Director: Matt Reeves
Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Duration: 176 minutes
The Batman (4K UHD) – Movie Review
The most recent Batman was played by Ben Affleck, who sadly never got his own Batman film. He had to share his first official outing as the Dark Knight with the Man of Steel himself. Many found Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice a bit too slow and boring, but even so, the movie did have impressive cast members portraying the new rendition of DC characters. Sadly, the new DC cinematic universe started to crumble soon after with two different versions of Justice League and the current issues revolving around The Flash’s Ezra Miller and Aquaman’s Amber Heard. Now, Robert Pattinson steps away from twinkling in the sunlight to battle villains in the night. We can easily say that we wholeheartedly enjoyed every minute of Pattinson’s outing in the batsuit.
The Batman tells us the story of a new murderer in Gotham City who keeps targeting high-profile figures in the city. The so-called Riddler (Paul Dano) murders those in a position of power who claim to fight for the good of all inhabitants of the city. After he has taken a life, he also immediately exposes his victims for who they truly are. The Riddler has a warped sense of justice and thinks he is ridding the city of evil. In comes Batman (Robbert Pattinson), who has struck an alliance with Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). Now, Gordon is inviting Batman to come and investigate the different crime scenes with him. While Batman may be adept at fighting villains, he will also need to make a few appearances as Bruce Wayne to solve this crime as well.
Even though the movie has a run time of almost three hours, the flow and pacing feel spot-on. Throughout the film, you’ll get enough information about the characters and what is going on, as well as enough action to make things exciting. The movie doesn’t have any useless scenes and we did appreciate the inclusion of so many characters from the Batman universe. The film goes back to its origins from the original Detective Comics, and thus this film is more a crime movie than it is solely about the caped crusader. The Batman also doesn’t do yet another take on the origin story of Batman, and instead, you’ll see Bruce Wayne already donning the cape and cowl for some time in this story. Even so, you won’t miss a single bit of information, and details you may have missed from the lack of an origin story are still handled or mentioned throughout the film.
Acting performances in the film are of phenomenal quality. The casting was superbly handled, and all characters suit the atmosphere of this standalone Batman story. The news that Robert Pattinson would be the ‘next’ Batman raised a lot of eyebrows, but he absolutely nailed his performance as the caped crusader. Other leading roles were handled by Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, John Turturro, and a few more. Many of these actors were given the task of portraying well-known characters, albeit very differently than we have seen them in past movies or series, and they absolutely hit the ball out of the park. Some characters perhaps didn’t get the screen time they deserved, or they may have not been fleshed out as much as they could, but all in all, there is not a poorly acted scene in sight.
The 4K UHD version of The Batman comes with an impressive number of special features. You’ll get over two hours of additional content when purchasing this physical version, and this immediately increases the value of the product. Pretty much all the content on the bonus disc revolves around how the movie was made. You’ll get general information and thoughts from the director and cast members, but you’ll also see how certain scenes were crafted, how makeup was done, and so on. We very much enjoyed going through all the extras, and this almost doubled the viewing pleasure.
Conclusion
The Batman is a great new story that revolves around the Dark Knight. Even though we have seen many different renditions of nearly the same story, this one does a great job at presenting the viewer with a unique take on Gotham City, as well as the many dark and shady figures that dwell in it. Many may be deterred by the long duration of this film, but we can easily state that this movie has no useless scenes and it will actually feel a lot shorter. If you’re a fan of DC movies, this film might be one of the best ones out there.
The Batman (4K UHD) - Movie Review,
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