The Batman

I'm Peter Weller and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Your move, creep. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks.

Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. And I'm George.

And we're coming to you live via digital recording from the Oddity Studios for another superhero fest. Yes, indeed. I figured we could ease our way in with superhero related, but it's okay. We can balance out and do the other universes. Sure.

Absolutely. I mean, as a comic reader of many, many years, I read from multiple companies. So I don't just stick for one brand. Well, I recently watched something that was a big release and we discussed it not that long ago on an episode where I was like, yeah, it just didn't bother me. So I finally watched the Eternals.

Oh, okay. Remember how I saw the trailer and I was like, I don't feel like I'm going to care about these people. Yeah, I don't really care about these people. That's my main problem. I was like, this is really long and I don't care about 99% of these people.

I kind of got attached to Thena and Gilgamesh a little bit because they're kind of a nice couple and you kind of feel a little bad for Thena basically like, Because she's the one who kind of keeps her memories, but it's also driving her nuts. That was, again, there's interesting things. There's things I like about it. I do think like direction wise, it is Chloe Zhao and she's doing what she can. Like, it's hard to find your identity in a Marvel movie.

They've handed it to so many people over the years, but. She makes it look good, you know, as much as you can. It's got to be glossy CG covered eventually anyway. I went back and saw Nomadland, and yeah, I could definitely see her. She kept a lot of her cinematography in Eternals.

But also, Nomadland is very much about people on the outskirts of everything making connections with each other. And Eternals is very much people on the outskirts making a connection with each other. So if you really break some stuff down, She did a very good job with the material. From their perspective, Marvel-wise, not necessarily a bad choice, I guess. Especially, visually, she knows what she's doing.

But, yeah, I don't know. I was just... Again, the casting is interesting because you would kind of expect bringing in a name like Angelina Jolie that she's going to be the team leader and she's going to be being a badass the whole time. Which, she's a badass, but she's losing her shit. And that's interesting i did like that aspect of who she was that we do get to see her be an awesome warrior but at the same time she's kind of crazy and for reasons you know that we see so like that was an interesting choice and so that leaves salma hayek in a weird place because then she is the leader but we have to get rid of her pretty quick so.

Yeah we really only see her in flashbacks so it's like yeah she kind of got half a role and really didn't get to see her do much anything yeah um I like the whole balance with Icarus and Cersei. Basically, you've got two people who are very much in faith in what they're doing, and they have their faith in the celestial Arsham, who's basically their leader, their god, whatever else. But then when Cersei learns what's going on after the power gets passed down from her, then that faith splits. And now it's like Cersei's like, no, I have an attachment to my home, which is Earth, and Icarus is like, oh, screw that. Now we're going to do what the boss says.

The whole thing about the Eternals, they have a very rough history with Marvel as a series and as a connection with the fans. The Eternals has always, always, always been disconnected from everything in the Marvel Universe. They are their own thing. Which is part of that problem, too, I think. I think it was so disconnected.

I've told you before, I feel like the more... huge and galactic we get the less attached i am like sometimes it's interesting but like i like the personal stories and like it just gets so big that i'm just again we're building worlds and i'm like yeah so none of these people matter really like which is i don't know it obviously it does matter and it matters within this story because the one person is trying to redeem you know this planet they live on and why they've made these choices. So like it, it factors in, but it's, it's way more to get over for me. It's just a huge hump of wanting. To care about these people. Other, there's some odd choices along the way.

The fact that they cast Kumail Nanjiani is awesome. Yeah. The fact that he stepped up and he's like, Hey, I'm representing a whole group of kids that don't get represented in it. I'm going to be a superhero. I'm going to work my ass off and be ripped.

And then they never have him take his shirt off. I was like, what is that about? I mean, you can tell because he wears a lot of sleeveless stuff. But he's still like, it's pretty thick material. Like, you get nothing on that chest that he worked so hard to be on the cover of Men's Fitness with.

And I'm just like, that is just mean. That guy did not used to look like that. And he worked his ass off. Yeah, Akers gets to take his shirt off. Yeah, of course.

It's a Marvel movie. We got to have a guy with a shirt off. But not you, Camille. Put your shirt on. That was just mean.

Yeah, and I'd say, of course, a lot of people talk about the sex scene between Icarus and Cersei, which, you know, is, stage is a beautiful scene. They kind of had a marriage ceremony, so their husband and wife, they're, you know, doing their thing there. But it's still, like, in the context of a Marvel movie, it's like, we don't have, we have love, but we don't have... Everybody's broken. They don't have relationships.

Yeah. Everybody's a big mess in the Marvel universe. So, yeah, it's very, very odd to have a sex scene in a superhero movie. By the way, dude, you know, But yeah, the Kamau's sidekick dude, shooting the video. Yeah.

He's the best part of the movie. He really is. He's so much fun. I mean, his, the whole like, what is it, Kingo backstory is interesting. Again, that little snippet that we get of him telling how he became this celebrity that he is and the backstory there is like really cool.

And I'm like, I could almost watch more of that than this. Everything that comes after this. Well, yeah. He basically created his own legacy to explain his eternal life. He lives forever.

Yeah. It's like, oh, well, my great-grandfather started this and this. I'm the fourth generation now. Again, where's the Marvel series of that going on? Because I'd probably be way more interested in that.

I know, right? The mystical eternal nonsense. Yeah. I'd say the strange thing that would make the Eternals a little more interesting are a couple things. Because, of course, they get the end of the movie. and, you know, half the team gets sucked up by Arsham, who's like, all right, we're going to evaluate things, and if I don't like it, we're going to have judgment.

Basically, that means he's going to blow up Earth. There are many ways he could do that. So, you know, fans of the Fantastic Four are thinking, oh, this could be a good way to put Galactus. In here now. That could be interesting.

There's a lot of other. Basically, there are all kinds of, like, big, powerful, spacey characters in the Marvel Universe. They call them, like, Galactic or, like, or. Universal aspects or whatnot. Like, there's literally one called Eternity, and he is the entire universe himself.

Like, if you're on the outside of our known universe in the white space, you can see Eternity in his full form, and only a handful have done that because basically normal people would go crazy seeing that shit. See, that's... Yeah, I mean, we edged our way into that with Guardians of the Galaxy. We get a guy that's a planet! You know, that's a pretty huge concept.

Yeah. But... They did such a good job with those characters. And like almost immediately, that first movie, you're like, I love all these people. Like these are great characters and you want to spend time with them.

That movie is twice as long as that first Guardians movie. And we don't get, I don't know any, I don't remember most of their names. Half of them I don't even feel like get enough of a snippet to be like, oh, that's the guy that, no way. Like I don't even remember half of them. I'm just like, yeah, it's just, it's a weird way that they chose to handle them.

I know. Well, I think, too, it kind of came about circumstantially because they did a series for the Inhumans that was kind of a spinoff from the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Show. And Inhumans originally was supposed to get a theatrical release. A full movie.

I remember it being on the list, yeah. Yeah, and then they pulled it back to a TV show, and then like, okay, wait a minute, this show kind of sucks. And so they released it, but they buried it, basically. And then we've never spoken of the Inhumans since, which is unfortunate because, one, one, the leader, Black Bolt, plays a lot of crucial roles throughout the Marvel Universe. Two, Lockjaw, the giant teleporting dog, is fucking cool.

And cuddly, and you ever want to give him big hugs. And there's a couple other characters within the Inhumans that are also... Medusa, Karnak, those are cool guys. You get a little bit of a connection with Quicksilver in there because he ends up getting married to one of them later on. So, you know, there's all kinds of connections and stuff in there.

But the Inhumans are really directly involved in a lot of stuff. They were introduced in the Fantastic Four. You know, the thing. But the problem with the Eternals, like, when they originally were introduced, they were introduced in their own series. Like, Jack Kirby had an idea and said...

Let's do this. They're, you know, kind of, they're, you know, so. I want some more psychedelic space art. Yeah. Well, the problem is this, that Jack Kirby is a fantastic, legendary artist that has set the standard a lot of people want to live up to.

As a writer, on the other hand, though, the man suffered a bit. That's why you team him up with somebody and be like, hey, this is a great idea. You know, Stan Lee is a fine writer himself, but he is nowhere near a great writer as some of the people we have going now or have come before or whatever else. He was kind of a rudimentary writer. He was good for the kids, good at creating stuff.

He had a great idea, and he'd just. Be like, here, you take this one, you take this one, you take this one. He was a concept guy. That's kind of why Stan Lee really only wrote maybe the first six issues of a thing, and then passed on to somebody else, and then they went on and did other things. So, again, he's better at running an entire comic studio.

Like, he was good to be in charge. He's a great idea man, but he didn't need to be there day to day hammering stuff out, you know. But he was a far better runner than Kirby was. Yeah. And the problem with the original Eternal series that came out in the 70s, like, they're trying to figure out what the fuck they're doing within the series itself.

In their own series. Like, the first issue is like, okay, it's this mystery. We're trying to figure out who these people are and la la la. And then, like, we kind of start getting, and it's like, You're confused as all hell by the time the six issues are done. I think it only ran six issues because it got canceled.

Yeah, that's not promising for anybody. And so they've done miniseries throughout. I think there's still one that's currently running right now. And the only way it's interesting is you kind of get the whole family dynamic. You bring in, you know, Arrow's Star Fox.

They introduced him right at the end of the movie. That's what I was going to say. That's the only promising thing is that does seem like it can go somewhere interesting. It's really funny to cast Harry Styles as that, because that's what most girls think anyway. He's Eros.

He is a Star Fox. They kind of mentioned, of course, they kind of buried it a little bit, but he is also the younger brother of Thanos. I remember you saying that, and then looking into some of that, just enough to be like, that is who this guy is, right? Yeah, because basically, Thanos, though he's not a robot, like the rest, because basically he's... There was kind of like the Celestials, essentially, like, they did a lot of, like, breeding on other planets and experimenting or whatever else.

So, basically, they went to Titan and did some experimenting and stuff like that within the genetic code. So, basically, you've got some people who look like Star Fox. They're beautiful people, and they live for very long times and sometimes have abilities. And then you get Thanos. Oops, Thanos.

Yeah, who basically was an aberration when he came out, and everybody kind of saw it from the beginning, and he also kind of killed his own mother when he was a child. He's a charming guy. But anytime Thanos is introduced into the Eternals series, that's when shit gets interesting, because he's the best character to come from all of them. And some of the other characters have been involved with the Avengers, like Gilgamesh and Cersei have been former members from time to time. So, yeah, that was kind of fun.

But it's just like, They. Really needed, that was the kind of funny thing, they introduced Dane Whitman, who eventually becomes the Black Knight, another superhero character, and they tease him a little bit at the end, but it's like, you have a human character, somebody we can attach ourselves to, and he's barely. In the movie. Yeah, there's so many of them that I'm like, wait, are we coming back to that guy? Or we do have one that walks away.

And I was like, well, yeah, conscientious observer here, that's cool. And then I'm like, but in most of these setups, they're going to leave so they can come back in the big finale. Nope. Nope. Camille just walked off and I was like, well, okay, I guess that was the end of him in this movie.

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like, you know, we kind of identify a little more with Barry Keoghan's character of Druig because he's like, no, I'm done with all this, like, shit. I've got my own group of people here. We're going to live happily and there you go. But when they realize, okay, well, we've got this celestial that's inside the planet waiting to be born and maybe we need to stop that from happening so we don't destroy the planet. That was another.

That was my main issue today. when I saw the trailer of like, why are these jerks hanging around the planet, not saving us when Thanos comes along and kills a whole bunch of people. And then you said, Oh, they addressed that. And then by the end of the movie, it's like they addressed it. And then they turned around and turned on their own story. I'm like, okay, but if he's going to kill all these, like you need all these people for him to have enough energy to be born.

And then you've got this guy going to kill half the people. Isn't that going to derail your whole reason that you're on this planet? Well, see, that's the whole thing though, is that the interesting thing about the Marvel universe, we've kind of seen this, kind of spread throughout some of the other series and movies. It's like, okay, in the Loki series, they... goof around like, oh, they pulled out the desk drawer and the TVA and that guy had a drawer full of Infinity Gems from different multiverses. These are just paperweights for me.

Yeah. And so it's like, oh my God, this big MacGuffin thing with this Thanos guy and the snap and killing half the world. Wow. We thought that was a big thing, but it really wasn't. And then we get to the Eternals and yeah, they're talking about that thing, but they have a much bigger issue.

There's a bigger thing going on. Yeah. So there's, as Qui-Gon Jinn would say, there is always a bigger fish. We're crossing our streams, except Disney owns them all, so it's fine. It's fine.

Cross the streams. So, yes. You know, Eternals is definitely not one of the best of the Marvel films. I don't think it's as problematic because it deals with a side of the Marvel Universe that is a heavy and weighty and sometimes brainy subject with their space and their really big galactic shit. But you still had to get to that part to kind of get to some other things that Later on.

I think once we get towards the end of this particular phase of the Marvel Universe, maybe the place of the Eternals will make a little more sense. Maybe. I don't think I need to re-watch it ever again. It was just so long. And I felt like it took us forever to really get anywhere.

It's like we open and it's doing alright. And then there's this big drag in the middle. Because you're going to have a lot of exposition. Again, Too many damn characters. Like, we're introducing all these characters, and I'm like, for what?

Are we at least going to get to... No, we don't really get to know them either. So, like, why have all these characters if you're not going to give them any time to become real people? I mean, honestly, the most exciting part of the entire movie was one of the two stinger scenes, not the one they introduced Harry Styles, but Black Knight's scene where he's, you know, like, he's almost ready to wield the sword and go down that road, which is going to be rough. Yeah.

And then we hear a voice in the background, and we're like, oh, who's this guy? And then we look up, oh, it's Marshal Ali. Again, there's a character I'm actually interested in. So, that one, I'm on board with. So, yeah.

So, again, like I said, let's just wait. Because it's going to be one of those movies that I guarantee you, once the rest of the Marvel Universe, from this particular phase, starts playing out a little bit more where we're going, maybe going into 2023, 2024, I think, again, people are going to start going back to it. Oh! I guess. But even, like, that's, just even our villains of this, which, again, by the end, I'm like, which one is the villain?

They're both just. Icarus. They're both fighting each other. Well, yeah, he is. But I'm talking about the creatures that we're fighting against the whole time.

I'm just like. And see, even the deviants aren't really the villains. They're not bad. Yeah, that's what I was saying. And by the end, I'm like, they're just the other half of you and they're doing their job.

And like, yeah, it's like they're not really evil. Yeah, you have a bit of sympathy from them, even though they're still trying to kill the people who are the quote unquote heroes. Yeah. But they were like, as soon as I saw that in the trailer, I was like, wow, this looks like a whole lot of CG stuff. And then I watched the movie.

I was like, yeah, I didn't feel like any of that was real. That was the most CG fighting a CG I've ever seen. And that's in a lot of these movies. Yeah. It just, again, just detached in so many ways.

I can certainly see that. But, again, it has its moments. It's fine. I'm glad I made it through it. But it was a rough watch for a while there.

I was like, when are we done with this? Yeah. Not everybody likes to read the Silver Surfer comic books. He's a pretty guy to look at and look pretty in the art. But sometimes the meat of the story gets a little heady and a little heavy.

So it's like, okay. Yeah, I could certainly agree with folks that may not have enjoyed this as much as some of the other fun movies. No. Because this is not. I'm sorry, folks.

I knew going into this, this was not going to be a fun movie. Oh, yeah. Again, that's why I put it off as long as I did. I was like, at least now it's free. I'm already paying for this thing.

I don't have to give any extra money. And I can pause it if I need to at home. But I've also found a contingent of people who are weary of a lot of the superhero movies. And they liked Eternals. Because it's a little more adult.

It's a little more heavy. It has its action-y scenes in it, but there's a lot more of people talking and exposition and things and drama and stuff like that. So I've found there's a contingent of people who don't like, oh yeah, Avengers is kind. Of those nice. But it's like, oh, I kind of like Eternals.

Like, okay. Odd choice. Something for everybody. Somebody's got to read Howard the Duck. If we're ready to get to a lot of superhero talking.

Oh, yes. Yes, we are. We have left the house we went out into the world you said it's been minimal for you going into the theaters but you made a choice to leave the house and go out on the town indeed to see this week's movie get more out of life go out to a movie Police! Hands up! Stay still!

Get out of. Here! Fear is a tool. But when that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning.

I've been trying to reach you. Fire the gun! This is a powder keg, and. Ritter's the match. I can take care of myself.

If this continues, it won't be long before you've nothing left. I don't care what happens to me. It's only gonna get worse for you. Whoa, take it easy, sweetheart. Hear everything they say, ain't you?

Maybe we're not so different. Who are you under there? I'm vengeance. What's black and blue and dead all over? I got you!

I got you! In the darkest night, I make the bad guys fall. There's a million heroes. The beautiful recompensate. But I'm the best of them all.

I'm on my way, sir. Who has the coolest gadgets? Batman. Who has the tricked out ride? Batman.

Who does the sickest backflips? Batman. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. Batman. Yeah.

Batman. Yeah. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. so our out on the town feature is the batman the year is 2022 the director matt reeves and the plot according to imdb when the riddler a sadistic serial killer begins murdering key political figures in gotham batman is forced to investigate the city's hidden corruption and question his family's involvement not terrible spoiler alert we're going to ruin the hell out of this so hopefully by now you've already seen it if not go watch it and then listen to this because we're going to dig into all of it so yes three hours of glory you have been warned um i guess we can start at the beginning this is of course the origin story of the little caesar's calzoni and how it came to be shaped like a bat I was a little let down.

They really didn't even go into any of the pizza backstory. I was like, what the hell? I saw that commercial. I was like, you know, of all the tie-ins, this is a strange one. And don't get me wrong.

I am a sucker for some Little Caesars. I enjoy my cheap pizza. Oh, yeah. They, I think, do a pretty damn good job. There's a lot of other fast food chains that I... still would put way further down on the list and they cost a lot more.

So, and the whole, and also the, the whole ease of them with like the app and then like the oven. Thing, the pizza box, the fact that I can just go in and get it out of a pizza vending machine. Now that's the greatest thing in the world. I just love not interacting with humans. Which also will tie into this movie.

I will still wave to the people behind the counter and say thank you, you know, as on my way out. Half the time they're distracted and don't really care anyway. And I'm like, good, we all feel the same way. Well, if they're busy with a customer, I won't bother them. If nobody else is in there, I'll at least, you know, acknowledge them.

Or if they're otherwise not engaged in conversation, I will still be polite and say thank you because they still made the pizza. I guess. I don't know. I don't know what goes on, what magic happens behind the scenes. I see people in the background making pizza and stuff like that, so they should be applauded for their efforts.

I'm a former pizza chef myself, so I know what it's like to be back there. I only wait for the day when robots will make it for us, and just before they take over the Earth, they will make our. Pizzas and put it in our vending machine. You should make your way to Japan. They literally have, in Tokyo, the big cities around the big touristy and political business districts, They have pizza vending machines that will literally make you a fresh pizza.

Yeah, I think I've seen videos of it. I don't know what they do with the dough, like if they have the dough sitting out in the machine or what, but they toss the dough and they do the thing and make it right there. So it's like, holy crap, you can eat fresh pizza out of a vending machine. I am fascinated by their culture. I don't know that I can afford to go there, but I am fascinated.

So we are there, sir. You have a robot making pizza. The closest I can get is the old bat-shaped calzoni, which I need to run out and get one right now. There you go. So it doesn't really have anything to do with that.

So that taken off the table, where would you like to begin with our approach to this movie? Some folks have complained about the length of the film. I have those questions by the time we get to the end. We can jump right into it if you want. I have zero problem with this because from.

I think at least this one I feel like it's a reason. I don't feel like we wasted our time. No. I think there's a good story going on at any point. But it is a lot of running time there.

Well, the thing I really enjoyed about it is like there are several points in the movie where you kind of think like, okay, we kind of, you know, we get there and then like something else big happens. So we get like this big crescendo after crescendo after crescendo happening. And that's a Batman comic. Yeah. Especially when you got a big event going on.

So, you know, like, you know, year zero is a really good example of that. Where again, this is a Riddler in conjunction with a couple of other villains who, taking over Gotham City and then kind of with like some help from Poison Ivy, kind of like having the city look like basically it had been abandoned for centuries, even though it had only been six months. And so like Batman can't drive down the streets in his Batmobile. He has to basically kind of gorilla it with a dirt bike. And he's, you know, he doesn't have access to all of his gadgets and tech anymore because there's an EMP that got launched.

So all this compounding efforts came to make Gotham City look like you know, a ruined city, and so he's still got to go and save things, but it has fundamentally changed in a very short period of time. If, and this is what I was trying to decide even with this one, because it's so long, and then I was like, they keep doing that to us. It's like, there hasn't been a short Batman movie, kind of, I don't know, Adam West. I was going back, I was like, especially these last ones, it's like, you know... What were the Michael Keaton ones?

Were they like over two and a half hours? They were. I went back to see because I figured those were the shortest ones. But if we're going backwards here, we've got our last. What was the last?

Oh, I was doing the Dark Knight series. Because I know Dark Knight Rises is really long. Two hours and 45 minutes on Dark Knight Rises. But even you switch to the next round and like even like. Dawn of Justice is two and a half hours.

Depending on which cut, it seems longer. Justice League is two to four hours, if you want. It's sad that even with so many extra people, it's a lesser running time. But yeah, Dawn of Justice was really long. Dark Knight Rises was really long.

Dark Knight was equally. It was over two and a half hours. Even Batman Begins, I thought maybe he started short. Two hours and 20 minutes. I was like...

So you have to go back to Batman and Robin before you get to about a two hour run time. It's a little over two hours. And then I looked, all of those, like all of the Keaton and Schumacher ones are about two and two minutes or so. You know, they're just two minutes, they're two hours and five minutes. Like it's right around the two hour mark.

That's kind of the standard back then, you know, in the 80s and 90s. Your standard big popcorn movie was about a two hour movie. Nowadays, that standard has changed. It's always shooting for three now. It's a two and a half to three, yeah.

Thank you, Lord of the Rings. Thank you, guys. Again I am an experienced cinema goer so I have even with my you know Yeah, I no longer have the bladder control I once did. That's an issue, too. I had to think about that going into this one.

Yeah, well, I sip my soda these days. I ration it out a. Little bit more. Or these chairs that we keep sitting in are more and more high-tech every time. At what point do we just get a catheter built in?

I would love that, honestly. Or some kind of hose. Maybe not so much a catheter. The bathroom buddy. Yeah, something.

It's coming, I'm sure. That's going to take some cleaning, too, man. Yeah, one more reason. He thought sweeping up popcorn was bad when he worked at the theater. No, no, no.

Somebody's got to deal with this. I've swept up my fair share of human fluids at a movie theater as well. But not in every scene. No, no. That is very true.

Not in every scene. Yes, that is. Good God, yeah. So that was what I was trying to decide on this one. It's like, because I like everything going on in this movie, and yet I'm just like, this is still really long.

Are we getting to the point, like, have we, especially with something that's based on, like, comic books. I'm like, wouldn't it make sense to, like, get to a good, at least cliffhanger point and come back and do another movie? Well, I think. I mean, I don't know. Like, I wonder, you know, looking at something like that, you know, going back to the Avengers.

Like, there's points where you could have broken those up into three movies easily, if not four. Sure. But I'm like, I don't know. I mean. Some things work better in the longer run, but others, I don't know.

Like, could you have just made it, especially now that we also live in series world where everything can be broken up into hour-long chunks. It's like, I don't know, what do we do with these stories and, like, how do we decide what suits it best, I guess. Well, I think with this, you're obviously establishing a new franchise, a new series here because you're dealing with a younger period of Batman's career and a younger actor and a younger cast. So, this is our opening salvo to a new thing here. So, I don't think a cliffhanger would work for that.

I think a cliffhanger works later on down the road. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we've left some seeds here. Because, honestly, we're at a point where Batman's a few years into his career. So, we have the establishment that he and Jim Gordon are working together.

And they are two against an army of corruption. No. They have a handful of cops. They're like the young bucks on the GCPD. But, for the most part... they're dealing with a horde of evil in their city and trying to make it a better place.

That's Gotham. Yeah. In every incarnation. Absolutely. And so, but we're still at a point where like, you know, we're introducing the penguin, but we're only introducing Oswald Cobblepot.

Or Ozzy, as he likes to be called. He's not quite the penguin just yet. I like that we get those things and we don't have them like, technically he's never even a villain in this. He's just a probably super corrupt, business owner, but he never fully gets to that point. He's obviously got his fingers in that world a little bit, and he's learning a lot from the cameraman Falcone, but yeah, he's not quite in there yet.

Even Selina Kyle, she is a gifted thief, but she's not quite Catwoman just yet. So really the only people who are who they are are Batman and the Riddler. And even the Riddler, this is sort of his, like, it's not like he's already dealt with them before. Right, this is his origin. This is his introduction to, yeah, to becoming the whatever he's going to be.

Yeah, I mean, just, it's a slightly different take on him. Not too much. They still stuck. With the riddles and being kind of smarter and toying with everything like that. But just the very disturbed sort of take on Paul Dano's performance was a new side to it.

I absolutely loved it. I mean, casting all around was pretty great. Like, as much as everybody questioned, you know, our Batman more than anything, but, like, even he works for what they're doing because he's such a different Batman. He works. But these villains, like, as much as, like, I don't know, I hear weird stories about personal life version of Colin Farrell, but He is almost unrecognizable.

Not just the makeup, but even the way he portrays the character. It's a true transformation. It's impressive. It really is. If you would have shown me this out of context before I knew it, I wouldn't have got to him.

I would have been like, I don't know, Danny DeVito. That was the thing of all the casting they had announced throughout the. Film before we saw our first trailer. Everybody was all focusing on Pattinson. Oh, the Twilight guy, the Twilight guy.

Screw a bunch of that. The man did Twilight like 15 freaking years ago. People don't like it. He's done a shitload. Of other movies since then and has grown as an actor.

I'm sorry. If you think he couldn't have done Batman and you haven't seen The Lighthouse, you're an idiot. I like The Rover. Yeah, The Rover's a good one too. The Rover's great.

Yes. And again, him doing something that I didn't expect from him. I think he's gone out of his way to be like, yeah, now everybody hates me for being in these movies. How about I do nothing but weird arthouse stuff and, like, kind of push my boundaries and play things that I wouldn't even be. Because, yeah, the rover, like, is so not what you would expect to give especially somebody a big name like who he was at the time he, like, left those movies.

And he's a pretty dude, too. Yeah. That's a dirty, nasty role. That is a dirty movie. And, like, his role is not really anything to be... impressed by other than the acting but like as a character you're just like oh this poor guy like what a mess like.

But yeah but going back it's like the the casting i was concerned about was colin farrell yeah okay i've seen him do some decent roles and some other. Like i said personally i hear weird stories as an actor i'm almost never let down like he's always pretty solid even even when i'm just like oh this guy and then i get into the movie i'm like damn, he is good at this. Yeah, he's made some weird choices. Like, The Lobster is a weird movie. Yeah.

Was it The Killing of a Deer or something like that? Has a tie-in with another cast member there. Yeah, but he's made some weird choices lately. So I'm like, okay, he's got some stuff. But it's like, The Penguin?

Again, pushing himself a little. But this is, yeah, that's not what you would expect from him a few years ago. And then seeing this. But the funny thing is, as someone, I think I pointed this out on one of my shows or somewhere, but I pointed it out. But somebody did a meme like, you know what?

Colin Farrell in the Penguin makeup looks like actor Richard Kind. Yeah. Why didn't you just hire Richard Kind and save a shitload of money? That's a whole lot of saving up your latex there. I mean, granted, Richard has probably aged since his days on Spin City, which is kind of the picture they were referencing.

But still, it's like. Pretty close. You know, it's like... Well, and like... It's just older and more weird looking when you get old.

So, like, how is that not more what the Penguin is? Like, it's still not a bad... Or could they do, like, a flash-forward movie? It's like a really old Penguin. And then they get to use Richard Kine for that.

Maybe that's where we're headed. Once we get to the third one in this trilogy, just Richard Kine the whole movie. There you go, yeah. But, yeah, I'm just. Zoe Kravitz, I think, killed it as Catwoman.

She's another one that's pretty solid all the time. Like, everything I've seen her in, I'm like, yeah, she kind of knows what she's doing here. Jeffrey Wright, I mean, I want to have a beer with that guy. He just looks like just a, I mean, like, I love him in all his movies, but he does so many movies where he, like, he's just like the lovable guy in the movie, you know? Yeah.

I want to give him a hug. Yeah. And you don't get much of that in Gotham, so if anybody can deliver in this movie and be likable, like, Even our hero is. Yeah, I loved Gary Oldman's performance as Gordon because I hated the Gotham that they had or the Gordon that they had with the Tim Burton and the Schumacher movies. Yeah, I mean, he was not really anything.

He was just there to hand off the instructions and then he was gone. Yeah, they were thinking of the Jim Gordon from the 60s show. It's like, no, no, no. Jim Gordon from the comic books is a contemporary. Yes, maybe he's like 10, 15 years older than Batman, even 20 years older.

But he is a contemporary. These guys work together. They're in the field together. Definitely never more than this, really. Like this whole movie is just them side by side trying to figure this out.

And like that's that I think was what I liked about it most was this is probably the closest to the animated series. This is close to the comics. Which is... Well, again, but I don't know how to read, so... I've watched many years of the animated series.

Sure, yeah. And, like, I loved that so much when it was originally on. And any time I revisit, I'm like, man, this still holds up. Yeah. And so, like, every live action when they've done kind of goes a different direction.

And I'm like, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But usually they don't even get close to that. And, like, once we get into this, I was like, this is really... Especially... Because so much of it, like thinking back, I'm like, yes, there's some good action scenes in the animated series.

But there's a lot of him wandering around and trying to figure out a mystery and talking to people. Because he's a detective. There's tons of that going on in this movie. And that really does come into play. We only got little snippets of like, okay, and like Batman 89 where he's trying to figure out Joker while he's poisoning people and making them all smiley.

So there's a little bit of the science stuff there. We don't get it in Batman Returns. We get a tiny little snippet of it in Batman Forever. But it's basically every Batman incarnation, especially in the Nolan movies. Everybody's smarter than Batman.

Oh, yeah. That's not fucking Batman. Well, and kind of more interesting, too. Like, he's just... and I mean he did a fine job of doing what he's trying to do but like once we get past the I'm going to turn myself like the first movie is the most interesting you get with him yeah and those next two he's just there he's just there because we need somebody to fill in the Batman role and do the thing that we need him to do but like Dark Knight I mean you're not even in the neighborhood of what the Joker brings so like He is way more fascinating a character than, it's like, he just sort of shows up and puts the suit on. The third movie, he's got a limp.

That's pretty much it. The Dark Knight is, you know, now with this Batman film, this new one, they are now rivaling for part number one. Yeah. It will take up more viewings of the Batman for me to finally judge that for myself. But they are now fighting for number one.

But you are correct, though. The Dark Knight is Heath Ledger's movie. Oh, definitely. 100%. And he's amazing.

But what's... Even when he's not in the scenes, it's still his movie. It's still his movie. That's it. That's how brilliant his performance is.

And yeah, to take somebody who's as talented as our Batman is and have him just backseat immediately. Just like, all you gotta do is show up with a suit on, man. That's it. It's like, it's kinda gotta suck, really. It's like, oh man.

But the thing, though, I like about Dark Knight is that we get filled out. Of course, it's Joker's film, but we fill out Jim Gordon a little bit more. We fill out Lucius Fox a little bit more. So some of his other periphery characters who are just as important, they get a little more time to shine. I like that the one thing I'll give them minorly in the Nolan trilogy there is they still kept it in- in-universe in Gotham for what they create.

And each time we kind of like, oh, look, there's Scarecrow. He's still in this. And they'd still bring the actor back, even though he got way more popular and probably didn't have to do that. But he was cool. He's like, want me to come back for a third one?

Sure, why not? I want a scene. So they still kept it because that's so much of what Batman was. It was like, this town is run by these damn villains. And no matter what he does, there's another one.

So they gave it where we didn't really get... Each one's in the other one. It's like, here's our main guy. It's all about the Joker. And then by the time the Tim Burton ones were handed off, it was like, how many villains can we cram in there?

But it never really felt like... It just felt like that showcase for this movie and then they're gone. Where at least it felt like Gotham was a thing and it was a continuing story in the Nolan one. And we've already got that going on in this movie. Yeah, that's the thing I really want to point out too.

They get... It's not just, this is. Not just a Batman film. This is the world of Gotham City. Yeah.

They get Gotham, I mean, for a lot of the exteriors for Gotham, I think they use a. Lot of Chicago for a lot of the film. It's the go-to. Chicago or Cleveland, usually. If you want a kind of dirty city, but not too much, kind of look a little like New York, we can fake Cleveland for Goth.

It was always like Metropolis was New York, Chicago was Gotham, until we got that other movie where somehow they were across the bay from each other, which... That's not how this country works. You're wrong. Yeah, I know. I always pictured Metropolis was L.A. and Gotham was New York.

Although this movie, I'm like, is this Gotham also exist in the Blade Runner universe? Because it is just dark and raining every damn scene. Which looks awesome, but I was just like, man, why would anybody live here? This town sucks. That's the one question I've asked for decades reading Batman comics.

Who in their right mind... Or if you. Lived here, why would you stay? There's an entire other country of weird named cities that are kind of like our cities that you could go move to. Yeah, but Gotham is a world, so it's not just like we've got the villain of the week with Riddler.

Yeah, we've got three, four, five villains. Five villains in this movie that does not feel compacted. And of those five villains, only one dies. Because it only focuses and sort of makes this one the main bad guy, sort of. Midway in, I was just like, I can't keep track of all these Italian last names.

But we'll see. Again, this kind of. The Moroni and the Falcone families are very important. To the history of Gotham City. Yeah.

Because in the early days of the Batman comics, he only fought gangsters. So... The three. Main books they really kind of use as inspiration for the film are Batman Year One, Batman The Long Halloween, and Ego. Batman Year One's Frank Miller classic, literally telling the origin story of kind of his first year in Batman.

Long Halloween is an early Batman tale, but it is a murder mystery that literally goes an entire year because there is a killer who's knocking off Political people, mob people, whatever else, and he's only doing it on holidays. And so that's a murder mystery kind of thing there. But it also, you know, Joker's in there. All the big villains we know are in Long Halloween because they're all suspects. Yeah.

And then Ego is much more of a collection of short stories that Darwin Cook did that's very much focusing on, like, the psychology of Batman. Which is a lot of what's going on in this Batman. And you really need to. Yeah. That's the thing.

Batman is most interesting when you are delving deep into his psychology, his methods, why he does things the way he does. Not when he's kicking people's asses. That's kind of fun. Don't get me wrong. That's what brings people in.

But I enjoy that when it happens. Getting a conversation with him and ask him questions that you would take for granted. What's your favorite kind of breakfast cereal in the morning? And he'll look at you funny. What's breakfast cereal?

You've got to.... Delve into him. And that's what makes this story so much of an interesting character. What I think is interesting in this version, too, is because you were saying it's like kind of a year one thing, but it's not a full on origin story. Yeah.

Thank goodness we didn't see his parents get killed. Yeah. But even as a year one thing, we don't see him like, oh, here's where he gets the Batmobile. Here's where he figures out how to do this. There's him building the suit.

Like we don't get any of that. It's already going on. We like join in midway in progress because we all know if you're bothering to go to this movie, you know who Batman is. You know what he does. You know where he lives.

You know all the basics. So we don't need to recreate them again and again. Like we get it. And so rare do you ever get that. So this one is one of those that just picks up mid-story, more or less.

And it's still early for him, but it's not... I mean, he's already built his relationship with Gordon, which is what's impressive. We just come in the middle of that. That seems like a weird move, almost, for the movie to do. And they're buddies, yeah.

But they're so good at it. Immediately, you get the relationship, and then you see how much of it's like, Because we know Batman's the loner and nobody likes him, but in Gordon, everybody questions his judgment. Why are you hanging out with this weirdo in a suit? Why are you letting him in the crime scene? Constantly questioning him.

And it's just like, he's really sticking to his guns to be your friend, Batman. So they really build a pretty good relationship there between those two. And if we kind of take in the story of how the two of them met, we know why Bruce is attached to Jim Gordon. Because he was basically the cop that put a coat on a kid who just saw his parents get murdered. So he was the one person that showed him some tenderness and made sure he was okay.

And Bruce remembered that. And then Jim's career went on and he paid attention to his career as he started becoming a bit of a crime fighter. And so, okay, well, he's a good guy. But we don't know how Jim gets shacked up with Batman who does not know he's Bruce yet. They haven't revealed that part yet.

So it's like they have a good rapport and great friendship, but we haven't delved deeply into Batman revealing who he is. Which is another thing I think is really interesting in this movie and was sort of what made me think so much about the animated series is like he spends so much of his time just in the suit. And like walking around amongst regular people fighting with cops, like questioning, you know, whoever just checking out the scene in the bat suit. And like, you don't like, that's kind of what he did in the series. Like we had the alternate version of him playing Bruce when he needed to, but so much of it was him in the suit, wandering around, figuring out the mystery.

And like this one, it's rare that you see him just sort of interacting with people and not just kicking people's ass when he's in the suit. And like, so that was kind of cool because it, It built not just that relationship with Gordon, but also him as a figure in Gotham. People just see, there's a guy that jests like a giant bat. Anyway, I gotta go get my groceries. That's just Gotham City.

That's how things operate there. I have to give complete and utter credit to the director and the writers on this because they just nailed it. everything yeah you get your detective aspect of batman finally in a movie extensively like okay the riddler is outsmarting but they're kind of neck and neck back and forth the whole movie you know batman gets a little bit neck up then really good it's back you know so that's how it should be but then we all see him the tinkerer sort of thing like he's right around the motorcycle early on and then later on we finally get to see the batmobile because he's been kind of tinkering working on the batmobile But. They're also, like, everything about this was, like, pretty low-tech.

Specifically for a Batman movie, because, like, it's two-thirds of the way into this really long movie, and it's like he gets it. Out the gun. I was like, yeah, the grapple gun, the grappling gun in like the bulk of this movie. And like it hadn't occurred to me until I was like, oh, yeah, there's that. We get that nonstop in every other Batman.

What about the wingsuit scene? Oh, yeah. Was that the first time we saw him using the wingsuit? Because he gets to the edge of that thing. And we normally see Batman, he's up on the grafters.

He doesn't care if he's 50, 30, 100 feet up in the air. But he's about ready to jump on that wingsuit. He's like, oh, shit. That kind of, oh, my God, I'm going to jump off a building kind of moment. Good reason, because that landing should have killed him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any non-movie person would be dead now. Well, thankfully, I'm wearing a lot of Kevlar body armor. That's what saved his ass. He's Batman, and he's wrapped in Kevlar, so that's his best bet.

But I love the whole gorilla aspect. Like, he would basically, like, take off parts of the suit to kind of just masquerade as a normal person, and a kid in a hoodie, so he can get in and out of places. But we saw, like, again, you know, so many aspects of Batman, but the one thing I loved is, like, when he's, he and Gordon are walking into a crime scene, like, He's not appearing in the shadows. He's not coming through the window. He's coming through the damn front door.

I'm Batman. Through the police line. Or there's times like citizens will see him. Or like the little kid sees him. And he wants to be seen by those people in that way.

But then we also see the scenes where the bat signal goes up and all the criminals see that and they shit themselves. And they're all looking in the shadows. Like, is it going to be me? And then when we finally get to the criminals that it is their lucky day. Just the way that's handled.

We're like, he's in the shadows. You know, he's in there. He's walking towards them. And then finally he comes out and just whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. It's like, that's thank you.

That's another one of those things we didn't introduce. The bat signal was just there. I'm like so many other times we have to be like, and here's where we're going to get the bat light. And we're going to put it on top of a bill. Like none of that.

It's just like, we know he knows the light goes off. And by the end, like Catwoman knows, she's just like, ah, shit, all right, well, I know what you have to do. So, like, I don't stand, I don't compare to the city, which is really what you live for. So, yeah, it's like that was just built into the plot, again, without needing tons of explanation. There was a slight change, though, for experienced Batman fans.

Normally, the Bat-Signal's on top of the GCPD building. It's not. It's an abandoned building. So, again, this is a separation of, Jim Gordon is all about supporting Batman. So he's behind Batman.

The rest of the police force is not yet. So we haven't got to this. Eventually the signal will be moved to the top of the GCPD building. But we're not there yet either. Also because half the force is corrupt anyway.

So no wonder they don't like Batman. I would say two-thirds of the force. And again, that was the great thing. They got just. The city itself, just looking the way it did, constantly raining, which kind of fits today as we're recording this.

It's constantly raining. I did listen to the Michael Giacchino score because, let me tell you, that score is just. Love it. There's the one part, because I kept hearing it, and I'm like, it would get to that specific movement, we'll say, and it's... edging its way close to the imperial march but then it doesn't move it doesn't pull that turn because then it usually has that little hook but i kept hearing it going he's getting close he's getting up he backed off yeah i was like he backed off and goes his own way but i'm like i mean there's almost nothing better to steal from. So I'm like, I'm not going to argue that's a great thing to work in.

Yeah, it's definitely a cross between the Danny Elfman Batman theme and the Imperial Marsh. So we're somewhere in between there. It is definitely the evil. Step-cousin of the Danny Elfman theme. Yeah, yeah.

Because, again, the thing I love, though, if you really kind of listen to the whole, just the, if you get to the score, the soundtrack itself, they separate the Batman theme by itself. It's throughout the whole movie. But Batman kind of gets his own theme. And the theme starts very dark, but like the movie, the mission changes. He's all about vengeance at the beginning of the film, but then by the end he realizes vengeance is the answer.

It's justice. Of course, we're still not quite to the Caped Crusader. We're still not quite to the Dark Knight just yet. It's still sort of hope comes into play that I don't think he had any for himself or the people. He was just there to beat people's ass in the beginning.

And the theme really kind of delves into that because it starts very dark, but then you get like halfway into where things really start building. And the brass comes in. It's real, very jarring, but it's a very tight and bright brass that comes in to kind of balance the heaviness of the strings and the heaviness of the percussion. So, yeah, it's really a very interesting theme. The whole score is great, but that theme is just like.

I love it. Well, I felt like, again, one of the few times you have... regular music becoming almost as important as the theme working in Nirvana became instrumental and like I was getting that vibe anyway before I looked into the backstory on it but then the fact that you know our director used Kurt Cobain as like the inspiration for who this Bruce Wayne is and then the more I thought about it I was like well I mean this is definitely that's maybe the most distinctly different thing about this Batman is how different are not just Batman but more more so Bruce Wayne because there almost is no Bruce Wayne as we know him in previous incarnations like there is no millionaire playboy there is no I'm going to pretend to be like obsessed with myself and just living the high life and kind of an idiot so that no one will suspect me as this I was like is this the most realistic interpretation of What Bruce Wayne probably would become because this is just a kid coming from trauma.

And his initial reaction is just recoil from all humanity. And like, that's who he is. Like, he's just the most antisocial person ever. He doesn't interact with anyone as Bruce Wayne. Essentially, he deals with Alfred.

And that's about it in his life. It's like most of the time we see him talk to anyone he's in the suit. So there almost is no alter ego. The Batman is who he became, and this shell of a kid is the one hanging out with the black eyes wearing a hoodie. He's the most hot topic kid ever.

He just looks totally like a kid who would be listening to Nirvana. Oh, damn, there it is. It's all come for a circle. Well, I mean, that's kind of what Riddler points out after he gets captured and they're having that conversation behind the glass is that He's got Batman pegged. He's like, that's the real you.

Whoever, Bruce Wayne, that's. Just, that's a shell. That's a disguise. Which they've toyed with that, but it's like he usually spends so much time playing the alter ego on purpose, whereas now we don't even get that. Like, that is just, I don't have anything else to offer people.

The only thing I have is what I've turned myself into coming out of this trauma, and I'm going to use it to, again, initially just... people but then as he you know expands and like well now I've become a symbol for the city now I can use what I've learned to you know kind of help people in the grand scheme and you know physically beat people that. Yeah and I'm curious like if maybe in the next couple of films when I will we see that transition of him like okay well I can play the role as Bruce Wayne billionaire playboy to distract from the Batman activities and Because that's the thing, the woman who ends up becoming the mayor, she's kind of like, hey, you know, your family did all this philanthropy stuff and you're not doing anything.

So she maybe kind of plants that seed in him and then he sees that she's a good person and it's not corrupt. So maybe like, okay, so maybe I will be Bruce Wayne and do this stuff here. But I mean, that's the thing too, is that, you know, they exposed quite a lot. There was like many decades before we really got into like the Wayne family corruption itself. And basically like his mother being in Arkham.

You know, so it's like, I mean, we're not even getting into the Arkham family. You want to talk twisted. Well, obviously. There's a reason why their name is on an asylum. Yeah, they led to the asylum.

That can't be a normal story. The father is the one who created and basically experimented on the patients in his own family and himself whilst in there, and he basically became a patient in his own asylum. Lovely. Yeah. Um.

So I'm really curious if we're going to get to see more aspects of it. But the thing I'm really kind of hopeful for is one villain we've not seen in the films, where they've done some animated stuff daily and done that. But from the comics, there is a great villain called the Court of Owls. And basically, they are a secret society that has been with Gotham since its creation. They have been around the entire time that Brucie should watch his parents get killed and then became Deflatermouse.

They sat and watched the entire time and basically waited for their chance to make themselves known only when they wanted to. But they are not corrupt. They are Gotham. That's basically it. The corruption is the jackasses who are holding their public office, but they're not the ones in charge.

We are. And while they are very psychological, like they all wear these white, creepy faces that have no expression on them, sort of thing like that, and have a bit of an owl sort of expression, like the eyes are kind of pointed down. So they have a little bit of an owl sort of thing like that. But basically, their Batman is a character called Talon, and so there will be a fight scene between Batman and Talon. talon obviously that's their physicality but the court themselves are more of a psychological we hold the power you try to take it from us. That certainly fits more of what's going on in this movie so.

Far so yeah even pattinson himself has said i would like to see the court of owls as a villain in our series like If you're talking about it, that means someone else has talked about it. Well, that's what I don't think I realize. Looking into that, he was like a super Batman fan. Nobody knew that when they picked his name out of the hat, so it seemed. But he had watched every movie, read the comics.

He was totally into it growing up and got to be Batman now. That means a lot, I'm assuming, to him, and he wants to do good with us. Yeah. That's the great thing, too. Spoiler alert, we get a little bit of a tease of the Joker at the end of the movie.

And the great thing, too, is, like, you know, some people knew that Barry Keoghan was going to be in the movie. And, like, we're waiting three hours. Like, where is he? Where is that guy? And then all of a sudden, like, oh.

Basically, when Riddler's in there and all of a sudden somebody starts talking to him, like, oh, shit. And then we see it's like. Yeah, as soon as he started hearing the voice, I was like, well, we know where we're going with this. We don't know how far we're going with this. Again, like, okay, he's in Arkham, but it's like, is he the Joker yet?

Mm-hmm. Obviously, physically, he is damaged. The accident has happened. But full on, is he... Has he made his way to what we will know?

Because we heard him laugh, but it's like, it's not quite the laugh. It's not quite the Michael and Justin enough. I mean, even Joaquin Phoenix busts out the laugh once in his movie. So it's like, it's... getting there, but, you know, so, but the nice thing I love about, you know, this film is that we can introduce all these other villains, but they don't have to be the main one. They can just be somebody that's, we have to have you in here for something, but you're not the main problem.

And kind of unconventional choices, because I would not have thought of him for Joker. And it's, I mean, again, he's impressive, but such an unusual actor in so many of these movies that are, again, very atypical movies. So, like, An odd choice, but again, that's kind of what they're going for with this. Because age-wise, Joker and Batman are about the same. There's been a lot of people who complain, like, do we need another Joker?

Yes. If you're doing a Batman franchise, you need the Joker. End of sentence. Yeah, especially if you're just building the city of Gotham. Joker's there.

Even in comics and other series and stuff, Joker's always there. He's in the middle of some crime that's not involved. He's locked up. Like, he's always part of what's going on in some, you know, outside, if we're not focusing on him, that, you know, specific story. He's always there.

He's always part of Gotham. So, yeah, it's kind of hard to do something as tied in to the city as this already is and not have Joker be part of it. Yeah, I mean, again, he doesn't have to be, like, if the next film is The Court of Owls, they say, you know, like, for instance, they're going to do that as the main villain. That's your main villain, but you can have Joker very easily in there because while you have a villain of the court being, they're about control, they're about power, they're about order. You got somebody like the Joker who has the antithesis of all of those things.

He doesn't want power. He has no control. Doesn't want order at all. And he loves himself some chaos. Yeah, so, you know, yeah, he's.

You know, Like Heath said, I'm the dog chasing the car, and I know what I'm going to do when I get it. Yeah. But that's what I was going with this one, too, is, like, we haven't seen a big screen version of Riddler in many years. So once we get this one, I'm like, he is so not the Riddler we know. And, like, I was just like, is...

Because, again, Baldano does a great job with this. He is one of those actors that I know him by name for years, and I can never... I'm like, have I seen him in... I think I've missed so many other things he's known for. But watching him in this, I'm just like, he's doing something very different than what you would expect from even...

Not just the Riddler, but even just a villain in a Batman movie, period. They're doing... kind of a different take on it and everything being a little more grounded like again we don't have a big flashy batmobile we've just got a muscle car batmobile right he's just on a regular motorcycle even the gun is pretty stripped down you know it's like most of the tech is pretty real world yeah so it's like this becomes a real world villain and kind of the whole scenario as it unfolds So that's what, yeah, I mean, he plays it very creepy, but real world creepy. That's what you were saying, lurking in the shadows. That first scene of him in the house with the guy is like, whoa. I was like, that was good.

Like, that was good and horribly disturbing and violent. And I was just like, yeah, this is doing a different thing with him as a villain that we're not used to. Because he's, again, very real world and using... the riddle concept, but again, leaning more towards like a, a Zodiac, a Zodiac than, than like a, a crazy leotard where, you know, it's not near that, you know, crazy theatrics. He's not wearing a green suit with question marks all over in this one. No bowler, nothing.

I love it. And the glasses just make him even dorkier. Well, that's the thing, too, is that Edward Enigma is a psychological villain. Batman's got plenty of villains that are physical villains. Yeah.

But he's also got a handful of villains that are also very psychological. Riddler is one of those. He even makes a point. He's like, don't kick my ass. You'd win.

Yeah. But it's like, I'm messing with your head. That's what I do. And that's, yeah, that is his whole thing, really, is like, trying to prove that he's smarter than everyone else, specifically Batman, as they get into it. Like, that's his ongoing thing, is like, I don't care if you lock me up.

I just want to know I was smarter than you. You know, it's like that's... And. When he throws the tantrum, that was the best, because like, yes! It's like, he had everything planned out, but then all of a sudden he gets that moment of like, oh, wait!

No, you don't know about this part. Oh, shit. I did. Oh, wait. I'm still winning.

Yeah, okay. The real battle's coming. You don't even know yet. But I was very excited about Paul Dano being cast as Riddler because I've seen him in lots of, I mean, he's been around forever. I mean, from like, just taking it from like Little Miss Sunshine to There Will Be Blood.

The two differences of performance is there. Yeah. Alone you know but yeah it's like if bruce wayne listens to nirvana the riddler listens to the pixies because he's all about the loud quiet loud you know it'll be very bombastic so yeah he's. Get me wrong i like prince joker but. Yeah but this this is not that kind of a movie and honestly another aspect they kind of tweaked a little bit, kind of modernized it, is that the Joker doesn't have, like, henchmen.

Like, he doesn't, you know, put out a flyer and say, looking for. Or Riddler. Or Riddler, I'm sorry. Yeah, Riddler's not looking, you know, putting out a flyer, looking for guys, you know, will you help me fight Batman? You don't need to anymore, is the thing.

Yeah, you get online and they will come to you. And that's what I was gonna get to in this one. Like, once we get into the Riddler, I'm like, do you think they tweaked that ending in the previous year? Because they got pushed back five months, you know, massively by COVID. So they had enough time that I'm like, do you think that third act was already written before our entire, a group of crazy militia people that all coordinated things on the internet showed up to take over the government?

That's a good question. Well, that's pretty much the third act of this movie. So I'm like, was that preexisting before or did they rewrite? And either version is kind of interesting. Yeah.

If it, didn't change because of that that's weird because that's art imitates life and vice versa. Well i mean that's the thing though i mean if there was if we had somebody today like that henchmen works for the 60s and the 50s and the 40s yeah but today we don't have henchmen we have followers we have acolytes well. It depends on who you are it's like if you're doing it like the penguin in this you know He's got goons that work for him. They can be henchmen. He's mafia.

Yeah, he's a mafia type of guy. He stole old world cards. He can have henchmen. But when we're trying to do something different with the villains, it's like you don't need henchmen anymore. You can have followers and they will do your bidding even without worrying about you.

You throw an idea at them and they think it's their idea as much as yours. And that's why they're willing to stand up for it and potentially die for it under some circumstances. So... Yeah, it's a different way to spin this. And yeah, I was kind of impressed with that, that it was, again, not so flashy superhero stuff.

Yeah. A little more grounded in reality and uncomfortably so sometimes. Well, I mean, if you just take in our three villains and just kind of the different takes on them, you know, you got Oswald Cobblepot, who he's a businessman. He's a corrupt businessman, but he's a businessman. Even when he goes into the crime lord mafia stuff, he's still a businessman.

There is money to be made. There is a purpose, whatever else. We want to keep some level of order. We want to keep a little of this. Yeah, you need the order to keep the money coming in.

Right. Whereas Riddler is insane. He is driven by madness. We've got Catwoman on the other hand. Selina, where it's like, okay, she's traumatized.

She's had some shit go down that's not been great. But there's still a good part of her. But she's still going to steal things because she doesn't want to work a nine-to-fiver. Yeah. Okay, but also it's like you can see she can still.

Be turned to the light side. I don't think she was ever even bad in this movie. Like, she just... has a rough life doing what she has to do to deal. But even then, like from the introduction to her, like she's just looking for a friend, you know, it's like, she's just dealing with her personal stuff and like, isn't really part of this except when it unfolds. And she is part of it more than she even realized.

So, and also my only complaint is that stupid, uh, uh, burglars mask of hers. Well, it doesn't cover your face. Like, if you're going to bother to wear it, at least have it cover your face and protect your identity if you're worried about that. It's just like, I could, even, because, okay, it had the little cat ears on the top, but it's like, it literally covers her nose. It's like, we could still make out your face.

Yeah, we all know it's you. We can see. Yeah, I mean, some people had complaints about the Batman mask. Like, the suit was fine, but they complained about the mask. Like, that's an early version.

How many suits has Batman had over the decades? Again, that was the thing I noticed in this one. It was like, it feels real. It feels like you went to a leathersmith and went, make me a cow, basically. Yeah.

And it feels like a real world. Where the other ones, I'm like, without a Hollywood studio, I don't know how the hell you would make that mask that most of the Batman people wear. It's like, Where this feels like a real world version of I need to come up with this mask. How the hell do I do it? How can I find somebody to do it?

It's a real world version of it. I kind of appreciated that. And another thing about the suit we haven't talked about yet is the batarangs. We only saw the batarangs used once in a three hour Batman movie. And he didn't throw it.

He cut police tape with it. Yeah, again, most of that stuff doesn't even come into play until at least the second half. Like, so much of what's, you know, signature Batman kind of stuff, like, isn't part of the lead-up of this movie at all. And eventually gets used because he gets in bigger, more dire circumstances. But, yeah, definitely a very different attachment to the gadgetry.

And it was interesting, too, because when I originally saw pictures of the suit and would see, like, close-ups of it, I thought the bat symbol on the suit, like, that looks like gun parts. I almost thought maybe, like, he had taken the gun that was used to kill his parents, and that's what he made the suit, you know, part of the suit with. Oh, no, it's not. It's actually just, it's batarangs. He just hit it in there.

He just takes it out, boom, bam, you know, doing things. Like, okay, that's kind of cool, you know. But, like, we saw, like, stuff on his wrist gauntlets, too. Like, but he never even used that stuff. You know, it's like, is that something in another projectile?

That's what, yeah, I was trying to decide if it was that just sort of firing stuff out of there, but, yeah. He never even used those, but, yeah. But, yeah, just, again, just the whole just... the guerrilla tactics he would use, the low-tech sort of approach to things, and very real-world stuff. No one tried to take it real-world stuff, but they were still like, they had a much larger budget. It was flashier.

Again, he was the multi-million dollar kid, and just bought whatever he wanted. Yeah, he had access to military tech. It's like, okay, Bruce has access to some scary computer and tech stuff, but this is still like, the contact lens thing was really cool, with him being able to record stuff, and that's how he reviews... his cases and you know, whatever. Else he's doing. That's cool.

But that's like the highest tech thing. That's yeah. Big money. Yeah. That's where the, that's where the budget went.

Yeah. That's where all his funding went. Our accounting friends at Wayne enterprises are coming for breakfast here. Why? Because I couldn't get you to go there.

I haven't got time for this. It's getting serious, Bruce. If this continues, it won't be long before you've nothing. I don't care about that. Any of that.

You don't care about your family's legacy. What I'm doing is my family's legacy. And we haven't talked about Alfred yet. That's what I was just thinking. I was like, Alfred was definitely a different approach this time around, too.

What was your take on him? I really love Andy Serkis' take on it. We've seen some recent Alfreds where they're buddy-buddy, but Jeremy Irons' Alfred was kind of snarky a little bit. That was kind of the only thing. He had little screen time, and most of it was just being snarky.

Yeah. And then Michael Caine, Alfred, was kind of the warm, the fatherly. Yeah, he's definitely... dad like as close as batman gets. Yeah and like he's a little bit you know the man in the chair sort of thing like that but he doesn't get physically involved at all yeah where we've got this alfred it's like okay he may have had some physical involvement at some point but we see him hobbling around a cane so it's like okay was that you know an injury early on is that because basically alfred's former sas so it's like was that a war injury or you know something like that So he's not going to get as physical, but he is definitely involved in helping with the case solving. As a matter of fact, he'll help tremendously with the cipher.

Yeah. So it's like, okay. It's like, there's... And he's also... We see him helping out with building the car, too.

So it's like, okay, so we're getting this side of Alfred now. He's also maybe more connected. He really does feel like he's grown up with him almost. It's like maybe because... I mean, Andy Serkis is... definitely older than him, but like, he still doesn't read near as old as Michael Caine is definitely grandfatherly almost, but like, yeah, he, he seems like they come up together and like, he understands why he's as broken as he is.

And he kind of is dealing with him again. The only person he really interacts with as, as Bruce is like, this is, this is the only person I've got. So yeah, that was kind of a different approach too. Yeah. I'm, I'm, One thing is, of course, the screenwriters on this, Matt Reeves is credited on this, and then originally, Mattson Tomlin wrote a treatment for the movie, and they kind of used some elements of it, but then he wasn't really credited with the final screenplay.

Yeah. So he took a lot of the elements that he created and did a three-issue series called Batman the Impostor, which I highly recommend folks looking up. Andrea Sorrentino did the art for it, and so he is great with doing, like, dark, gritty art, but still, like, very good with faces and caricatures. I mean, just beautiful stuff, but still very dark and gritty. But this is definitely kind of like the same sort of broken Bruce.

They do a little bit different with Alfred, where he doesn't have the connection with Alfred. Alfred basically, like, Bruce kicked Alfred out. In his story. So the connection he has is with his psychologist, Dr. Leslie Tompkins, who is also another very important person in the Batman universe.

Because while she is not... connected to the crime fighting stuff. She is definitely connected to the helping Bruce Wayne treatment sort of stuff. She knows he's Batman, but she's like, he's still a patient. So I can't reveal he's Batman, but we have to talk about the stuff and deal with this sort of thing. So she's a very important character.

So she becomes basically the Alfred in his story. So I kind of think that maybe like that was kind of the treatment he wanted. Like we were going to take Alfred out entirely and it was going to be Dr. Tompkins was kind of his thing. And they ended up, well, let's stick with Alfred.

So there's some interesting thoughts, but the whole main story that basically it's, he's basically been doing his Batman for barely a year, barely got his rapport with the GCPD. Like they know he's kind of good, but he doesn't have the friendship with Gordon. And then some dude comes along and is dressed just like Batman, doing all the crime fighting stuff, except he's killing people. Yeah. And then, so that's where he's, the fight comes in.

I'm like, okay, I'm trying to start my career as a crime fighter and this guy's ruining it because he's killing people. So was any of the earlier drafts that got thrown out, because I know they had a draft at one point and Matt Reeves liked it, but kind of threw it out and wrote his own or came up with the story. That's basically a lot of what Tomlinson wrote was the stuff that got thrown out. Was that the crossover or was there a previous one? Because I kind of forgot.

I remember years ago hearing while Ben Affleck was still... batman yeah he was going to do one that was essentially a crime you know mystery type of thing it was going to focus more on that. But it was going to be within the snyder verse. And yeah it was still going to be part of that universe and he was going to direct it as well so i thought they had the carryover of that script that like got then handed off to matt reeves and then so i mean was that part of that or was there an in-between one that became the one that also got thrown. Out There was an in-between one. I can't remember what the villain they were going to go with.

Maybe they were still going to use the Riddler for the Affleck Batman. Or no, no, no. It was going to be Deathstroke. Yeah, that's right. Because they already had him cast.

Yeah, they cast Joe Manganiello. So it was going to be Deathstroke. But it was still going to be a mystery sort of thing like that. But you had somebody who was not only a physical equal to Batman, but an intellectual equal to him as well. So he was the worst of both worlds.

And that's what I was wondering the more I went back and was like, oh, yeah, that was a thing. I'd already kind of forgotten about that. Do you think any of this would have worked had we kept with the Ben Affleck version? Thankfully, Snyder himself wasn't directing. And Affleck is a good director.

So I don't know. I mean, I'm interested in what would have come from that. But I still feel like this treatment is so much better. The attack. Character development is much better than what we've seen in Snyderverse.

Even Affleck's Batman, we didn't get too much out of him. But what we did see, he's a much different Batman. Oh, yeah. There is very little hope. Even when he helps form the Justice League and they do the thing.

It's desperation more than anything. It's desperation. And then resurrecting Superman is also a desperation thing. And he still doesn't trust the fact that even Superman resurrected will still help. Yeah.

So there is no hope. He is a broken man. He has lost not only, his family, but he has lost contemporaries and Robin. And the person who did this is still alive, being the Joker. So there's all this loss, all this broken.

He's drinking. Batman doesn't drink. That's Iron Man's job. So it's like, this is a far different... Seeing whatever... they would have done with that Affleck Batman movie would have been interesting, but it definitely would not have worked in this.

It definitely, it would. Yeah. I mean, you could definitely do more of the, cause they kept throwing it out as trying to be sort of film noir and like definitely broken down, lost all hope drinking. That's, that's your hero in a film noir. So that would have been interesting.

And again, I still, I liked him in the suit. I thought what he did was okay. Right. Again, we just got so little from him. Yeah.

But he's also, like, you couldn't do the younger version. Because I think Pattinson even reads younger than he is, truthfully. Sure. So you can do the younger version of him just kind of getting a start, more or less, in Gotham versus... That's a weird part of that Snyder verse that, like, we never brought it up.

We just skipped to the fact that Batman's been doing this for 20 years. And, like, we don't... There's no backstory on it. Again, we jump in the middle of that story, but we almost need more from that story, and we never got it. So you definitely have to do the older version of Batman.

So yeah, I don't know that it would work at all with what happens in this movie. Yeah, that's what I'm going to be curious to see with this Flash movie coming out later this year. Having both Affleck and Michael Keaton reprise Batman roles, how are they going to be worked into the story? How are their performances? What's the purpose of them?

Yeah. So we'll see. But yeah, like you said about Pattinson, yeah, he reads younger because he is obviously in his probably, what, early to mid-30s? He's got to be in his 30s by now. Yeah, but he still looks like he's in his 20s.

Yeah, he can definitely pull off mid to late 20s. That's good British genetics, man. Brits age very slowly. My grandmother's British. She's in her 80s, and she still looks like she's in her 70s.

So it's like they age very well. You take it if it comes along. Well, they come from a very moist climate. You know, I mean, how often does it rain in England? And they live by the ocean.

That's where they shot most of this movie. There's a lot of water there. There's a reason it's constantly raining. It's a very moisturizing climate. I suppose.

I guess. Japanese are the same way. They age very slowly as well. They live in the water, I guess. Yeah. definitely that helps yeah so there you go there's gonna be something there but yeah i just that leads me to a one of the other questions i wanted to ask you do we because i was coming out of this and that's why i said like i don't even know like i liked so much of it but i'm like it's on the heels of so much batman i was like do we continually need this rebooting of you know a soft reboot an alternate universe reboot like we have so much of it At what point is it overwhelming?

Or, again, we're crossing our streams to the point that now we've got two different universes of Batman coming out with movies. At the same time. Are we counting? Because that was my other one. Do we have too much when we have Bat-Dogs coming out?

If we got to the point of having Super Pets movies, have we just got too much out there? Don't get me wrong. It looks fun. I'll probably watch it eventually, but I was like, there's a lot of superheroes out there. At what point do we hit the oversaturated point?

Well, my biggest complaint with our main franchises right now, we've got Star Wars has a good franchise going right now with Dave Filoni being their main showrunner. Jon Favreau has kind of taken over a little bit too, but Dave Filoni is the keeper of the torch. As the now sitting at home version. I don't know if they know what the hell they're going to do with theatrical anymore. They don't either.

Yeah, I mean, everything fell apart there and then they... Luckily, everything came together in the first two runs of The Mandalorian, so now they're like, oh, this is working. Go with this. Go with this. Theatrically, I don't know what they're going to do.

There's been talk of a reboot of the sequel series. That was just from whiny people. There was some serious talk, and basically they have their avenue. Basically, they built it in in Episode VIII. Basically, there's a scene where Rey is looking into this dark mirror or something like that and sees an alternate version of herself as a Sith, right?

That is a device that actually exists in the Star Wars universe, and they've used that in storytelling to tell alternate universes or to literally change reality. Oh, Lord. So they could pull themselves a multiverse kind of shit in Star Wars and say, That stuff happened over here, yes, but also... But we're going to go over here. We're going to go over here and do this.

I mean, I'm pissed off the fact that they. John... What's the stuff that played Finn? Yeah. Okay, they got this great story built in of a former stormtrooper who maybe is Force-sensitive, who's going to maybe take the role of eventually a Jedi Knight, and they just pissed it away.

They just dropped the ball. by the next movie. Like, he has nothing to do in the second movie with him. Like, he's so good and useful and tied to the plot in that first movie. And then the next movie, they're like, I don't know, you go run over there with some horses or something and we'll come back to you later. And then the third movie, he's there, he helps, but like, he's certainly not a main character anymore.

Yeah, that was disappointing. Yeah, they dropped the ball on that one. But anyway, going back to our showrunners thing here, so then, you know, obviously Marvel's got Kevin Feige. Who does DC have? Yeah.

Well, and that's been their problem because the closest they had was Zack Snyder and none. Of us want that. Yeah. Even Snyder doesn't want that anymore. He's like, I put out my four-hour movie.

There you go. But I'm moving on, guys. I'm done with DC. I'll watch your dumb zombie movie. Isn't he doing another one of those?

Well, he did. Or he handed it off and somebody else is doing one in the same universe now. I think basically they did a prequel movie. Some of the criminals that were involved in the Army of the Dead movie before the zombies happened. Who cares about that movie?

I've seen Army of the Dead. That was fun. I don't give a shit about the prequel where there's no zombies. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's one of those like, I'm like, oh yeah, I see the Zack Snyder-ness.

It is all over this thing. Yeah, yeah, sure. But at least it's watchable. Like, it didn't aggravate me like any of the superhero ones did. Whereas that one's like, yes, this is dumb, but at least it's dumb fun, which is Fine on occasion.

I don't want it all the time, but occasionally it's okay. It was reminiscent of his Dawn of the Dead remake, which basically was taking a great movie and taking all the social commentary, all the commentary period out of it, and just, we're going to make this a dumb, fun zombie movie in a mall. But that one had a really good writer, and that's why that movie still holds up as the screenplay. You don't really get that in Army of the Dead or whatever the hell the last one he did. Yeah, but DC does not have a showrunner, so that's why we're basically throwing every fucking.

It's a scattershot of, here's something, this might work. Again, there's confusion with some of this casting of stuff like, we got a Batgirl movie coming to HBO Max, or a show, I'm sorry, not a movie, a show coming to HBO Max that will have Michael Keaton reprising his Batman role. What universe does that take place in? We don't know. We have Flashpoint that's going to be bringing in Affleck and Keaton into the role.

What the hell? And then we have, like, okay, this Black Adam movie. It's like, okay, well, Black Adam is normally attached to Shazam because he's, like, an anti-hero. He's sometimes a villain, sometimes a good guy. All asshole.

And they're bringing in the Justice Society, which is a group of superheroes that existed in, like, the 40s. Like, they were in the World War II era. Yeah. They were the precursor to the justice league. Some of those heroes kind of lived on, or they had like, uh, like, like the.

Same version of like the star girl universe. No, that's a totally different version. Yeah. I mean, it's like, I don't know if that's because I genuinely liked that show. Like it gets some, I don't know, across the board.

I kind of like both seasons. Yeah, no, I agree with you of the CW superhero shows is the best one they've got going. Yeah. Um, and I hope it doesn't get tarnished like some of the others have been. Um, But yeah, I assume this is connected to the Shazam universe.

Yeah. But Black Adam wasn't introduced in the Shazam movie. So how the fuck? Well, and if you're saying, because again, I knew so little about Black Adam, but I'm like, if you're casting him even as like a semi bad guy or even as to play an asshole, like you cast it wrong. Like people love The Rock.

Like you can't. Yes, we haven't... Since. The Scorpion King. When's the last time he's been a bad guy for real?

You know? And even then, he was such a good guy, we made an all-hearts-all movie out of him. So, like, I don't know. That's just a weird move. Yeah.

Because I knew so little about it. So, hearing that, I'm just like, ooh, I don't know if that's going to land right. Well, and that's the thing, too, is that, you know. I'm just really curious how they're going to work it because there's so little of the footage we've seen from Blackout. We've just seen those little snippets from the Super Bowl.

DC are like, hey, we're releasing four movies this year. Yay, us. We're not dead, I swear. Yeah, we got Batman. DC and Warner Brothers is in the business of making Batman stuff.

Yeah, because that's what works. Right or wrong, it makes money. But look at their. Comic book releases. There's a Batman title.

There's Detective Comics. And then you've also got Nightwing. You've got Red Hood and the Outlaws. You've got Batgirls. You've got, you know, there's all these periphery.

Joker has his own title. Yeah. And then there's also the Batman miniseries, which usually you've got anywhere from... three to four Batman miniseries running at any time, where they could be anywhere from three issues to 12 issues. There's enough Batman fans to kind of make anything at least break even. It's like whatever they put out there.

DC has realized the only thing that sells consistently is Batman. Even Superman. Like, Louisville and the Kentuckiana area is a Batman area. You can sell Batman back issues and new books. Left and right all the places.

God forbid somebody would come in and actually want a fucking Superman book. Because you can't sell a Superman book in this town to save your life. I mean, I was that kid. I was looking at it going, eh, I don't care about him. I didn't have any Superman comics.

Well, even when they try to make Superman interesting, he's still not interesting because he's perfect. It's the Eternals again. It's right back to like, I don't care about this guy. Again, he's a super... perfect man from space i'm like batman's a kid who lost everyone and is anti-social and hates everybody he likes gadgets and he doesn't have any power and he has a cool freaking car that's all we i'm like we like all these things like we don't want your big super guy from space so yeah i get it i'm that kid like. But it's so strange how it used to be like you know the 40s through the 60s was superman yeah he was number one And then basically the Batman TV show comes out in the 60s, kind of popularized.

It makes it a little fun. It definitely mainstreams it. It definitely mainstreams it, yeah. It kind of greased the wheels until you get to the 80s. But then here's the fun thing.

It becomes mainstream and very kid-friendly in the 60s. And the comics start following that. But then when the comics start dropping off, They go back to dark in the 70s. And then it gets even darker in the 80s when you get to Frank Miller doing Dark Knight Returns in year one. And suddenly now we're the Batman we know and love.

And Superman is long gone because we are well past the age of hope and eternal and optimism. And because you can't do an alternate version of him. There is no bad guy Superman because that's what Zack Snyder did. And it's wrong. If they want to do an interesting Superman story in film, they can do one.

Injustice. Superman 3, where he fights himself. Well, basically what this is, it started with a video game, and they fleshed out more in the comics, and they've done an animated film that's on HBO Max for Injustice. But as the story goes, it's the best one to do if you want an evil Superman. Because it's basically the Joker tricks...

Superman into killing Lois uh he basically Joker decides I'm done with Gotham I'm gonna go to Metropolis and screw around over there and so he does and Joe Metropolis and Superman are not prepared for Joker and so Joker literally kidnaps Lois and you know he even invents this like combination of Scarecrow's fear toxin and kryptonite to basically make Superman hallucinate so he sees Joker so he's like I'm gonna throw you up in space motherfucker and And Lily grabs him and starts going up to space. And about right when he hits the stratosphere, when there's no oxygen, the stuff wears off and he sees there's Lois in his arms. He's killed not only the love of his life, the mother of his unborn child.

There's a lot to process there. So that basically starts the breaking of Superman. Like, he literally flies back down to Metropolis and rips Joker's heart out from his chest. But again, at this point, he's not Superman anymore. Like, it turns so much so that, like, you've.

Lost the elements of everything that made Superman Superman. Right. It's an interesting story, but, like, you can't long-term do anything with that. Well, that's the thing. Basically, they do this, like, where, you know, you've got Batman and a group of Because it kind of splits the heroes.

It kind of does a little bit of a Civil War thing. Because Wonder Woman initially sides with Superman. She's like, yeah, okay. I can see your point of view. Sometimes you've got to kill people.

Yeah, sometimes you've got to kill people. I'm an Amazon. We kill all kinds of people. Exactly. I'm from a race of warrior women.

We've killed people for centuries. It's only this recent 20th century bullshit where we're not killing people. We're using the lasso to rope up people here. Okay, great. You know, but yeah.

But then we've also got another group of heroes led by Batman, who's like, okay, we're opposing Superman. Like, we, no. And so. I'm team not kill people. I just like to punch him in the face.

Yeah. And so basically now you've got this, you know, war of heroes that are, you know, Superman versus Batman sort of thing like that with, you know, basically heroes and villains on either side. But there is still that fight that Bruce thinks, I can bring Cal back. Yeah. And so there's still that conflict of, How am I going to bring him back?

But I can still bring him back. And so it's basically, it's a turn and redemption story all in the same story. But it's the most interesting Superman story to come out in probably the last 20 years. I mean, again, I was running through the constantly overrun with superhero stories thing in my head earlier. And then I thought of the one that's the outlier that nobody ever thinks of.

And most people don't even categorize as that. But I'm like, no, you go from the get-go and take a different turn on it. Brightburn is amazing. Ah, yes. Because it's beat for beat that exact same story.

But what if he's an asshole? Yeah. What if from the get-go that little kid's a jackass? Yeah. It's the Superman story as a horror film.

Yeah. Brilliant. What if you gave this kid unlimited power? And he didn't become truth justice in the American way. He did whatever the hell he wanted because he can.

He knew he was a guy. And that's, yeah, I was like, that's the only interesting one I've seen in God knows how many years. And I'm like, that takes a different turn. I'm like, I don't understand how that got funded. Like, it's too smart.

It's too good. It's too interesting. How did this get made? Two words, James Gunn. Yeah.

That's, I guess, the selling point because that one was so smart. When you bust out Guardians of the Galaxy and that movie is as big of a hit and obscure as it is, you can do whatever. The hell you want to. I guess so. That's why the man is over in D.C.

That's the fun thing is that what he's doing with this Peacemaker and the Suicide Squad movie is that he is expanding the D.C. universe into just in exposition we are name dropping heroes that we're not going to see on screen we may even never see. Half the ones he named drops he kills yeah but look at these guys they're all dead now but. Even like in the peacemaker show like he named drops batmite he names drops the green arrow you know they name drop the atom and they talk about few other weird things like that but it's like We may never see those people. Yeah. You know, he talks shit about the Justice League.

We saw that. That was hilarious. We saw that. You know, but it's like, yeah. It's just, the thing is like, James is such a fan and he knows his stuff.

Yeah. He can just bust out. So it's like, okay, now we're building a universe with a guy who made one movie in a series right now. It's like, maybe we need to call James. Yeah.

Who you sort of scammed from the other one. Yeah, yeah. Marvel burned that movie. Came from Marvel and Marvel... again stupid decisions were made but by him and by marvel and so like yeah he's redeeming himself now on the other side he's going around to dc and hey you guys want me to make some superhero stuff for you so and that stuff works again i was thinking that earlier it's like outside of batman the only other thing that always works now is harley like you can kind of give harley whatever you want and people still show up and yeah I don't have a problem. Like I've liked everything she's done with it.

Even in the worst of the three movies she's in, she's the best part of it. Like she's great in it. So I was going to say a guns, a suicide squad. I liked her the best. In that one.

I think she was the most, I like her in her movie. Like I think it's weird that they work in the other side story that they do because birds of prey is not all that important to the story as it goes on. But I think she has a really, and an impressive like arc, To somebody that shouldn't have an arc, really. Like, she does have a little expanding of her character or what she can have as Harley. And that's fairly recent in the books, too.

Basically, where it's like, you know, for years she was always attached as Joker's side piece. Was she his girlfriend? Was she a sidekick? Was she a henchman? Yeah.

You know, that was kind of always the thing there. And keeping her like that is what made it so difficult for her. Yeah, of course. But she has an attachment to it. But then finally she gets her lady balls and says, I don't need this asshole.

I can do my own thing. And, you know, so she dumps the psychotic, toxic boyfriend. Yeah. And then hooks up with Poison Ivy, and so now they've been a thing off. And on in the comics for a long time.

Yeah, I thought that's been going on for a while. Yeah, and so I think they're on currently. But yeah, so that's kind of been her thing now. She's like, no, I don't need you to wash that man right out of my hair. With good reason.

Joker's not really a caring boyfriend. Yeah, and of course Joker's got himself a new girlfriend anyway. But yeah, so that's... something else that DC's done that's kind of landed. But other than that, there's so many misses along the way that, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to see what they're grasping at as they, as they piece these things together and what has worked and how many things haven't. And again, with no one person in charge, it's kind of, like I said, it's a scattershot of like, we're going to keep throwing things out there and see what lands.

And the thing about DC is that the older characters are tougher characters. to play to a new audience. Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, they're tougher to work in. They're dorky. They're kind of dorky. They're kind of dorky.

It's the newer heroes and villains that have come along since like the 80s and 90s and beyond the. Darker stuff because you can give them you know again they were all so squeaky clean before like everybody was Superman you know Batman was the only one that was grumbling in the background there but everybody in the old Justice League was like yay let's go help people and like that doesn't play in today's world you. Know but if you take a group like the Suicide Squad and you know make a wacky movie out of them with a body count yeah okay or if you take you know the Titans series where you've got all the teen sidekicks that grow up become a little darker and have Basically mommy and daddy issues because of the way they were treated by their contemporaries.

Or they've got other issues with their own lives or else. So you've got a younger cast of heroes there and a lot more interesting psychology. You know, it's like you've got basically a Batman, the original Batman sidekick, who's got a lot of issues. Oh, yeah. You've got a Superboy who's basically a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor.

So at any point in time, he could go the other way. Multiple daddy issues. He could go either way, you know. And so you've got, you know, some odd characters in there. So you've got far more connections with the younger group.

That's why when, like, the late 70s and the 80s, the Teen Titans book outsold Batman. Most everything else on the roster because it was something new, something fresh. And you're appealing to kids. Before those kids grew up and became old men who buy comic books, it was a kid's market. That was what they wanted to see was somebody like them.

That's why I think DC is starting to get more successes when they get in the periphery. Forget Superman. Forget Batman. Forget Wonder Woman. There's only so much you can do with that.

You've got a shitload of other characters. It's like, let's do a proper Green Lantern. Because, okay, yeah, you've got Hal Jordan, who's the older guy. But it's like, the Green Lantern core has so many other... Like, Jon Stewart is your very stoic, very regimented kind of guy.

But he's also an architect, so he's got a bit more... range with what he could do with the ring. And then you've got, later on, you know, the Kyle Rayner, who's an artist. There's a horse out there somewhere. I know, I've seen him. Yeah, there's all kinds of weird creatures out there.

Where's the horse flying around with his lantern? But you've got, like, you know, there's the lantern that's a cat. There's the lantern that's everything. Well, the cat lantern, he's part of the red lantern, so basically their emotional aspect is rage. His story is really, his name's Dexter, but his story is really sad because basically he was a cat from Earth, normal house cat, and aliens came to Earth and doing stuff.

And basically the house that he lived in was A, destroyed, and his entire family was killed. And so he was very sad and angry about this. And basically the Red Ring was needing a new owner, picked him up, and boom, there you go. Now you got a cat who is a pissed off cat who's now a Red Lantern. I mean, cats have a bad enough attitude anyway.

You don't need to give them unlimited power. Like, that's trouble. And it's based on rage. So the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets. Or, you know, but, yeah.

Green Lantern's a tough sell. That's one I read a lot as a kid. And I liked it in the page form and even, like, animated it kind of worked when he was on Super Friends. But, like, trying to make him real world, it's hard. Like, it's just such a weird set of powers.

I don't know how to not make it look dorky. And in our one try, it looked pretty dorky. Yeah, that wasn't a great try. Bad CG didn't help it any. But still, even with good CG, I'm like, some of this stuff is just kind of dorky.

That's what you're fighting against with a lot of the old heroes. And supposedly we're getting a Green Lantern series for HBO Max. But that's been talked about for about the last six years. Well, I think that's, again, like I read so much of the, it was Green Lantern, Green Arrow. And it's like, of those two, who's immensely more powerful?

But who have we had several incarnations of? Like, we had two decent runs on TV of Green Arrow that people really responded to and liked and liked. He has no skill set, basically, other than being a good archer. He doesn't have superpowers. He's Batman with a bow and arrow.

But he's grounded. Yeah. He's a real guy and he has problems and people will tune in for that. Whereas you've got all the powers of the world when you're Green Lantern and nobody cares about that. So, again, we kind of steer more towards the darker, more real world people.

And that's how we got Batman this week. Yeah. One of the things, too, is that the Lanterns, they later on got other more grounded characters. Like Jessica Cruz is a great example. Former police officer who is, basically, she's on a case or, like, a home invasion.

And, basically, she's attacked by a criminal, put in the hospital for a while. After she gets out, she has a lot of psychological trauma and, basically, like, becomes, like, she's a shut-in. Like, she quits the force, won't leave her house, something like that. And, somehow, she gets a ring and overcomes her fear and becomes one of the best Lanterns they've had. So, she's got a great backstory. and she's a more recent lander she's only been around for maybe like less than a decade so yeah I mean that's you know there's potential there but yeah they have interesting characters that have good psychology they could use they just aren't no and they need somebody to bring that up so and I'm at least glad with this Batman film we've got in our psychology we got every aspect of the Batman that we know and love from the comics and we got it in one movie yeah and we've never seen that before which is just That was the thing.

It was just one thing after the other. It's like, oh, hey, we're getting, you know, the detective side of him. We're getting the tinker. We're getting the broken boy. You know, sort of thing like that.

But, like, we're getting, like, new aspects, too. Like, he's making mistakes. You know, fear. You know, him jumping, almost jumping off the building. That's some legitimate fear right there.

You know, or like kind of the, he's not the smartest guy in the room. You know, like he is, but when the Riddler shows up, he's no longer the smartest guy in the room. So there was a struggle there. So it's like, yeah, I've just, they just nailed it. I'm really excited about where this series is.

Going from here. It is, yeah. I think they said they had signed him for a three-picture deal, so we do know there's probably two more coming unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong. So, yeah, it is interesting what they can do with this. Again, not just Batman, but what they're building this Gotham into and this set of potential villains.

And, yeah, they're building their own little universe here that is pretty detached from the other stuff going on in DC, really. Like it, it doesn't seem like the same universe that anything previously has come. And that's, that's exactly, that's good. Yeah. Yeah.

That is exactly the point they made is like, this is not part of the Snyder versus this is. Our own thing. Yeah. Matter more. So I think I've heard rumblings that HBO max is going to have a, a series that's going to be in the GCPD kind of similar to the Gotham show, but basically in this one where they focus on Gordon and, And I'm sure finally getting into the Harvey Bullock character and the Renee Montoya, other detectives that are highlights within the GCPD.

But apparently we're also getting a Penguin series that focuses on his rise to power. Which again. Well, I just worry with anything when we start oversaturating. Because this is concentrated and we just touch on that stuff, it's good. If you can flesh it out and do it right, that's great.

Sure. But sometimes, again, if you're throwing too much. It could be too much, yeah. Too much out there, it gets overwhelming and or you just start half-assing some of the stuff because you're busy focusing on this instead. Well, if they stick with the Marvel Disney, you know, formula and do like six episodes in an hour long series, that's plenty.

Yeah. Don't do 13. Like, you know, we're still doing 13 episodes of Titans and 13 episodes of Stargirls and we need to do 13 episodes unless you really need to do 13 episodes yeah you can do it in six to eight and be. Perfectly yeah if you plan it out if you know what you're trying to do and and polish it before you throw it. Out there yeah don't make it up week to week.

No have a plan yeah i think i have a plan execute then. Film yeah so yeah but so we could get a little more fleshing out of the world and i i kind of hope that would be the case so basically we don't have to do all the fleshing out introductions in the films. We can just kind of get to the point. No. I was trying to think, is there anything we haven't addressed in this new movie?

I think the one that we talked a little bit about the production design and how Gotham itself looks and always be raining. I have to address the lighting in this film. Oh yeah. Because I've been extremely critical in the last several years of this new trend of using natural lighting and everything. And we can't turn a light on in anything and everything's dark.

This is a dark, It's a dark movie, yeah. Gritty film. I would compare this to Seven, the film Seven. You know, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman. That's a dark and grimy movie.

And very rainy. And that city is essentially. Hell at that point. And it's also always raining. Yeah, we're getting dangerously close to that.

Yeah. This one, yeah. But you can see things. Yeah. I mean, there's points, okay, Batman's in the shadows, but then when he starts stepping in the light, you can start to see him, and then when he's full into the light and kicking ass, you can see him.

Or how about the scene towards the end where he's in the 44 Club, and it's completely dark, and the only time you can see light is when the machine. Gets thrown off. But you can still see him kicking ass! Because again, it was so well thought out, and it's just like, this is what we're still gonna have each moment where there's ass kicking lights up and then it's back to the darkness and he again he's batman he just appears into the darkness and then the next guy comes up takes him out like that Yeah, that was so well executed. But there's so many rooftop scenes.

We're getting into the pre-dawn hours. We can start to see a little bit of everything. The lighting, the production design, my hats are off to you in this film because you did it. It looks good. Yeah.

The Snyder films were way too dark. And their lighting. They did the same thing. They did darkness. They did rain.

And it's still too fucking dark. You can't see anything. They did it in this one. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And knew how to shoot the action scenes. Again, there's a decent amount of fights throughout it. And like, They're never overly... Again, the flashiest one is probably that one, the strobe effect.

But other than that, we see a good amount of Catwoman fighting, too. And again, it's pretty grounded. It's like real-world fighting. You could train yourself enough to be able to do that. It doesn't do anything too ridiculous and over-the-top.

Again, the most extreme we get is Batman throwing himself off a building. But again, he's Batman. He can do that. But yeah, so much of the fighting is just kind of real-world... Just, like, if you're trained enough, you can get into a fight like that and kick people's ass.

And, like, that's what usually happens is, like, we've got the regular criminals and thugs that, like, are usually pretty easily dealt with when you hit Batman, who knows what he's doing, or even Catwoman, who's obviously trained. Initially, the T1E' s film, The Raid, I think has been highly, that and the John Wick movies, I think have been highly influential on how action movies are done today. Yeah. Because especially if you go back to, like, the Daredevil Netflix series. Like, they always had, like, a hallway fight and stuff like that each season.

But those were very kinetic, very brutal, very real-world kind of stuff. You fought with whatever you had on you or near you or whatever was available. If there's a wall there, that's... You're going through that wall. That's somebody.

That's the surface. You're going into it, yep. Yeah, so. We're getting this very kinetic sort of fighting, and we get that a lot in this movie, more so than you get in a lot of the Marvel movies. Like, Marvel hasn't really adopted it just yet.

Maybe we'll see when we get Blade, you know, or if we try to reboot the Punisher, do a little more Daredevil, something like that, more of the street-level heroes. Yeah. For the big guys, we haven't quite seen that yet. But, yeah, we definitely got that in this Batman movie. Yeah.

I think all of that plays out pretty well. It does. Again, yeah, I left... Not 100% knowing what to do with it, but again, because I think I was processing more of the bigger stuff of like, why another Batman? Why another kind of a reboot?

Why another alternate universe timeline from what's going on here? And then once you stop and throw all that out and just focus on what we did get, it's solid. It's like so much of what's done is done the way it needed to be done. This is probably the most, I would say, most comprehensive Batman movie because we got introductions we you know we went past familiar you know it's like much like the spider-man movies we don't need to see uncle ben die and the great power sort of you know responsibilities sort of lines and him getting bit by the spider we don't need to see all that we know all that yeah we got a little bit of a twist and far from home from that story but still we didn't need to see the traditional one same with this i didn't need to see martha's pearls falling no you know i didn't need to see you know joe chill in the in the shadows and i love the reference too like You know, Falcone basically hired the dude, you know, which that's how it plays out in year one.

You know, it's like Falcone basically hired the guy to kill Thomas Wayne because he was doing stuff he didn't like. Yeah. And it was just some thug. He was not important. He was just some dude.

And it took Batman decades. He figured out who Carmine Falcone was in his involvement before he actually figured out who pulled the trigger. Hmm. Because he was that least important. When he found Joe Chill, he was living in a barely what you would call an apartment.

It had four walls and a roof and a door, but it wasn't livable. This was a dirt, poor, scum of the earth kind of guy. His brightest moment was not his brightest moment. He got little to nothing for that. Well, and this one is, again, takes itself very seriously and real world and grounded.

We at least had a little moment where you can see he's having fun with it. And Matt Reeves is a fan. Yeah. The bust in the house was so funny. And again, like half the people sitting around me probably had no idea what it was.

Because, again, the thing that was kind of cool, the showing that I went to was a decent amount of people. But the people next to me were different. Probably early 20s female. Okay. And I'm like, you probably wouldn't have gotten that years ago.

I think it's a much broader group that you're dealing with now. Also, a lot younger people are drawn to it. So, yeah, I'm not sure how many got the bust reference. Yeah. But it was kind of good to see it bringing in new people and new, you know... fans for what now is a totally different franchise i.

Know there was a lot of fun easter eggs but yeah i definitely there was shakespeare bust in there i was like there we go there we go thank you it's sitting behind alfred where he's doing the thing. Yeah yeah again didn't hammer you over the head with it it's just there if you're an old person and you get the reference but yeah that was funny so i did like that yeah. Definitely after seeing matt reeves do what he did with the planet of the apes franchise i'm like oh Yeah, take Batman, dude. Take it. You made the apes cool.

I'm sorry. Growing up, I was not a fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise. Yeah, I was. I was a sucker for those. I thought it was kind of hokey.

To some extent, I could see that. I got my own hokey. People think Flash Gordon's hokey is all shit, and it is. It is. I still love it.

But that was my hokey. So, yeah. But, yeah, so what Reeves did with those three films, like, dude, you made those cool. Yeah. I mean, those last two are kind of his.

And, like, I feel like those, the first one is the clunkier one of the bunch. It is, yeah. So, like, that second one I think is amazing. Like, it is so... immersed in ape culture. And people are barely even part of the story.

And like, that's the most solid of the bunch. I think. Well, I love when we get to the third one. Basically, you got crazy Woody Harrelson, you know, as the, you know, the last general of humanity. And he's just ape shit himself.

Like, yeah, apes should go kill that guy. It's like, we don't need humans anymore. We're done. But yeah, I forgot. They said now that, now that he's done this movie, they're, Only those two people that have done Apes movies and Batman movies.

It's Tim Burton and Matt Reeves. Wow. And I was like, yeah, not quite the same run. Tim Burton did such a great job. People were just like, one is all we needed.

People love it so much. You know, his remake, I was with it for the most part. And then we get to that ending. I'm like, really? Really.

I was fine with the ending. It's the whole rest of it I have. I mean, the hero of that movie is the makeup people. Like, it looks amazing. Like, the makeup they did on the apes is just phenomenal.

The rest of the story is relatively dumb. At least they tried to do something different with the twist ending version. Yeah, I still wish they would have picked somebody better than Wahlberg. That's the main problem. He's just...

Again, he can do some roles, but like what was needed of him is not there in that eight. Like I enjoyed him a lot in Uncharted, but that's because he gets to be snarky and use a lot of comedy. And he's a little bit of a shyster sort of thing like that. So he gets to have a little fun with the role. But when he's playing the straight laced, all American, you know, ace hero, he's wallpaper paste.

He's boring as shit. Yeah. There was a lot of off moves in his career at that point. So. At least now he kind of knows.

He just usually does like your all-American based on a true story. That's become his thing now. So it was kind of weird that he's in Uncharted because, yeah, that's sort of not what he's doing anymore. Well, at least with that one, it's like, you know, he's the older kind of, you know, history thief basically and sort of thing like that. And then, you know, Tom Holland's, you know, Nathan Drake comes in.

He's the younger guy. And so there's a bit of a mentorship buddy sort of thing like that. But then, of course, you know, Sully's not quite a hero because he's still a thief. He still wants a lot of money, and sometimes he stabs his friends in the back to get it. So it's a little more interesting role, and it worked for him.

He can kind of do that. But yeah, other times I've just seen him like, no, no. All right. Well. We've gone all across the board on this one.

We've hit all kinds of stuff. I was thinking we should throw it out there if people like our rambling about superhero movies. If you've got other stuff you'd like us to do. We've done pretty recent stuff lately. But yeah, if you want us to delve back into older, weirder superhero stuff, throw it out there and we can see what we can do.

Or series or whatever else. Except for Condor Man. I'd like to avoid that one at all costs. I have the book if you'd like to read it. I don't know how to read, but I do keep accumulating novelizations.

You've told me about this book. Now, if we want to talk a superhero movie to really discuss Mr. Freedom. All right. Or is it Captain Freedom? or it's one of those weird aussie like uh genre movies that came out like in the mid 80s to the early 90s it's like it's a superhero movie it's a comedy it's a social satire.

And it's a musical Okay. It is a movie that deserves to be on a substance of choice, whether it be alcohol or anything else. It's a better experience that way, but it is a movie. I think we'll need to hear people requesting that one. If people really want us to watch that one, I'm willing to watch anything, but sometimes.

I don't get to pick that one because we're the only ones talking about it. I mean, that's many a movie I've chosen over the years. And I'm like, hey, nobody's ever seen this movie. Want to hear us talk about it? No?

All right. Well, we're going to anyway. I can call my buddy Andy, and he would totally bet. But he would want to join us in the episode, matter of fact, because he's the one who introduced me to the movie. Yep.

So, I don't know. Find some weird superhero movies, and maybe we will discuss them. Absolutely. Just let us know. Otherwise, I think we've addressed Batman this time around.

I think we sure have. It's a three-hour movie. It's a three-hour episode. Thankfully, this one isn't, but we've certainly done that in the past. We have.

Let's not do it now. We'll wrap it up. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time saying, thanks for listening. See you guys.

I've all become my pets And I'm living off of grass And the tripping's from the ceiling It's okay to fish Cause I don't have any feelings. Something out the way Something out of the way Something out of the way Something out of the. Way Underneath the bridge, the tarp has sprung a leak. And the animals I trap. Have all become my pets.

And they live in off of grass. And drippings from the ceiling It's okay to fish Cause you don't have any feelings. Something out of the way Mmm Something out of the way Yeah. Something in the way. Something in the way.

Something in the way. It just seems like such a good option for, I mean, what worked about, if you're going to pick a thing that he could be involved in, doing a Batman Beyond at this point would be really as like the older grizzled Batman. Like, now's the time. Pull Michael Keaton back. But, I don't know.

This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.