The Batman (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital)
Blu-Ray Reviews | May 24th, 2022
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell
Written By: Matt Reeves, Peter Craig
Directed By: Matt Reeves
Studio: Warner Bros
Buy On Amazon.com
The newest Batman movie may be long but it’s the type of Batman movie I’ve been looking forward to! It’s dark, gritty and we finally get a Batman being the detective the fans know him to be!
The film starts out with the Gotham mayor getting murdered by a mysterious figure leaving riddles around (Paul Dano). Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) calls in the vigilante Batman (Robert Pattinson) to help him with the case, who’s been investigating alongside the police department for 2 years now…despite how the rest of the cops feel about it. As Bruce/Batman try to solve the case, he has run-ins with mobster Penguin (Colin Farrell) and Selina (Zoë Kravitz), who works at the nightclub that the Penguin operates. Selina and Batman work together to find out what happened with her roommate and what’s really going down at the nightclub. The Riddler keeps playing mind games with Batman and he races against the clock to discover who the Riddler is, before more people are killed.
I saw The Batman in theaters and really enjoyed everything about it. About the only things I didn’t really care for was the ending and some long unnecessary shots (the very end shots come to mind). Everybody that whined about Robert Pattinson as Bruce/Batman before seeing the movie were silly because he did a great job. Granted, I wasn’t a fan of his emo Bruce but his Batman was top notch. Paul Dano always plays creeps and weirdos so well and he did an amazing job as The Riddler. For me, he’s second on my list to Heath Ledger’s Joker for Batman villains. Like Ledger’s Joker, you didn’t know what he was going to do next.
Let’s not take away the performance of Colin Farrell’s Oswald / Penguin. He was a standout in most of the scenes he was in and I can see why he’s going to have a spin-off series on HBO Max. How awesome was that Batmobile chase with him?! I kind of wished they didn’t show any of that in the trailer. It was nice to see him in the movie as the comic relief in a way, and it was cool to see him not be the full fledged villain we know him to be. Selina/Catwoman played by Zoë Kravitz was good and had nice chemistry with Robert Pattinson I thought. The same goes with Jeffrey Wright as Gordon. I would have liked to have seen more from Andy Serkis as Alfred.
I think one of the aspects that I liked is we got a lot of Batman and not as much Bruce Banner. Pattinson’s “My Chemical Romance” Bruce, I could have done without and glad they didn’t spend a lot of time on him. I know people like to see Bruce and how he handles the daily stuff and aftermath of being Batman but I just want to see him kicking ass and solving crimes. This movie had all of that! The intensity and realistic tone of the crimes happening felt like me watching a true crime documentary, except it was Batman solving it. What the Riddler does to some of the victims was pretty crazy and it’s probably why I’m not showing this to my 6 year old kid, who usually watches Batman movies with me.
Besides the movie being a little long, I thought the ending just kind of sizzled out for me. There were some fight scenes but it was just kind of…okay. I liked the cameo and wish they included the deleted scene with him. I’m not sure how I feel about another Joker in a Batman movie just yet. There’s plenty of characters to pick from honestly, that are aligned with this type of Batman story and solving crimes instead of crime FIGHTING. I’m sure Matt Reeves will do something cool like he did with the Planet of the Apes movies and this one obviously.
The movie is on its own 4k UHD disc, there’s a movie on a Blu-Ray disc and the rest of the special features are on its own Blu-Ray disc. We saw this a lot when Blu-Ray was starting to take off, and the extras would be on DVDs. Hopefully that issue will translate soon to 4k UHD instead of having these multiple formats of things. With regards to the actual extras, there’s a plethora of them! There’s an almost an hour long one called Vengeance in the Making which has a ton of stuff in there. There’s featurettes about the fight sequences, training, the difference between Riddler and Batman, the batmobile of course, and Colin Farrell transformation as the Penguin. There’s also 2 deleted scenes, one that was released after the movie came out in theaters. It’s the scene featuring Batman and The Joker, with Barry Keoghan as the iconic character. It will be interesting to see if they use him in the sequel or not. This scene alone makes me want it to happen but we’ll see. The other scene is with Selina Kyle.
The Batman is a dark and gritty movie that feels more like a true crime film than a superhero movie. Some people might be turned off by that but I loved it. It was a little too long but for the most part, this was up there for one of the better Batman movies. I’d still rank The Dark Knight and Batman Begins higher than this one though. Still, I’m all in for this type of Batman universe that Matt Reeves has developed.
Features:
Looking for Vengeance
The Batman: Genesis
Vengeance Meets Justice
Becoming Catwoman
The Batmobile
Anatomy of The Car Chase
Anatomy of The Wing Suit Jump
Vengeance In The Making
Unpacking the Icons
A Transformation: The Penguin
Deleted Scenes
Video:
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio:
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
German: Dolby Atmos
German: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Atmos
Italian: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Subtitles:
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Bottom Line: One hell of a Batman movie with some great performances from Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano and Colin Farrell.
Running Time: 176 mins
Rating: PG-13
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
