Hey guys, how’s it going? Rahul here coming in with a brand new blog. I hope everyone is having a great, safe, and healthy week. I just got done with another set of exams which is why I couldn’t really post any blog last week. So, let’s begin.
Story:
Gotham city is overrun by crimes. From petty thievery to gruesome murders, this city desperately needs a hero to strike fear into the minds of these criminals. However, Batman. the hero Gotham needs and deserves, isn’t so welcomed by the police and other authorities. While he does the job of instilling fear into criminals, his secret identity and free ability is offsetting for a lot of people. This movie of the batman deals with the Riddler who seems to want to rid Gotham City of its’ corrupt officials from the time of a high profile drug bust. In the mean time, Batman must stop the Riddler from killing anymore people while still fighting the police at the same time who wish to take him down.
Review:
A lot to say about this new batman movie that I honestly had no idea was coming out till last week. Then again, all batman series have the same basis for the plot but are built off of their new cast and somehow darker atmosphere each and every time. That being said, this 3-hour long movie did have a lot of ups and downs.
Starting off with the plot. I guess this is really where the “ups and downs” part of the movie shines. The first half of the movie was painfully slow. And when I say ‘painfully’ I mean it. The movie starts off with your basic Batman introduction as someone being the ray of hope in a crime-ridden city. Slowly and steadily we reach our first sort of “action” scene where Batman just basically saves a guy about to be attacked by like 10 guys for no reason at all. And this action scene for some reason felt as though it were in slow-motion. The movements and the whole execution made it feel so boring to watch that I was actually surprised at how slow the movie was progressing. The plot develops at a snail’s pace for the entire first half of the film and the director seems to be focusing more on cinematography much more than actually advancing the plot. And this is what really makes the movie 3 hours long. A movie that could have easily been completed in 2-2.5 hours was stretched with dull action and a seemingly dead plot.
However, with all this being said negatively about the first half of the film, the movie definitely made up for in its’ second. Here in India, any movie has an interval at the midway point regardless of if the movie was intended to or not. Before the interval, I was shocked to see that a Batman movie would be so dull and boring. And then as soon as I went and got my popcorn, the movie took a turn for the best. Suddenly the plot started catching up and it emphasized all the cinematography we had in the first half. At the same time, the action scenes, dialogue, unraveling of the mystery, suspense, and so much more suddenly got so much better and I was just absolutely glued to the screen. Suddenly, all that feeling of boredom had faded away and the movie made up for everything it lacked and then some. The amount of fun I had watching the second half of this film made up for all the negatives I mentioned above and I feel my title of “rough start meets graceful end” does justice to this movie. That being said, while everything was much more enjoyable, you can’t overlook the fact that every batman series is essentially the same thing at its’ core and the lack of originality eventually gets to you. Batman may be the best form of a superhero movie but as a superhero itself Batman is pretty useless to me and by overusing villains and plot it only emphasizes that.
Coming to the brand new cast we had in this film. Robert Pattinson as the Batman. He did a good job. I feel he brought a much darker form of batman or a more “emo” form per se. He added very well to the already dark tone the movie seemed to be going for and his acting was pretty decent as well. Was he my favorite Batman? Not at all. But he did do justice to his role and I do feel he encompassed the essence of what Batman movies are all about. I was honestly never a really big fan of Robert Pattinson because his acting usually looks very plain and has a severe lack of emotion. But I think those qualities worked to his advantage in this role and the fact that he was behind a mask for most of the movie helped him even more. On the other hand, Alfred’s character was quite underrepresented in this movie. Although he was a victim of one of the Riddler’s attacks I don’t feel he was given enough screen time for the amount of impact he had on the overall plot and character development of Bruce Wayne. Cat Woman was honestly very average and I don’t have much to say about her specifically. The cast may not have been the best Batman cast but it worked well together.
I do somewhat enjoy Batman villains because they’re not exactly villains without a noble cause plus some severe psychological trauma. The Riddler honestly just wanted to rid Gotham of its’ corrupt officials even though he had some unlawful ways of doing it. He was not wrong in intention although entirely wrong in action. On the other hand, Batman must protect people despite their wrongdoings as he is the sort of “lawfully good” that prevents this evil good from becoming worse. Essentially, Batman is not a worldwide hero. He is limited to Gotham City and will forever be because of a lack of strength and also because of the fact that Gotham has a lot of people who are psychologically very unstable and are capable of harming large amounts of people. A better title for him would be “Gotham’s hero” and I feel this would limit our expectations of Batman as a hero. This is not to undermine the number of badass scenes Batman has and some kickass action scenes as well. But managing expectations is a very important factor, especially in action movies with long-running franchises. The movie may have been quite enjoyable after being saved in the second half but I have a lot more hopes for the next movie of the series in terms of plot and action.
The movie severely lacked a good playlist which would’ve definitely brought up the mood a lot more. The dark atmosphere of the movie is good and added a lot to the cinematography and emotion but it really adds up and gets quite annoying. Still, this is a must-watch for any superhero, action lover. Overall, a good film.
Rating:
I would give this movie 3.5/5 stars.
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