Saw this the other night, first thing i noticed watching was the lens when it got blurry toward the edge, it drew me in to the focus of the center. That and the color grading was on point

Rewatching and my goodness this thing is beautifully shot. Absolutely does not feel like a "superhero" movie.

Least crappy DC movie?
It was actually not bad, maybe solid.

YouBet said:

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I didn't read entire thread but I guess I'm going to be the contrarian here. I liked a lot of the elements of this film people have mentioned: score, casting, cinematography.

However, I didn't like the overall product. I thought it was boring and meh. Maybe I'm overdosed on Batman at this point. Not sure. Im also not watching a movie like this in my usual environment so maybe I was subtly distracted.

Bold take, I know. Will watch again though.

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not bold at all, lots of people including myself said so on opening night and beyond. It was like a giant ski slalom for me. Loved the beginning, was still enjoying the rush at the middle, and then just wanted to get off at the end. Would have liked to have seen the movie in right after Riddler kills Turturro and let Batman realize he's been led around by the nose the whole time and is 100% responsible for Turtutto getting killed.

Dark ending for a dark film.

I just finished it on HBO. For the most part, I thought it was very good. I loved the first half. Very much Seven meets Batman. Finally took the detective side of Batman seriously. That said, it definitely started to drag, and by the the time the flood broke into the Super Dome, I was very much ready for the movie to be over.

I thought Pattinson was really good as Batman, but terrible as Bruce Wayne. The Emo look was awful. Also, he did not seem to move well in the suit. There were to many slow walking Batman scenes. I got the feeling that the suit was very hard to move in, and they tried to mask that by having him do slow dramatic walks.

Other than that, I thought the cast was good, acting was good, cinematography was good. They probably could have cut about 45 minutes at the end, and they could have cut Pattinson's bangs. I think I'd say 4 out 5 stars for me.

TCTTS said:

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AustinAg2K said:

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I just finished it on HBO. For the most part, I thought it was very good. I loved the first half. Very much Seven meets Batman. Finally took the detective side of Batman seriously. That said, it definitely started to drag, and by the the time the flood broke into the Super Dome, I was very much ready for the movie to be over.

I thought Pattinson was really good as Batman, but terrible as Bruce Wayne. The Emo look was awful. Also, he did not seem to move well in the suit. There were to many slow walking Batman scenes. I got the feeling that the suit was very hard to move in, and they tried to mask that by having him do slow dramatic walks.

Other than that, I thought the cast was good, acting was good, cinematography was good. They probably could have cut about 45 minutes at the end, and they could have cut Pattinson's bangs. I think I'd say 4 out 5 stars for me.

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Man, I had the exact opposite reaction. I loved the way he moved in the suit, especially when all he was doing was walking. It was so intentional and intimidating. He almost didn't feel human, which was exactly the point. Combined with his sparse language and especially the way Pattinson used his eyes, his Batman had my favorite screen presence of any Batman yet. That, and Pattinson has commented in interviews how easy it was to move in the suit, compared to what he had anticipated, so every bit of it was calculated and had a purpose to it.

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At first I thought it was him trying to be intimidating, but I think maybe they went to the well too many times and that's why I'm wondering if the suit was hard to move in. There were scenes where it was just him and Catwoman or him and Gordon, and he was slow walking. His walk started to just look unnatural to me.

Bruce Almighty said:

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The most beautiful and most boring Batman movie ever made. It reminded me of movies like Blade Runner where I enjoy looking at it more than actually watching it, if that makes sense. I'm not sure what to think because I felt like it was well made, yet I really have no desire to ever see it again.

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This is a good analogy upon further reflection a few nights away from it. Actually did a rewatch of Bladerunner a couple of years ago because my wife had never seen it. I was very excited about it. And then while watching I realized i wasn't enjoying the movie all that much even though it was great to look at. She did not like it all.

Again, that doesn't take away from several things i liked about Batman. Just felt like the total show never achieved the sum of its parts. I am going to give it a rewatch soon though in my home theater. I didn't quite get the proper experience where I watched it. So, my mind could change.

I keep rewatching the intro from "October 31st" to "I'm Vengeance". So great.

I finally noticed that on my latest rewatch. It's so subtle, but yeah, what a great touch.

I also loved him needing sunglasses in Wayne Manor. Squinting at the light coming in the windows.

Yeah, a critical thing to realize is that this is Batman year two, he hasn't necessarily figured out his double life yet. Bruce Wayne will eventually become a character he puts on to achieve his needed goals, but he's not there yet.

Thought it was aight. I imagine I'll echo a lot of the dissention in the previous 15 pages, which I didn't read.

Pros: cast, cinematography, world-building

Cons: unnecessary length, not particularly entertaining, Joker tease, some weird/clumsy moments


I said it before the movie and I still feel the same way now - I don't like a bulletproof Batman. He takes more bullets in each fight than Luke Cage. He also gets hit a lot. It's more "realistic" but doesn't really feel like the Arkham or animated Batman I grew up watching.

My wife said "I didn't care about any of the characters" and that feels fair. Consider how likeable Alfred and Gordon were in Batman Begins. I feel like I was really pulling for them if they were in danger. I love Jeffrey Wright and Andy Serkis but it's not really the same. It's almost like the mood is so dour that you don't have much motivation to cheer for anyone.

Lastly, a few moments that were weird to me. My wife chuckled at the little flying Batman scene. Said he looked like a flying squirrel. I thought it was weird that he bonked himself and fell clumsily - that felt like a Marvel-esque comic relief moment. We also did a "what?" when he was too tired to get up, then adrenalined himself and beat the tar out of a sniper there at the end. That felt weird and unnecessary.

I'd put it as the #3 Batman movie, but I don't think much of DKR or the Keaton Batmans.

Edit: this article may have already been shared but I thought it was pretty good. https://www.ign.com/articles/how-the-batmans-final-act-betrays-its-ambitions Also I could not possibly care less about seeing Joker again already.

Re: Joker

Reeves has said that the Joker scene wasn't meant to be a tease for him to be a villain in the next movie. Joker was actually supposed to be in a scene earlier in the movie, but it was removed (you can watch it in the extras in the deleted scenes). It was there to show that Batman has already faced Joker and to serve as a world building moment. Reeves also said he hasn't decided who the villain would be in the sequel.

I want to clarify a few of my points - though as always I want to say that my goal isn't for anyone to enjoy a movie less.

1) Good that Reeves said that wasn't a tease of what's to come... but he's dumb if he thinks people would see that as anything other than a tease. You can't do a secret casting of the most beloved comic book villain in history in the final 10 minutes of a movie and say "it's just world-building!" - that's what newspaper clips and easter eggs are for.

2) The flying squirrel scene makes sense thematically (it's his first time doing it, etc.) but the execution of that idea is still what bothered me. He bonked off of things in a "surely that would kill him" way like it was the Iron Man test scene. I guess you can't complain that it's too dour and that it tried to add humor but it was tonally jarring to me, given its commitment to realism up to that point.

3) I'm not saying that Bats got arbitrarily tired down the stretch (getting shot 800 times will do that to you) but that that final sequence itself felt pretty arbitrary. He's hanging from the ledge but of course Catwoman saves him. A little generic, but it's fine. But oh no, is Catwoman going to die? He's too tired to get up. Here's some previously-unmentioned green juice that he injected and now he beat the guy - but oh no, is he going to beat the guy to death? (No, of course not.)

As far as climactic sequences go, that part felt clumsy. The "saved just in time" trope is generic but fine, but the unteased mystery vial and then, I guess, roid rage freak out moment all seemed from left field. Surely you can write a better scene than that.


Again - these are all minor points, and individually they didn't really affect my enjoyment. Collectively they're almost like dips in quality that appear here and there, like bad dialogue in an otherwise solid drama. Almost like cheesy bits that remind you it's still a comic book movie. Question mark in the coffee cup is another one - good for a trailer, kinda lame in the moment.

I have bigger beefs with the way it's revealed that Thomas Wayne killed a dude and Maroni had him killed, and then one scene later it's "nah it was Falcone, don't even worry about it." And if you watch at home and have to pause for any reason at all, you become painfully aware that at that point in the movie there's still a full hour left. Or how they catch the Riddler and there's kind of no narrative momentum, let's wrap this up - but the previously unmentioned sea levels are now blowed up so it's time for 30 more minutes of action.

Maybe it'll flow better if I watch it again, knowing where it's all going and how long it's going to take, but the final hour still had several missteps IMO.

Overall I liked it. It struggled a little bit from feeling like the movie was over and then all the sudden we're off on another quest. First reaction was that they got to the end of the script and realized that the stakes were a few corrupt politicians and one anonymous Russian chick that we never actually see, so they jammed in the levee "quest for fame" bit.

Great looking movie.

Loved seeing Batman the detective. On the other hand, while I get that he's sad and messed up, his sense of purpose and deep competencies clash with the stereotype of an emo loser that is so powerfully depicted by a pale, withdrawn dude wearing streaky black eyeshadow and long black bangs hanging over his eyes. It's a clash that almost begs to be clinically diagnosed as DPD or something that can't be solved with some introspection and a kick in the shorts.

stop being so insightful or whatever.