Movie Review: The Batman

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A solid reboot of the Bat-franchise that is shot beautifully, well-acted, and spends its nearly three-hour runtime trying to step out of the shadow of the Nolan trilogy. The film looks great and is injected with some dynamic camerawork. (There’s also seems to be a filter present that gives everything a unique look.) There’s a gritty realism in this story, that will bring the Nolan comparisons. But this film is darker, and also seems to borrow heavily from “Seven,” especially with the reinterpretation of The Riddler. The plot of the film feels quite a bit like that classic thriller, but with a Batman twist. Despite the extremely long runtime, there isn’t many scenes that don’t feel important to the story, but the story itself could’ve been tweaked to pick up the pace. Robert Pattinson makes for a pretty good Batman and Bruce Wayne, but there’s shockingly little we really feel like we get to know the character. Jim Gordon and Selina Kyle suffer similar fates as both characters are well-acted but really never really show what’s below the surface. And while The Riddler is normally more of a lighthearted villain, he’s quite dark here, and his quirkiness is twisted to be more sinister. (However, rarely get to see him interact with the other characters onscreen.) Probably the biggest standout character in the movie is The Penguin. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable with both his performance and his prosthetic-covered face, and his over-the-top performance allows him to make the most of almost every scene he’s in. There’s actual not a lot of action, but this allows the detective aspect of Batman drive the story.

**** out of *****

TV Review: Batwoman (Season 3)

***This review contains some spoilers***

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“Batwoman” enters its third season with the promise of digging into Batman’s legendary rouge’s gallery, but ultimately delivers second-rate facsimiles. And while the heroes look on course to tackle one of the A-list villains as the season’s big bad, they instead give us a version of Batman’s arch-nemesis that falls well short of stepping out of his shadow.

Season two ended with the gear of Batman’s greatest foes floating down a river, and it was hinted that some of them may show up this season to reclaim their property. However, instead we got a bunch of random folks getting their hands on these trophies and becoming copycat versions of the items’ original owners. Not only were these newcomers lacking the deep history of the classic villains, but they were also each mostly taken out in just one episode. (To make things more disappointing, any hope of seeing the real rogues popup is dashed by dialog telling us they all already died at some point.) Keeping hope alive, it was revealed that the real Poison Ivy would appear at some point, and just when it looked like she arrived, we instead had Mary become a new Poison Ivy. This ended up being an interesting character development for her, but it was a little upsetting not to get the real deal. Eventually she does show up and it looks as if the team will have to take down one of Gotham’s toughest villains as the big bad for this season, but then they take her off the board and move on to Ryan’s brother. While the initial Marquis twist worked pretty well, and he had potential to make a great foe for Batwoman due to the family connection and his unpredictability, trying to turn him into Joker 2.0 never really worked.

Character-wise, Ryan finally feels like she earned the roll of Batwoman and being the leader of the Bat-team. Her family drama gave her some good material, but her mother’s quick about-face after being so cold and ruthless early on didn’t feel earned. Lucas returns with his Batwing identity, but they gave him some baggage to give him an arc where he must prove to himself that he was a hero. It never quite landed as well as it should’ve, and it took away from a potentially interesting dynamic between him and the AI of Lucius Fox. Probably the most interesting stuff was watching Mary slowly transform into a pseudo-villain. It was cool to see a darker side of her, but even after her full turn into Poison Mary, she kept just a bit too much of the old Mary in her, especially when it came time to wrap up the Ivy portion of the season. While Sophie was much more proactive with the Bat-team this season, she still doesn’t quite fit in to the groove because there’s not much to her personal life besides her relationship with Ryan. And once again, Alice is Alice as she alternates between irredeemable villain and tragic character on the verge of redemption.

The new additions to the cast aren’t anything special. Jada is intentionally unlikable and overdoes it quite a bit as she tries to take down her own estranged daughter before suddenly mellowing out. Renee Montoya seemed like a solid character choice, but she quickly turned into nothing more than a love-struck woman putting everyone in danger just for a second chance with her lover. Marquis is almost too likable when we meet him, which lessens the impact somewhat when he breaks bad. (A decent backstory and the unhinged portrayal of the character helps smooth it all over.) But he works great as an original villain and trying to shoehorn him into being a new Joker takes away a lot of what made him unique.

A slew of rip-offs of Batman’s greatest opponents is fairly dissatisfying, especially when they all get taken out too quick and easy. Attempting to turn a compelling original bad guy into a wannabe Joker ends up taking the final batch of episodes down a notch.

*** out of *****

TV Review: Legends of Tomorrow (Season 7)

***This review contains some spoilers***

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“Legends of Tomorrow” takes itself in a new direction for its seventh (and possibly final) season. While it was a good idea to mix things up, the execution just wasn’t there.

The Legends find themselves without a time ship and spend most of their adventure without many resources. While it’s not as flashy as the normal time travel antics, it’s a decent change of pace. The problem is that it takes too long to establish the true threat for this season. At one point, it looks like the team will face off against a famous lawman of this era, only to see him taken out of the picture. That seems like it sets up a storyline where they keep screwing up the timeline and will have to come back and fix it all later. While this might have been a cool concept, the show rapidly introduces evil robot doppelgangers, a returning villain from last season, and finally the true big bad. While this ended up being an interesting foe for the team, it develops a bit too late and doesn’t quite payoff.

Surprisingly, most of the characters don’t get a lot of strong individual arcs this season. Sara doesn’t really do anything special outside of a few good gags with her new immortality and moving her relationship forward with Ava. (And Ava doesn’t get much of interest besides an investment in somebody else’s love life.) Spooner also falls flat, especially after she moves off from her time with her mother. Since her alien detecting ability has little use now, they mostly focus on her friendship with Astra. Zari 2.0 also doesn’t have much to do outside of a late-addition desire to be a hero. Her time is cut a little short since she has to occasionally switch places with Zari 1.0. (And her relationship with Nate is about the extent of story for her and Steel.) Astra has improved a lot from last season, in both her personal growth and her powers. Behrad does get a few strong moments that dig into his character, but his attraction to Astra always felt kind of flat. Gary has one of his stronger seasons, and even though most of his arc is tied to the newly human Gideon, coming out as an alien last season made his character more interesting. Joining the crew is Gwyn Davies, who is a brand-new character despite being played by Constantine actor Matt Ryan. While he’s pretty annoying in his first few episodes, he improves quite a bit even though he still doesn’t totally fit in. Also this season we get the previously mentioned flesh and blood Gideon. She’s a fun, but naive character that takes a while to come into her own as well.

Overall, “Legends of Tomorrow” is still of fun show with some nice character interactions, but this season felt like it was stuck in first gear for a little too long. The show looked fine but being stuck in one era of time made things a bit bland looking. While a few stories get wrapped up at the end, there’s still a couple decent cliffhangers left to pursue if the show ends up getting renewed.

**1/2 out of *****