INTRODUCTION: When The Batman was first announced, I was excited. That was until they cast the fuckin Twilight twink as my favorite superhero. Wait! Batman doesn’t fuckin sparkle, I thought to myself and immediately posted an unnecessary tweet about how Robert Pattinson wasn’t MY Batman, like a petulant never -trumper. Unfortunately for me, much like the aforementioned never trumpers, he WAS my Batman for the foreseeable future, because the WB said so. Not too long after filming got underway, Covid hit, stopping this movie dead in its tracks. The WB might not care, but were the fates or fabled movie Gods on my side? Sadly not, since I’m writing this review. So is this something to be thankful for?

PLOT: ugh! It’s an orgin story for the trillionth time, but this time it’s year 3 or some bullshit, instead of year one, with a stupid fuckin Nivarina song, instead of Seal. How fuckin original Mr. Reeves.

CHARACTERS: it’s Batman, we have seen them to death. At this point, we cannot care about character development from one singular Batman film, since there is a wealth of development for all these characters, spanning nearly a century.

STYLE: Very gritty. Dark and you know, Nolan like. Never seen that before! /sarcasm

ACTING: When Heath Ledger was first announced in The Dark Knight, much like the sparkling champagne, er, vampire, I was revulsed. The guy from 10 things I hate about you? Groan! I was wrong and Heath gave a killer performance. Was this to be true here as well? Well, in part. You see Mr. Pattinson is a shitty Bruce Wayne and looks way too old for a Batman in his beginnings, but as for Batman? Well, he fuckin nailed it! Sure the weird internal monologue at the beginning made Batman seem like a psychopath, but by the end, Batman gets character arch, something he never had, and was much needed.

Paul Dano, a mostly forgotten, but decent actor, makes for a truly frightening foe to Batman. Riddler wasn’t just another Joker, he’s a incel madman. Only thing is, they put a tad too much Heath Ledger joker references into him, such as the viral video and the obsession with Batman. Otherwise, fantastic.

Collin Ferrel was at his best in this movie. He really seemed like an actor for once and was entirely lost in The Penguin.

Every one else was on point as well.

MUSIC: very fitting, minus the stupid fucking Nivarina song.

FX: Very good.

CONCLUSION: I may have been reticent in the beginning, but this movie won me over. It even almost made me cry, with the whole Alfred in the hospital thing. I had a few nitpicks, but those are not worth mentioning by the end. Batman essentially loses to The Riddler in part and main characters can be injured. Keeping me on the edge of my seat though the entire flick. For a movie that I had no clue as to which audience this would be for, given the Nolan Trilogy was so fresh in people’s minds, creating a new series was hardly called for, nor would one want to try and idiotically, I might add, step into a great man’s shoes. As it turns out, this is the Batman we deserve, even if we didn’t need it.

4.7 out of 5