by George Wolf and Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
The question is plenty familiar.
"Who are you?"
But the answer isn't the one we're expecting, and it's an early declaration that there's a new cape in town.
"I am...vengeance."
Talk about your dark knights. Director/co-writer Matt Reeves and star Robert Pattinson make Mr. Nolan feel like Mister Rogers in comparison. Anyone looking for the recent superhero giddiness of No Way Home will find none, while comic purists may finally discover the treatment they've been clamoring for all along.
For the rest of us, The Batman delivers a defiant, somewhat overstuffed vision, one that embraces darkness of theme and palette while crafting several truly dazzling visual set pieces.
Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In, Dawn of and War for the Planet of the Apes) wisely skips the backstory intro, giving us Bruce Wayne (Pattinson) some two years into his "Gotham Project." Alfred (Andy Serkis) worries about the family finances, while Master Wayne is only interested in feeding his vigilante alter ego.
But while Bruce is watching the city, the mysterious Riddler (Paul Dano, taking the legendarily comic villain in a terrifying new direction) is watching The Batman, leaving personalized messages with each new assassination.
His puzzles draw Batman, Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and a resourceful waitress with hidden talents of her own (Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle) deep into the Gotham organized crime scene run by Carmine Falcone (John Tutturo ) and Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot (Colin Farrell under some astounding makeup). There is no shortage of characters at play, and Reeves struggles to justify all of them in one film.
At stake are long-held secrets about Gotham that the Riddler wants "brought into the light," some of which will challenge what you think you know about the birth of the Bat. And that seems only appropriate for a film that challenges expectations of its genre with a narrative more reminiscent of Seven than anything we've seen from DC or Marvel.
So dark, and so rainy.
Pattinson's Emo Batman works well within the structure and aesthetic Reeves develops. He carves out a very different crusader, one more introspective and heartbroken than righteous. This Bruce Wayne views the bat signal as both a call and a warning, and Pattinson is able to effectively keep the tortured soul's head above self-pitying water.
Dano's exceptional, Farrell's fun, and Kravitz develops an intriguing antihero of her own. People talk about Joker's lineage, but Catwoman is another iconic villain. Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway have all left their mark, but Kravitz sidesteps broad stroke villainy in favor of something nuanced and human.
But ultimately, what makes this film most interesting is the way Bruce Wayne struggles to justify the consequences that The Batman has had on Gotham, and the surprising side of hero worship. Where is the line separating savior and sinner? And who gets to draw it?
Reeves isn't the first to pull Batman into these relevant questions, but he raises them with a commitment fierce enough to generate excitement for yet another trilogy. And though there's no surprise waiting after the credits here, keep an eye out for a villain to be named later.
THE BATMAN – Main Trailer - YouTube
by Hope Madden and George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Not a ton of surprises in this year’s Oscar nominations. Maybe we’re lucky there were so many good films to choose from, given the brief nominating window this year. Because of Covid, last year’s contenders had 14 months to find a release. To make up for that and get us back on track, the eligibility window for 2021 was just 10 months.
Still, the academy decided to go ahead and abandon their unpopular “there could be 10 best picture nominations, but probably not) to the more easily understandable “yep, 10.” And yet, still no blockbusters made the list.
But the really important question is this: what do we think?
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: The biggest surprise is Caitriona Balfe, who was the front runner (and reasonably so) to get recognized in this category for Belfast. We’d have swapped Balfe in and left Dench off. But for us, Ruth Negga’s turn in Passing is just as big an oversight and as much as we loved Buckley in The Lost Daughter, we’d have given her spot to Negga.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: Pretty solid list here, but we might leave out Simmons and Hinds in favor of Mike Faist in West Side Story, Colman Domingo in Zola or Ben Affleck in The Last Duel.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: For us, this is the year Jonny Greenwood should have been nominated twice (maybe three times!). Great to see his deserving nod for The Power of the Dog, but we’d have bumped him in there for Spencer as well, perhaps in leu of Nicholas Britell’s work in Don’t Look Up.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: We were surprised not to see Tony Kushner’s update of West Side Story get noticed, and we were sad that Rebecca Hall’s insightful reimagining of Ella Larson’s novel Passing was left off the list. Joel Coen’s streamlined The Tragedy of Macbeth also deserved a spot. We would have given them the spots filled by Dune and CODA and maybe The Lost Daughter.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: We were surprised—delighted, really—to see The Worst Person in the World and Don’t Look Up recognized. We would have left King Richard off in favor of Michael Sarnoski’s Pig or Mike Mills’s C’mon C’mon, but that’s just us.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: Oh, how we wanted Ariana Grande’s Just Look Up to make this list! Man that would have been fun to hear during the broadcast. We’d have given it Reba’s spot with Somehow You Do.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: This had to have been the toughest category. There were so many unbelievable feats of cinematography this year. Belfast and Passing were both utterly glorious, but even we are not sure who we’d bump to fit them in.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: Here is the other stacked category for 2022. The fact that three of these films —Worst Person in the World, Flee and Drive My Car—are all nominated in other categories makes predicting a winner here very tough. But the surprise has to be Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. Since we haven’t seen it, we wouldn’t suggest that it is not deserving. The surprise is that Parallel Mothers from Pedro Almodovar is missing.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: Really surprised not the see The Rescue here, probably in place of Writing With Fire.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: It would've been great to see Crytozoo, The Summit of the Gods or even Vivo sneak in, but this list will do.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: No surprises here. We would have given Smith’s spot to Nicolas Cage for his crushing performance in Pig.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: When Caitriona Balfe did not get a supporting actress nomination, we figured the Academy has deemed her role the lead. When she didn’t get a spot here—which we’d have given her over Kidman—we were saddened. But at least KStew made it. We were worried.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: There are always reasons to complain, especially in this category. We have chosen not to this year. Well done.
Nominees:
Surprises and Snubs: They went the full 10, even in a year with fewer candidates, and still, not one moneymaker? No Spider-Man: No Way Home. No No Time to Die. More importantly, though, where is The Tragedy of Macbeth? That’s the one we’d have made room for, probably in place of Dune or King Richard.
See who takes home the hardware on Sunday, March 27 at the 94th Academy Awards on ABC and Hulu.
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