunter, posing as Martha Kent, visits Lois Lane and gives her the sort of familial pep talk that would make complete sense for Ma Kent to give Lois as they were both grieving the loss of Clark. Why Snyder decided it it ought to be J’onn J’onzz rather than actually Martha is fairly confounding. Are we to assume this means Martha never bothered to check in on Lois after Clark died? That seems very un-Martha-like. Martian Manhunter also shows up at the very end of the third part of the epilogue, thus making this earlier appearance redundant.

Willem Dafoe also shows up in a terrible wig, while Amber Heard shows up with a terrible faux British accent for scenes with Jason Momoa that don’t line-up with the Aquaman solo movie that came out two years ago. Dafoe’s wig was much better in the solo movie, and Heard wisely dropped the fake accent. Snyder also spend several scenes setting up a reason why S.T.A.R Labs would need to be evacuated when a giant Biohazard Warning flashes on every monitor in the building. It seems pretty self-evident that you ought to clear out of your high-tech super-science lab when you see there’s a biohazard warning, so laying that groundwork was completely unnecessary.

With all that said, this version is superior to The Whedon Cut in every way. And – I’ll even do you one better – despite everything that I wrote above, I rather enjoyed The Snyder Cut. For one thing, it’s a much more cohesive, and comprehensive (one could easily argue too comprehensive) story. Apart from my desire to see a true Darkseid vs Justice League Rumble, my expectations were pretty low, which I’m sure helped with my experience.

The Flash and Cyborg’s characters and stories are fleshed out a lot more in The Snyder Cut. In fact, my biggest surprise was that most of The Flash’s scenes were lifted almost directly from this for The Whedon Cut. My guess is that the suits at WB saw those scenes and decided they wanted the whole movie to be more like them. Meanwhile, Cyborg gets a full character arc, while also showing the audience all the things that he’s actually capable of. Not only with his cool robot-parts blaster stuff, but also in cyberspace and some sort of loosely-defined mechanical telepathy.

Steppenwolf is presented as more frighteningly bestial in The Snyder Cut, which really plays into his favor. He’s also given a motivation that is, at least, partially revealed. Apparently, he failed on some big mission that got him into the boss’s doghouse, and needs to conquer 50,000 planets to get himself back out of it. Despite my disappointment of no true Big Bad Battle, I was glad that Darkseid was actually in this movie. His presence does add an extra threat level that wasn’t really present in The Whedon Cut. The flashback to Darkseid’s first attempted invasion from thousands of years ago plays much the same as The Whedon Cut, except with Darkseid himself leading the charge. Again, having it be him rather than his leg-breaker Steppenwolf makes everything about the battle matter more.

Also, everything in The Snyder Cut is bigger, and more open then in The Whedon Cut. The battle over the Mother Box with the Amazons on Themyscira happens more in the wide-open spaces of the island. It also includes many more Amazons and Parademons, both of whom seriously boost the scale of the scene.

Big, establishing shots, and other wide shots are more prevalent in The Snyder Cut. There were several times where I had to shake my head at the amount of money the studio flushed down the toiler when they cut them from the initial theatrical release. All-in-all, it’s much less claustrophobic than The Whedon Cut. Which is a good thing, because one word you never want used to describe your massive, franchise, tent-pole film is “claustrophobic.”

The three part epilogue is one part wrap-up, one part set-up, and one part post-apocalyptic nonsense. The first part is shots of all the heroes doing their hero thing while an inspirational message that Dr. Silas Stone recorded for his son plays in the background. It was a nice little flourish with some much needed optimism after the grimdark of the proceeding 3+ hours.

The second part was a slightly different version of Deathstroke visiting a newly-escaped Lex Luthor on the latter’s yacht than we got in The Whedon Cut. The difference was that, instead of Luthor suggesting they make “a league of their own” he flat-out just tells Deathstroke that Batman is Bruce Wayne. I assume this was meant to set-up Ben Affleck’s long-since abandoned Batman solo film, and was therefore completely irrelevant.

The third part was another dream/premonition of Bruce Wayne’s that takes place in the “Knightmare” future from Batman V Superman, and that was also alluded to during Superman’s resurrection scene earlier in The Snyder Cut. By Snyder’s self-admission, it was not much more than an excuse to have Batman and the Joker share a scene together. But it’s a rather pointless scene, with eye-rolling dialogue that hints at a future that will likely never come to pass in the DC Movie Multiverse. Honestly, I felt he could have just stopped after the first part of the epilogue and left it at that.

Judging by the reception to – and apparent number eyeballs on – The Snyder Cut, I wouldn’t be completely shocked if they actually do let Zack Snyder make at least one more Justice League movie. They are starting to lean into the whole Multiverse idea, after all, so it wouldn’t have to alter the current direction of their shared continuity. But, going off of Snyder’s own description of what JL 2 and JL 3 would have looked liked, it’s probably too close to the story that was told across Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

In a nutshell, JL 2 would be Darkseid’s army invading and conquering Earth when Superman succumbs to the Anti-Life Equation after Lois Lane is killed. This would also result in the deaths of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, which were shown as part of Cyborg’s visions while bringing Superman back from the dead. And JL 3 would have been Cyborg sending the Flash back in-time to ensure that Batman sacrifices himself to save Lois, so Superman doesn’t lose the will to live, and leads the world, alongside also still-alive Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and Flash to victory against Darkseid. So, if there were to be more, it would need to be revised to better differentiate itself from Marvel Studios’ magnum opus. Which, after hearing some of Snyder’s other specific future plot points, is really for the best.

In the end, I guess I liked more of The Snyder Cut than I disliked. With that said, Snyder himself has again demonstrated that he doesn’t truly understand these superheroes enough to make a truly great movie with them. His Justice League Batman is eons better than his BvS version, and his Cyborg was pretty solid as well. But Patty Jenkins has a much better grasp of what people respond to about Wonder Woman. James Wan better tapped into the gonzo, fantasy adventure myth-building fun that made Aquaman finally work. And the brain trust at The CW have had better luck bringing out the traits, and stories that fans love about the Flash and Superman. Still, my opinion is that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is worth a watch. Even if that watch takes you three or four nights to complete.

I’ve updated my DC Multiverse Movies ranking list to add The Snyder Cut, and it lands right around the middle of the pack.. Whether that’s praise of this film, or a knock against the others, is the topic of a separate conversion.