The Batman

SnarkAI Score: 40/100

tldr:

The reviewer criticizes many aspects of the film, including the director, the length, and the inconsistency in tone. The score indicates that this movie is below average and not very enjoyable to watch. While there are some positives, such as the aesthetics of the Batcave and Batsuit, they are not enough to outweigh the negatives.

Our Scores are generated by SnarkAI's analysis of our reviewer's writing. The tldr sumary is drafted by SnarkAI based on that review. All Images are AI generated based on the reviewers descriptions of scenes.

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C- It is not the worst thing that DC has put out, but it still does not achieve the CW's work, let alone BTAS, STAS, or Justice League Unlimited.

Let's start with DC once again insisting on a 3-hour-long film. Why do they do this? A tight 2 hours would help a lot. Also, Snyder is a hack and should never be allowed to direct a superhero film. (I know he didn't direct this one, but it bears repeating because he's so very incompetent.)

Pattinson's voice is terrible; it's uncertain and hesitant rather than driven and lacks any sense of authority. Ironically, Gordon's (Bernard) natural-speaking voice would have been an outstanding Batman.

The junior joker gang at the start is nice, very Beyond or Dark Knight Rises. I was hoping for a 'Shway' to be thrown in. It's not a good sign that our first real encounter is slapstick with a car accident (and we'll keep getting poorly placed slapstick throughout), and then we get Darth Vader-style entrance music, which is a little too on the nose. The VO doing lines like "I am the shadows" is way too 2009 Tumblr 3edgy5me, and the sadboi soundtrack is grating. Is he vengeance or is he a sad emo boy? Pick a tone. This is an ongoing problem. It's super dark (no, really, the cinematographer apparently graded the film using black paint), but with slapstick. He's got hyper-tech, but writes in a journal and chalk. He's a billionaire, but his suit doesn't fit (it's like he's wearing the clothes of a much larger man). He does a cool escape, then messes up, and we get a jackass-style result.

The aesthetics of the Batcave are great. The Batsuit looks great. The eye makeup is surprisingly fun as a reveal, though cowl off it does push Bruce more to emo again. Love the silly bat contacts, and we're at least getting some consistent Detective, which is, ya know, Batman's whole thing and the main reason I'm not a fan of Nolan's work is that you could do a find/replace on Batman with Ninja in Dark Knight, and it would be a stronger film.

The casting for the 'riddler' is just hot garbage and would have worked better as Professor Pyg as that's kinda what they're doing. Riddler's almost as bad as Leto's Joker (and worse than Ledger or Phoenix who wasn't exactly good). When you watch it and unironically think 'I miss Jim Carrey,' you know you dun goofed. Penguin's solid, though he's more Falcone than Cobblepot, but given we've had DeVito & Robin Taylor's Penguin, I can see why a director who knows he's fucked up casting so badly with Riddler would play it safe.

Yes to gliding with his cape! No to doing it as a wingsuit so he looks like a flying squirrel... It's a bit off-brand for Batman to sit around shirtless; part of his whole psychosis is seeing himself as Batman, and Bruce is a mask. He's always in the suit, maybe without the cowl, when he's working in the cave. But show me a superhero film that doesn't lean into a bit of beefcake, and this is less gratuitous than Batflek's Crossfit session or half of Marvel's moments.

It's madness to me that there's another 1h20m still to go at the 1h30 mark.

But so far, no pearls falling to the ground. This is a massive step up from seeing it three times when Snyder drew his Justice League screenplay in crayons.

The neck collar on a prisoner is so huge it would just fit back over his head.

Random dog being all IDGAF swimming about is top tier. (Note, The Batman would be improved by the addition of Dog-Welder as a sidekick instead of the bland Catwoman.) Oh yeah, Catwoman is in this. I'm struggling to think of any examples of agency she shows at any point that isn't reacting to Batman.

Too many 'end of Fight Club' shots in this film.

Curious to know who the mayoral candidate will turn out to be. No way she's good. She's alive and in Gotham politics.

There is an EW review that I read that described Justice League as "Everything takes forever to go nowhere," and that is true here as well. It is an ongoing problem in DC's films, with rare exceptions (WW, Shazam, Aquaman). They are so desperate to seem deep, dark, edgy, and 'real' that they spend hours dragging you through stories that just do not matter.