Hatebox

It's not an unfair criticism. Buying into Gordon's absolute trust in batman, and his willngness to alienate his colleagues in the process, relies on prior knowledge of their relationship in the comics/previous films. Without that it would seem insane and the script barely addresses it.

I thought Pattinson was fine and I liked the Gotham he was put in, along with the general vibe. What I'd worry about for future films is that Reeves shit the bed on all the non-Batman characters. His Selina: boring Riddler: boring Arkham patient who shall not be named: boring Alfred: boring Falcone: boring Penguin: actually good, but in a better ensemble wouldn't have stood out *that* much It just makes it hard to get excited for sequels when it feels everyone's going to be lumbered with backstory info dumps that aren't even interesting in the first place. As a viewer I don't feel like I'm in great hands on that front - I should be anticipating what happens next in the series but I'm not because I've already been burnt by this style of storytelling. (As an aside: I watched a bit of Batman Begins the other day, first time in about a decade, and I don't know if it was the aftertaste of this movie still on my palette but Begins felt like it moved at breakneck speed - to a fault. Nolan definitely finessed that pace in TDK, that propulsion serves the story better.)

Looks fun. Might catch it on streaming in a few years.

The second movie got bad reviews because it was a bad movie. It revealved that the franchise didn't really have a clue what it was doing and that made it hard to get excited for future installments. No idea what this one's like as I likely won't see it unless I'm channel-hopping, but it isn't just critics being annoyed at individual actors/writers.

I still haven't seen Ragnorok, but I'm curious what this will do with Bale.

I still say the biggest problem with this series is that it picked the wrong main character. A Dumbledore prequel series would have been easy to comprehend and people already liked him. I'd wager not many people like the mousy lead they instead seem to be stuck with.

I expect the film will be bad because it's apparently impossible to make a good JP sequel, but it'll at least be bad with the whole gang back - which is what the first reboot should have done in the first place.

I'd say he's responding badly to fame, but he's not that famous.

Well that was boring. I feel like between this and the awful tease they kept in the film something's gone badly wrong and any interest I had in Reeves' take on the character is now in minus numbers. Just keep the character out altogether. Which of course they won't.

[Orders ticket immediately]

If you really wanted to be brutal and make it two hours you could start with cutting out Selina altogether. She didn’t affect the plot that much. Trouble is it’s then just a sausage fest.

Yeah, I think that was part of my problem with it. It felt very MCU, and these movies should be a tonic to that.

I had massive problems with the film but this is an odd take. To me it's the only batman film with above average fight scenes. I felt each of his punches.

I'm guessing Batman got more screentime in this than the dark knight films combined. Hell, maybe even the Burton ones on top of that too.

Cobbled-together thoughts after just seeing it. I'm going to ramble so feel free to ignore: The two words I would use to describe this film are 'sumptuous' and 'exhausting'. - Stating the obvious, but it looks incredible. I love the woozy camera and uncompromisingly dark palette. Burton's Gotham still has the edge for me, but this is the just-about-believable Gotham Nolan could/should have gone for. Well done Liverpool. - Pattinson's a good Batman. I don't feel the need to rank him or anything but he does haunted stocism very well, his bat-voice doesn't make you flinch, and he looks great in the suit. I recognise the artistic choice to make his Bruce basically the same, but I hope they mix it up a bit next time. - Loved the fight scenes. Fast and brutal, with some fallibility for good measure. Bullets bouncing off the suit is glorious. A shame the car chase centerpiece was only so-so. - They decided to swap Selina's sassiness with earnestness and I found it really boring. Kravitz did her best but it's such a baffling decision on the part of the writers. I suspect I'm in the minority on this but I didn't think her and Pattinson had especially good chemistry. Her backstory was also done really awkwardly. - But a much bigger problem is that the central mystery driving the plot is... not very interesting. I appreciate this wasn't another end-of-the world narrative but in a three-hour why-dunnit you really have to care about the 'why'. I'm neutral on Dano, from what little we saw of him he was exactly as I expected. I almost forgot he was in the movie at points. - Because the central mystery wasn't interesting the plot in the second half became very 'and then this happens, and this happens, and then this happens'. I knew when we saw those damn twins answer the club door for a third time it was beyond the point of no return. A real shame becuase the beginning of the movie is incredible. - Regarding that final scene in Arkham: Overall I liked the movie and am interested to see what comes next. In some ways it made me appreciate previous Batman films more, but I think it's great WB took a chance on this and let a good director do his thing. Just don't make it three hours next time.

It's certainly a fair enough meme given the increasingly riduclous size of the cast, but if the guy who chose an almost completely unknown John David Washington to headline his gigantic movie in a role any other a-lister would have happily taken becomes the target of actual, serious 'you got a problem with minorities?' accusations it'll be a bit weird.

I'm looking forward to the movie but yes, the fact that I haven't rushed out to see it really highlights the passage of time and priorities (hooray for the never-ending demands of parenthood). I also think, as ludicrous as it sounds, that being - just barely - older than the actor playing batman is a weird, not exactly pleasant feeling. How the fuck can I be older than batman?!

^ Yeah, that seems really odd. Are they waiting for Batman hype to die down?

Nolan wrote a rushed first draft for Rises, thought 'fuck it', then filmed it. The bones of a good movie are in there but christ is it messy.

I haven't seen the film yet so don't know what it's teased for a sequel but I feel like if they're smart they'll hold off on Joker till the third installment.

In 50 years they'll be laughing at our generation's sex symbols, I assure you.

Well I don’t think anyone would say it’s ‘spectacular’ would they, so I think ‘decent’ is a fair enough description in the context of a Batman movie. It’s a solid figure and, as I said, I look forward to contributing to the gross soon. (Just to say: I did this whole defensive stanning for the Nolan bat-films too back in the day. Take it from me: life’s too short.)

A decent if not exactly spectacular opening. I'm looking forward to seeing the film and it sounds like Reeves achieved what he set out to do, but I maintain that the marketing was uncharacteristically bad for a Batman film. Apart from a nice moody teaser the trailers were weak sauce.

This movie has had some of naffest tie-ins I can recall for quite some time. There's something almost old-school about it.

That's... interesting reasoning.