The Batman is yet another live-action take on Batman, yet one that is much different than what has come before. This film forgoes doing the origin story that has been done multiple times and jumps into Batman's second year as a vigilante. He is working with Lieutenant Gordon who brings him in to investigate a series of murders involving high-ranking Gotham officials, with the killer leaving riddles for Batman at the scene of each kill. The story is much more of an origin story for the rogue's gallery of villains and is adapted heavily from the year one and year two comics.
The casting of the movie was (as always) controversial with Robert Pattinson playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoe Kravits playing Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano playing The Riddler, Collin Farrell playing Penguin, Jeffrey Wright playing Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis playing Alfred, and John Turturro playing Carmine Falcone. Of course, Pattinson's casting was a subject of much debate (as has most every casting choice for Batman since Keaton landed the role in the late 1980s). Pattinson was best known for his roles in the Twilight series (which even he admits were not that good) and as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. I think most people complaining about his casting either were not aware of his other work, in which he has shown his acting chops or just liked to complain. But, he, and the rest of the cast, did a great job with their characters. Farrell was unrecognizable both in look and voice as Penguin (he was really just a secondary character in the movie) and Dano, who to this point was probably best known as a side character in the movie Girl Next Door and from his role in There Will be Blood, was awesome as The Riddler. And, Barry Keoghan was great in his minute or so at the end clearly playing an early version of The Joker (but credited as being the unseen Arkham inmate).
The movie looks and sounds great in UHD. The 4K set is actually a three-disc set. The UHD disc and one of the regular Blu-Ray discs just has the movie itself, and the second regular Blu-Ray disc has all the special features and extras. The extras include several short behind-the-scenes featurettes that range from a couple of minutes to about 10 minutes in length. The main feature is an almost hour-long making-of documentary which spans pretty much the entire filming process and shows how the covid pandemic really impacted how the film was made. Then there are a couple of deleted scenes that you can watch with or without director commentary.
Overall, the movie is great. I do think it is a bit long and could have been cut down for time. That said, I think most of the scenes that did end up in the final cut of the film worked, so aside from a couple of scenes at the very end of the film, I think it would have been hard to pick what to remove. I like the fact that Batman is not yet fully formed in this movie and he is still trying to figure out how to be Batman, without really caring about being Bruce Wayne. It is also interesting to see him operate out in the daylight while literally carrying the Batsuit around in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. The movie has a feel that is much more similar to Nolan's trilogy of movies than it does to the Burton or Schumacher movies, without being a carbon copy of what Nolan did with his. The movie has an old-school film noir crime/detective story feel to it and is extremely well-acted. Definitely worth watching and investing in the disc for those who still get the physical discs.
The casting of the movie was (as always) controversial with Robert Pattinson playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoe Kravits playing Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano playing The Riddler, Collin Farrell playing Penguin, Jeffrey Wright playing Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis playing Alfred, and John Turturro playing Carmine Falcone. Of course, Pattinson's casting was a subject of much debate (as has most every casting choice for Batman since Keaton landed the role in the late 1980s). Pattinson was best known for his roles in the Twilight series (which even he admits were not that good) and as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. I think most people complaining about his casting either were not aware of his other work, in which he has shown his acting chops or just liked to complain. But, he, and the rest of the cast, did a great job with their characters. Farrell was unrecognizable both in look and voice as Penguin (he was really just a secondary character in the movie) and Dano, who to this point was probably best known as a side character in the movie Girl Next Door and from his role in There Will be Blood, was awesome as The Riddler. And, Barry Keoghan was great in his minute or so at the end clearly playing an early version of The Joker (but credited as being the unseen Arkham inmate).
The movie looks and sounds great in UHD. The 4K set is actually a three-disc set. The UHD disc and one of the regular Blu-Ray discs just has the movie itself, and the second regular Blu-Ray disc has all the special features and extras. The extras include several short behind-the-scenes featurettes that range from a couple of minutes to about 10 minutes in length. The main feature is an almost hour-long making-of documentary which spans pretty much the entire filming process and shows how the covid pandemic really impacted how the film was made. Then there are a couple of deleted scenes that you can watch with or without director commentary.
Overall, the movie is great. I do think it is a bit long and could have been cut down for time. That said, I think most of the scenes that did end up in the final cut of the film worked, so aside from a couple of scenes at the very end of the film, I think it would have been hard to pick what to remove. I like the fact that Batman is not yet fully formed in this movie and he is still trying to figure out how to be Batman, without really caring about being Bruce Wayne. It is also interesting to see him operate out in the daylight while literally carrying the Batsuit around in a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. The movie has a feel that is much more similar to Nolan's trilogy of movies than it does to the Burton or Schumacher movies, without being a carbon copy of what Nolan did with his. The movie has an old-school film noir crime/detective story feel to it and is extremely well-acted. Definitely worth watching and investing in the disc for those who still get the physical discs.
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