Three stars for “The Batman”

Here are my reactions to finally watching the Matt Reeves Batman movie (2022).

1) Pattinson was good.

I didn’t expect him to be, because my main familiarity is from the Twilight stuff and even he hates that. He’s a decent actor and he put it to work here. I did feel like he was a little young, though. First time I’ve watched a lead Batman who was younger than me and that might be why.

2) I want that Batmobile.

Muscle Car with a Rocket Engine is an awesome version of the Batmobile.

3) Creepy serial killer Riddler was an interesting interpretation of that villain…

Certainly more palatable than the green suit and question marks, they didn’t force it, it just worked.

4)…until they made him a violent 4Channer.

Yeah, that whole bit where he was streaming and convincing other disaffected men to go on a shooting spree was too on-the-nose. If this were real life, the Riddler would turn out to be a fedposter.

5) Great score and ambience.

It certainly set the mood for grit and grunge, without feeling overly stylized or bogus. The photography was excellent and the fight scenes didn’t have a ton of cutting, like in other movies.

6) Plot was a little too convoluted when it all wrapped up.

I like that Detective Batman made some mistakes as he tried to untangle this tangled web. That said, it was all a little crazy when you get to the end and realize it was just the Riddler trying to goad a bunch of his bros into doing a mass shooting (why?)

7) Don’t drop F-bombs in a Batman movie.

I hated that they did this in a Transformers movie in 2014. Do not keep pushing this envelope.

8) Don’t make a Batman movie that’s as long as a LOTR movie but slower than a Hobbit movie.

This movie is inexcusably three hours long.

9) A few too many current-dayisms snuck in.

They of course had to have Bisexual Catwoman get in a line about priveleged white guys, which never became an issue elsewhere in the story. It just served to signal to the kind of people who don’t actually go to superhero movies. “Oh look we hate wypipo too!” Stop it.

Stunning and Brave Flawless Mayor Candidate was kind of a nag. “Hey Bruce, why aren’t you doing anything like your parents did??!” How about you shut up.

Anyway, overall it was good. Above Batfleck in terms of the performance and stuff, but Nolan is still king of the mountain.