How Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ Gains A Different Psychological Realism From Previous ‘Batman’ Movies

To be honest, there are too many movies . I’ve been thinking about it for almost 20 years. There are rumors that Christopher Nolan is making a new “Batman” movie. In the not too distant 1980s and 1990s, four films came out, do you think it is necessary to start this story again? I’ve been thinking the same since 2016 when Ben Affleck’s Batman started appearing in DC Extended Universe (DCEU) movies. Batman can’t be missing from Justice League. But it’s been a few days since the “Dark Knight” series ended? When rumors swirled that Ben Affleck would make a movie based on DCEU, I just gave up and got curious. What title are you going to write this time? Is there anything left? Oh, we must not forget that the film came out in the meantime. Many anime films, series and games that fill the void should not be ignored.

I had a similar thought while watching the movies for a while, but that has nothing to do with today’s topic. do not. It does not matter. Both are DC and Marvel’s most popular stars, and they have one thing in common: they’re called too often because of the comic book superhero movie craze. It would have been better if that energy and money had gone into other characters, no, non-superhero movies, but the world didn’t work that way.

Going a different path from Marvel

Let’s go back and talk about that Matt Reeves movie. The title of this movie is “The Batman”. “Plus” was added to differentiate it, but it’s not the first time there’s already been an anime series with that title. It’s not easy to find a title that doesn’t overlap, because we’ve been making all kinds of adaptations for over 80 years. Unlike Ben Affleck’s previous projects, this is not a DCEU movie.

There are people who wish this wasn’t a DCEU movie, and there are definitely benefits to be gained by going this route, but standalone is a natural outcome. Batman’s story loses its personality as it leaves Gotham and the city’s crazy ecosystem behind. The true protagonist of Batman is the city of Gotham itself, which defines the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne. The people making the Batman adaptation put hundreds of times more effort into designing Gotham City than they did into Superman’s Metropolis. Metropolis is meaningless without Superman. But Gotham works well even if Bruce Wayne/Batman isn’t the main character, or even if he doesn’t exist. And that world is much more tightly connected than the outside world of the DC Universe, where all sorts of diverse parameters collide. Adding the DCEU setting to that would help make the Batman movie like never before, but the story becomes pointless and the Gotham ecosystem loses power. Unless you’re in a Marvel-like situation where DC is stuck in a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) web, there’s no need to go this route.

By ditching the DCEU, Reeves has the chance to tell the story more comfortably. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems to be solved. The biggest problem is that, as I said before, over 80 years of Batman stories have been done too much. Bruce Wayne’s parents have died more often than Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. Since the days of Tim Burton’s Batman, this tragedy has already changed three times in the live-action feature film since 1989. The mood of the film and the characters of Bruce Wayne/Batman have also constantly changed. Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman Beginning was an attempt to differentiate him from the more famous Bruce Wayne/Batman before him, Adam West. In other words, countless films released by Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder occupied their respective fields as if filling in the blanks, and Reeves had no choice but to start over from the few remaining areas.

Reeves is doing his best. There are limits. While dealing with the two years of Batman’s debut, it made a difference, but that doesn’t mean the Waynes won’t die or Bruce won’t suffer psychological pain. There’s still Alfred the Super Butler, and fixed characters like Selina Kyle, James Gordon, Penguin, Riddler, and Carmine Falcone are summoned. While the film’s hard-boiled detective atmosphere certainly sets it apart from other works (even Bruce Wayne has a monologue from a traditional hard-boiled detective), it’s not a new challenge as it’s the basis of the Batman series. original. In a way, it can be said that Reeves was fortunate to have achieved a certain originality that other managers had left by walking around to give them their own distinction.

Somehow it’s the movie the most realistic. You may ask if Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is ahead of that. If you compare which takes place in a very realistic metropolis of the 21st century, with which intentionally exaggerates the darkness of the genre, seems more plausible. But, as I said before, Nolan’s ultimate goal is to make it plausible, not plausible. In this magical manipulation of plausibility, the audience misses a strange fact. What could be more ridiculous than a rich white man wearing a bat mask and beating up the bad guys?

Unlike previous “Batman” movies,

Reeves does not hide this ridicule. The traditional harsh monologue mentioned earlier has long since become a cliché, and it is more like the diary of a young man with a secondary illness than a traditional diary. Unlike the previous series, Bruce Wayne does not dress up at every crucial moment, but walks around in Batman’s clothes and meets people, thanks to this, instead of a mysterious superhero, a strange guy who wears a weird makeup even on non- Halloween days yes. It’s still a weird setting, but it’s still weird. And that absurdity and goofy behavior guarantees the psychological realism that previous Batman films may have lacked.

A similar realism is also present in the film’s villain, the Riddler. Reeves portrays the film’s Riddler as a villain in the cell that has been around for quite some time. There’s a difference that only comes to light when compared to other movies, especially by Todd Phillips. Reeves is not unaware of the pettiness and pettiness of these men. Unlike Phillips’ or Nolan’s Jokers, who are ostentatious and easy to impersonate, Reeves’ Riddler shows no charm. There had to be ethical reasons not to repeat the mistakes of . of Reeves uses countless repetitions of the films precedents as a tool for trial and error. And that sounds better than filling in the blanks.

The resulting film is the story of a white man with mental problems beating up another man with more serious problems. It’s more funny than cool, and generally a little insignificant. Only this trivial nonsense fits as well as masked superhero delirium.