Okay I am turning into an old chimpanzee. For all thoughts and musings about this or that, when it's new and shiny I just love it. For all my love of Zach Snyder's Batman, over the years after rewatching them over and over again, I couldn't help thinking, 'There is just too much going on.' Stop trying to get three storyarcs into each movie to show that the film producers got Batman. This film seemed to get that as well. While there was a lot going on, there is a lot that isn't.
I enjoyed that the city of Gotham gets defined more and not reinvented. In case you don't know this in the some old DC material back in the late 80s, the cities of Gotham and Metropolis are shown on a map. they actually correspond to cities in the real world. Gotham, New Jersey is on the east coast of the state. If one looks at a map of that city and turns it upside down and combine it with Ocean City, NJ, wallah; Gotham City, DC-verse. Yes that is how much of a fanboy that I am of Batman. In the movie past-takes on the details of Gotham are not discarded, but built upon. Allowances to the Joker movie is made with loose ties of a particular gang. There is even a bit of the infrastructure is hinted beyond a central water line following a subway to Wayne Towers making the Aftermath scenario that every Batman take has to have since the 90s more understandable than earthquakes or holding a city hostage by blowing up bridges with the threat of a nuclear bomb by inconceivably powerful terrorists. So the metroplex itself isn't just a metaphor for city-life and degeneration of true American values. One starts to get a grasp of how big cities and their peoples are entrenched in their environs as much as other people anyplace else.
Speaking of not reinventing, did I mention that the movie doesn't have the origin story. It builds upon it that origin story but doesn't Spiderman itself in the foot. Heck this movie might, could be related to the flix released in previous years. It assumes that the folks watching the movie don't need an explanation as to why a man is dressing up in a silly costume in a world where sometimes villains shoot lasers out of their eyes. In superhero movie sense, it allowed to viewer to smooth over the bumps in continuity from movie to movie like normal people do with, say, James Bond movies. When Disney does that everyone is like "so natural." When DC does it, everyone cries at the injustice of it all.
The characterization, overall, is rather awesome. So while Robert Patterson can't be bothered to wear anything but a tee shirt, because he works out and isn't terribly handsome to begin with, he makes a decent young Bruce Wayne. His Batman works, because he does have to hide behind the mask to show any sort of grim determination as opposed the depths of his eyes with their confused self-discovery look that teen idols tend to have. I could understand why the folks of Gotham liked the guy but couldn't figure out that he was "THE Batman". Patterson's Billionaire-playboy-sad orphan's relationships with Alfred Pennyworth and the Cat Woman had a lot of Chemistry, not just chemistry, whether he was wearing a mask or not.
As the cop fetish goes, the movie stays consistent with both Hollywood tropes and what we expect from law enforcement in a world where folks have to dress up in costumes to right the wrongs of the world. They're tough and smart, but they're dealing with the Batman and supervillains. Lieutenant Gordon, was angled just right. Jeffery Wright is growing on me.
They TOYS are awesome. Motorcylces, Batmobile, the Batarang, and the utility belt all used just enough to show it is all about the bling helps when it comes to higher purposes.
Overall, a Loch Ness Monster, on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla. I hope Zoe Kravitz doesn't hate me for not focusing on her very good portrayal of Selina Kyle.
