The Batman (June 25, 2021)

[DeChino]

i agree the film seems to have a more realistic setting like the nolan movies. but it’s much more (and even beyond) the dark gothic tone batman begins set and then TDK threw out for the most part. i’d say it’s a really good blend of noir/dark/gloomy batman and BB.

 

[matticus]

Well, if Reeves is already aping all the popular modern noir thrilles in the first, then I guess he'd have to move on to B-List Michael Shannon crime dramas next... I don't know, I guess I'm just dissapointed he wants to do Nolan: Grit Harder rather than something new. Anyone can do watered down Fincher with a Bat coat of paint. The real challenge would be to go full-on fantasy and keep it noir and horror-esque.

There is a Marvel Batman movie out there, it just hasn't been done. Snyder has been the closest but he swung and missed. Some animation and Arkham might've been the best possible interpretations. Killer Croc, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Bane all have some physical fantastical element that people will buy when done right. It can be fun, exciting and serious like most if not all of Marvel can and have been. Lots of sad Batman here lately instead of a more mission oriented Batman that just is in the mission and achieves the goal.

 

[Victοr]

i agree the film seems to have a more realistic setting like the nolan movies. but it’s much more (and even beyond) the dark gothic tone batman begins set and then TDK threw out for the most part. i’d say it’s a really good blend of noir/dark/gloomy batman and BB.

I won't disagree there. Nolan dropped all fantastical elements while Reeves seems to be retaining at least a stylistic element. I'm just dissapointed he seems to be going in a similar direction, you know?

There is a Marvel Batman movie out there, it just hasn't been done. Snyder has been the closest but he swung and missed. Some animation and Arkham might've been the best possible interpretations. Killer Croc, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Bane all have some physical fantastical element that people will buy when done right. It can be fun, exciting and serious like most if not all of Marvel can and have been. Lots of sad Batman here lately instead of a more mission oriented Batman that just is in the mission and achieves the goal.

I don't know if I'd want a "Marvel Batman". I'm not exactly clamoring for him to be Brave And The Bold or anything. But if you're going to do grim n' gritty, do it the Morrison way where it meets the extremely fantastical while still being edgecore. Latter Snyder (Scott, not Zack) is bad edgecore, Morrison is fun edgecore. It's the line between the two that makes or breaks something.

 

[matticus]

I won't disagree there. Nolan dropped all fantastical elements while Reeves seems to be retaining at least a stylistic element. I'm just dissapointed he seems to be going in a similar direction, you know?


I don't know if I'd want a "Marvel Batman". I'm not exactly clamoring for him to be Brave And The Bold or anything. But if you're going to do grim n' gritty, do it the Morrison way where it meets the extremely fantastical while still being edgecore. Latter Snyder (Scott, not Zack) is bad edgecore, Morrison is fun edgecore. It's the line between the two that makes or breaks something.

Didn't read Morrison Batman. Scott was fun and very ready while having an odd sensibility about it.

 

[DeChino]

There is a Marvel Batman movie out there, it just hasn't been done. Snyder has been the closest but he swung and missed. Some animation and Arkham might've been the best possible interpretations. Killer Croc, Clayface, Mr. Freeze, Bane all have some physical fantastical element that people will buy when done right. It can be fun, exciting and serious like most if not all of Marvel can and have been. Lots of sad Batman here lately instead of a more mission oriented Batman that just is in the mission and achieves the goal.

the marvel batman flick has been done, it’s joss whedon’s Justice League. I don’t blame ya for missing it.

 

[Victοr]

Didn't read Morrison Batman. Scott was fun and very ready while having an odd sensibility about it.

 

[Mondragon]

I don't know if I'd want a "Marvel Batman". I'm not exactly clamoring for him to be Brave And The Bold or anything. But if you're going to do grim n' gritty, do it the Morrison way where it meets the extremely fantastical while still being edgecore. Latter Snyder (Scott, not Zack) is bad edgecore, Morrison is fun edgecore. It's the line between the two that makes or breaks something.

Morrison's Hugo Strange arc would work.

Damn, I guess they're gonna go harder on the "muh realism" approach. Literally why? Is aping already established crime thrillers and adding watered down capes on top all that attractive? For God's sake, you've got this huge playground, use it. I can't believe we're getting NolanBats: Revised DLC Edition for real once again. Meanwhile Doctor Strange's fighting extradimensional gods alongside Tom Cruise and Professor X... I was on board with a gritty Battinson provided it paved the way to more horror/gothic/noir stories with clear fantastical elements. I like Fincher, I'll like Fincher-aped Batman too, but I was hoping this time they'd try something new... I'm still looking forward to the flick, but the director being such a cliche is disheartening. I mean, what the Hell is "grounded" about Freeze? The ******* freeze gun or the magic cryogenesis? Freeze is literally Sci-Fi, so unless it's some lame "deranged wacko kills people and keeps them iced to slice them up later" then it's still fantastical; it's just dressed up in a cowardly facade of "ugh, me mature, me no go full way, look it's all just scienzxce". Batman himself is absolutely unrealistic, but I suppose as long as you pretend hard enough you can believe anything.


Just rip off the Arkhamverse, Christ, it's not that hard... I'm still looking forward to the film, but, come on...

Or it's just going to be a schizo whose wife got sick, he fridged her body and is going around abducting people and fridging them, in his crazy plot to revive her. The twist would be that he didn't cryogenically freeze her, she straight up died and he just went nuts. I wouldn't expect anything more imaginative.

Reminds me of the The Iceman movie with Shannon and Evans. Evans was "Mr.Freezy" going around in an ice cream truck and froze bodies to cut them up so blood wouldn't get everywhere. Based on a true story like our Zodiac killer. I could see Freeze doing that but experimenting on unwilling participants to find a cure for his wife. Not sure about an Ice Cream truck, but maybe a Buffalo Bill in an unmarked van kind of abductor.

New Mr. Freeze, he just jumps in and keeps the truck at the end...(fyi not knocking this, it's bizarre suspense at it's John Carpenter best , just how they'll repurpose it for today's unknowing Batman audience )

 

[matticus]

Oh forgot I read Batman R.I.P. The Batman and Robin cover art I was meh on so I passed.

 

[Victοr]

Morrison's Hugo Strange arc would work.






New Mr. Freeze, he just jumps in and keeps the truck at the end...(fyi not knocking this, it's bizarre suspense at it's John Carpenter best , just how they'll repurpose it for today's unknowing Batman audience )

Except we wouldn't see him shoot the girl. We'd get a shot of him raising his gun and then a cut. In his schizo mind he froze her with his Freeze Gun, but in the final tweeeeeest we'd see that he just shot and killed her, amongst others, and is just keeping their PG-13 opened-up corpses in his freezer and his wife is just a frozen corpse as well. Expectations subverted!

Oh forgot I read Batman R.I.P. The Batman and Robin cover art I was meh on so I passed.

 

[matticus]

Except we wouldn't see him shoot the girl. We'd get a shot of him raising his gun and then a cut. In his schizo mind he froze her with his Freeze Gun, but in the final tweeeeeest we'd see that he just shot and killed her, amongst others, and is just keeping their PG-13 opened-up corpses in his freezer and his wife is just a frozen corpse as well. Expectations subverted!

Morrison is Lex Luthor confirmed. I can believe he has murdered many people.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Mr Freeze was my favorite Bat-villain as a child, and I'm still drawn to his cold nature. But he is a villain of fantasy.

To make him Nolan-real, he'd be a man in an environment suit -- Bubble Boy, if that ref isn't too old -- and hardly a strong physical fighter without some sort of Terminator tech-suit.

I'd believe some sort of unique wet-suit type rig to keep him "cold" but the constant use of "freeze tech" would likely run thin on believability and functional effectiveness.

The idea of a serial killer who stores bodies in the freezer is just too... Dalmer... and not in the spirit of Batman to me. 'Zodiac' style riddles is about as far as I'd go with the 'serial killer' vibe.

Certain villains are not good for live-action translation. Clayface, Sandman, Manbat, things like this are just... comic book stuff for a younger mind. Then there's awkward middle ground characters that are somewhat fantastical and need a more fantasy-based world to truly exist in the way they were meant to. For me, this includes Mr. Freeze and Bane. We've seen what Bane looks like when made to feel "real"... I think Freeze might suffer the same fate.

 

[ironwez20]

I agree with dark. I’m getting tired of realism in Batman. Sure it’s nice but Batman isn’t just realistic. He lives in a very fantastical world full of monsters and crazy things happening. The Nolan films were gritty at first but by tdkr they strayed to far into being real and it got boring .

i want to see the monster type villains and more crazy elements portrayed. Not everything needs to be dumbed down for the audience to explain . Just keep it dark and stop trying to be realistic. It got stale by the dark knight rises.

 

[Wor-Gar]

It is one of the things I'm curious about with this new film -- did they bring back a certain degree of "dark fantasy" in the design? It looks like a good mix but who knows until we see it. And even then, what seems like a good mix at first might not travel well or hold up over time.

I have a feeling it is still too grounded based on the simple Soprano-style Penguin and Catwoman mask... but I suppose that's the trade off for a really interesting new take on Riddler.

 

[Victοr]

Morrison is Lex Luthor confirmed. I can believe he has murdered many people.

Uhm, excuse me sweety, Morrison now identifies as "them" so they couldn't be a cishet man like Luthor. The man's completely fried his brain, all jokes aside. He believes he's ******* an R63 version of himself that he summoned with Chaos Sex Magick...

Mr Freeze was my favorite Bat-villain as a child, and I'm still drawn to his cold nature. But he is a villain of fantasy.

To make him Nolan-real, he'd be a man in an environment suit -- Bubble Boy, if that ref isn't too old -- and hardly a strong physical fighter without some sort of Terminator tech-suit.

I'd believe some sort of unique wet-suit type rig to keep him "cold" but the constant use of "freeze tech" would likely run thin on believability and functional effectiveness.

The idea of a serial killer who stores bodies in the freezer is just too... Dalmer... and not in the spirit of Batman to me. 'Zodiac' style riddles is about as far as I'd go with the 'serial killer' vibe.

Certain villains are not good for live-action translation. Clayface, Sandman, Manbat, things like this are just... comic book stuff for a younger mind. Then there's awkward middle ground characters that are somewhat fantastical and need a more fantasy-based world to truly exist in the way they were meant to. For me, this includes Mr. Freeze and Bane. We've seen what Bane looks like when made to feel "real"... I think Freeze might suffer the same fate.

Great post.

Myself I was a... Bane guy, I think? I like the Mastermind/Brains & Brawn characters in general. I liked Ras, Freeze and Riddler too. Joker as well, but to a lesser degree. I liked them all as a group, but none of them were ever amongst my favourites ever. But honestly as time went on I've grown tired of the Bat-Rogues. Too gimmicky. Maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction to them being wanked over all the time as great pieces of literature instead of just fun pop culture villains. I'm more of an X-Villain guy. Might be because I'm more of a Marvel man in general. But I'd take Sinestro over any Batschmuck any day.

I agree with dark. I’m getting tired of realism in Batman. Sure it’s nice but Batman isn’t just realistic. He lives in a very fantastical world full of monsters and crazy things happening. The Nolan films were gritty at first but by tdkr they strayed to far into being real and it got boring .

i want to see the monster type villains and more crazy elements portrayed. Not everything needs to be dumbed down for the audience to explain . Just keep it dark and stop trying to be realistic. It got stale by the dark knight rises.

Exactly. I don't want Batman fighting colourful aliens, but I want to see far-out horror and fantastical elements when they fit the genre and character.

 

[DeChino]

I agree with dark. I’m getting tired of realism in Batman. Sure it’s nice but Batman isn’t just realistic. He lives in a very fantastical world full of monsters and crazy things happening. The Nolan films were gritty at first but by tdkr they strayed to far into being real and it got boring .

i want to see the monster type villains and more crazy elements portrayed. Not everything needs to be dumbed down for the audience to explain . Just keep it dark and stop trying to be realistic. It got stale by the dark knight rises.

i got my fill of that in BvS, and funny enough it wasn’t that good and i wanted more warehouse then big poop monster guy.

 

[Victοr]

i got my fill of that in BvS, and funny enough it wasn’t that good and i wanted more warehouse then big poop monster guy.

There's a difference between superstrong alien monstrocity and just doing something like Man-Bat or Mr. Freeze the way they are in the comics. Batman's inherently unrealistic, this obsession with making him "grounded" while still making a Batman movie is juvenile and hypocritical. If they want pure realism and maximum grittiness, then they should resurrect Aronofsky's script.

 

[ironwez20]

i got my fill of that in BvS, and funny enough it wasn’t that good and i wanted more warehouse then big poop monster guy.

We’ll see the thing is.. it wasn’t done right and was complete crap. With better writing and a good director and direction it could be amazing . Bvs was a bloated mess.

 

[ironwez20]

There's a difference between superstrong alien monstrocity and just doing something like Man-Bat or Mr. Freeze the way they are in the comics. Batman's inherently unrealistic, this obsession with making him "grounded" while still making a Batman movie is juvenile and hypocritical. If they want pure realism and maximum grittiness, then they should resurrect Aronofsky's script.

This right here. Big difference. I don’t want to see Batman fighting some ninja turtle doomsday. I want to see him fight clayface or man bat or hell even Solomon Grundy. In the right hands it can work .

 

[matticus]

It is one of the things I'm curious about with this new film -- did they bring back a certain degree of "dark fantasy" in the design? It looks like a good mix but who knows until we see it. And even then, what seems like a good mix at first might not travel well or hold up over time.

I have a feeling it is still too grounded based on the simple Soprano-style Penguin and Catwoman mask... but I suppose that's the trade off for a really interesting new take on Riddler.

It feels Nolan grounded - way more stylized with more emphasis on youthful angst. You could argue this Riddler is the same as Joker, just leaving more complex clues for Batman. I seem to like the action more from what I have seen in the trailer. Less elbows and more intensity.

 

[DeChino]

We’ll see the thing is.. it wasn’t done right and was complete crap. With better writing and a good director and direction it could be amazing . Bvs was a bloated mess.

if they could somehow make transfer the BTAS vibe to live action, that would be the perfect batman movie.