[EXPRESSO] The Batman (2022) | Nigma Notions

After fighting the dreaded villain known as COVID19-Man, Batman is back to the silver screen, now being played by Robert Pattinson in what it’s essentially another “reboot” of sorts, since the plot of The Batman goes back to basics, depicting the reasons why millionarie Bruce Wayne uses his wealth to moonlight as the masked vigilante of the “Batman”, his encounter with Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman), and has him face the villain known as The Riddler.

The main difference is that this time Bruce Wayne’s past (including e his legacy as a Wayne) plays a bigger role, as we were lead to think by the trailers and promo materials, but thankfully this re-establishes the character without being an origin story, and depicts Batman as a more tragic and frail force of justice, as now his family’s legacy comes into play into the corrupt nature of Gotham itself.

The good: Gotham’s depiction is amazing, the brooding and even more dark tone is perfect, the mood overall it’s great and matches the more grounded approach (which of course reminds one of Nolan’s work on the caped crusader), the cast is stellar and giving out great performances, with Pattinson making for a really convincing and more obsessive Batman.

Shame that the narrative ultimately suffers not being as strong as it could, thanks in part to the kinda messy script that falls victim to overstuffing, with ¾ climaxes and the movie being pretty much 3 hours long. It’s not boring, actually it’s fairly captivating, but it feels like they crammed almost 2 scripts into 1 because superhero movies are expected to be very long these days.

I still recommend it, despite the aforementioned flawas, because it’s refreshing to a superhero movie done with vision in mind more than a spreedsheet of pre-made and rounded-edged lego blocks.

[EXPRESSO] Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) | Venom, Accidental LGBT Icon

The 2018’s Venom movie was kinda interesting and a oddity of sorts, as it came out unbound by tethers to the MCU, while being a Marvel IP born out of the Spider Man comics, without Spider Man, deliberately put out in a way to easily dismiss its very existence if it need be.

I will not lie, that movie wasn’t good at all, frankly a big mess that did deserve being called out on not being nowhere good… but it was so stupid and fun i found myself liking it a lot in spite of all its obvious flaws, especially when it’s being this goofy buddy comedy about Tom Hardy and his parasite monster “best friend by force” that just happens to be an alien parasite monster.

Ridiculous but incredibly enjoyable.

It was also quite the box office hit, so the teaser of Carnage at the end of the first one is realized in this sequel, Let There Be Carnage, which has serial killer Cletus Kasady (played by Woody Harrelson) escape from prison after becoming the host of Carnage, a spawn of Venom itself, which complicates thing for Eddie Brock, still adjusting to his new life as a host to the symbiote.

This one is directed by motion capture extraordinarie Andy Serkis (instead of Ruben Fleischer), and like the first Venom, it’s a flawed affair (this one has basically no second act, just set up and then fights) through and through, stupid as hell but sincere and reveling in its own dumb nature. Once again the romcom parts are better than the action scenes, but overall makes for a strangely refreshing throwback to old superhero movies that could be imperfect, messy fun.

Though i won’t be surprised if eventually Marvel doesn’t integrate this series into the MCU somewhat. We’ll see.