i loved the batman (2022)

i’m gonna want to rewatch this one a few times, in fact i’m already kinda itching to do so despite it being 3 hours long, so that’s immediately a great sign. i feel like this is one of those movies i’m going to get something new out of each time i rewatch it. what i can safely say after one viewing is that this is my third favorite batman movie, behind returns and mask of the phantasm.

this is basically a weird, lurid murder mystery, and i’m super here for it? and populating that weird, lurid murder mystery with a kinky serial killer version of the riddler (seriously there’s so much bondage and sadism in this), an explicitly bisexual catwoman who’s walking around in fucking goth domme boots, and one of the least annoying versions of the penguin this side of the animated series who runs a seedy, loud edm club is… yeah! yeah, that’ll work!

and then you throw a goth twink version of batman at them. a goth twink version of batman who answers one of my biggest criticisms of the live-action movies by still fucking having his eye makeup on when he takes his mask off, thank you!! and you have him doing actual, y’know, detective work!! which works really well with the slow, deliberate pace and long runtime of the movie. this thing is three hours long and i still kinda wish it were longer!!

this is a batman movie so, y’know. it’s got its downsides. i was willing to let the usual copaganda slide but then it goes to a hella aggressive copaganda place when a huge army of cops is waiting to arrest that mobster and one of them says something like, “i guess some of us don’t work for you.” puke. also the movie seems like it’s doing something hella badass by having bruce find out his father was actually corrupt and likely involved in the murder of a journalist. i mean, he’s a billionaire! that’s just being realistic. but alfred reveals to bruce that the mobster exaggerated and thomas only actually wanted them to scare the reporter.

i mean… a) WHATEVER, b) glad we resolved that, like, immediately, and c) WHO GIVES A FUCK, he still went to an organized crime boss to try to intimidate a reporter. why are we acting like that’s Fine, Actually???

but, yeah, i think the things i enjoyed about this movie outweighed the things that made me roll my eyes. i mean, again… it’s a batman movie. there’s gonna be some of those.

but i love this grimy city. i love this slow-paced murder mystery. and i love that we finally did the hella obvious thing and made batman a fucking goth. a-rank

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