Text | Zhou Dawn
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The last pure Batman live-action movie was 2012's The Dark Knight Rises. That's the last installment of Nolan and Bell's Dark Knight trilogy, and the series brings the Batman IP to a special place — whether it's a superhero movie audience or a literary movie audience, these two very different groups of people can agree in these three movies. But since then, the Batman series has stopped, and although the character has appeared in other DC Universe movies, it has not made him an independent protagonist for a long time.
Ten years later, finally, Batman had a follow-up. Robert Pattinson, who once became popular with "Twilight", may be the most stressful new Batman in history. However, since the film premiered overseas on March 4, the box office performance is more than 500 million US dollars in the world, of which North America accounts for half, while the domestic box office is unfavorable due to the epidemic, the cumulative box office in the first three days is about 75 million yuan, while Maoyan predicts that the total box office of the mainland is less than 200 million yuan, but the film's mainland box office accounts for 50-60%. It can be seen that it is not that the film is not powerful, but that the market as a whole is weak.
The darkest version of Batman
When Reeves received a call from DC to direct Batman, his best results were the second and third installments of the Rise of the Apes series. As a science fiction film, the series has a good reputation, after all, to tell the story between people and orangutans Shakespeare feels, Reeves has obtained his license to direct blockbusters. However, this achievement is not enough to see in front of Nolan.
Fortunately, Reeves's ambitions are no less than Nolan's. The New Batman was originally developed by Ben Affleck, who was scheduled to be the director and producer. His general direction is an action movie like 007, which is estimated to be a jittery and clever one. After Reeves took over, he revived the stove and wrote a detective story (D in the DC abbreviation was originally detective), and set the story in Wayne's second year as Batman. From the perspective of drama, young people should change, and the middle-aged uncle has matured and fixed, and it is difficult to present the arc of the character. It's an adventure — a new actor adds a new style, and if he succeeds, no one else can take credit for him; of course, if he fails, no one can act as a substitute for the dead.
Compared with other superheroes, Batman's biggest feature is about the second generation of Fu. Some netizens joked that every time he punched and punched someone, he should coldly say a sentence "kill you this poor force". "New Batman" naturally did not let go of this gap between the rich and the poor, and it used a large monologue to emphasize the difference between the orphans in the mansion and the orphans in the orphanage who were crammed into a room by dozens of people. But it is unlikely to think more vividly and deeply about class differentiation or present it like Parasite. After all, it is not a literary film.
The biggest success of "New Batman" is that it re-excavates and amplifies the detective side of this IP. You know, in addition to titles such as "The Dark Knight" and "Knight of Gotham", Batman also has a lesser-known nickname - "The Greatest Detective in the World", and obviously did not pay attention to Holmes and Poirot, who came out earlier than him. In order to reinvent the Batman detective, one of the important materials Reeves borrowed was the California serial killer of the late 1960s, the prototype story of David Finch's zodiac killer on the screen in 2007. Finch's other well-known film" "Seven Deadly Sins" also cast a long shadow on "The New Batman", such as the male protagonist combination of black and white partners in the film, such as the habit of leaving handwriting on the anti-corner wall, such as the setting of the last assassination target, and so on. Of course, Reeves also found a lot of material from DC Comics, and American comic fans can make a long list of family treasures.
In addition, what worries the audience in the Era of Nolan's Trilogy is whether the new series will lose the depth of the Nolan era and become less "dark". Don't worry, the new series looks exactly in line with traditional film noir, it's just that it has more action scenes than traditional film noir. Nolan's Batman Prequel Trilogy is more black than mainstream superhero films, and this version of The New Batman is even darker than Nolan's version.
In film noir, good and evil are ambiguous, good and evil, snake and scorpion beauty are all available, and the film's most concerned theme is the justice of Batman's heroic righteousness - when people bypass the law and directly exercise justice, whether what they think is good will become evil in the eyes of others. In the United States, especially in Hollywood, this is a reference to the attack on Congress launched by Trump fans on January 6, 2021. Superhero stories naturally elevate reality, and people from all sides will automatically place their political enemies in the opposite corner of the film, otherwise the film will lose half of the potential market.
Pattinson, just right for the gloomy
The importance of choreography in any film is self-evident; for superhero films, actors can greatly add or subtract points, more important than many other genres.
Whether there is just the right amount of gloom is the key to playing Batman well. George Clooney and Ben Affleck are the biggest stars of any actor who has played Batman and are talented. But they both lost in image and temperament. Superheroes don't need too high acting skills, at least most of them rely on image and temperament. Of course, the audience's prejudgment may not be accurate, for example, fans judge whether Pattinson is suitable, which is entirely based on his role in "Twilight", which is very ghostly. Tim Burton's use of Michael Keaton has also been questioned by a large number of fans, because Keaton was previously known for his light comedy, and people did not believe that he could be a gloomy Batman.
Robert Pattinson played the male protagonist Edward in "The Twilight Zone"
As a Passerby of Batman and Twilight, I was perfectly receptive to Robert Pattinson. He's not feminine, but gloomy in The New Batman; when he stares through the mask, his eyes are penetrating, his expression is uncomplicated, but he can stand up to scrutiny; when he shows himself Bruce Wayne, I can basically believe that he will not be seen through by others. In my mind, his effect is second only to Christian Bale.
In order to verify my own perception, I consulted other people's evaluations. Here are the ranking results of the two regular media outlets:
Variety's ranking of Batman actors:
1. Bell (Nolan's prequel trilogy);
2. Adam West (1966 film, 1966-68 series);
3. Robert Pattinson (The New Batman);
4. Michael Keaton (Tim Burton 1989 and 1992 films);
5. Ben Affleck (four films from 2016, 2017 and 2021, none of which are independent Batman films);
6. George Clooney (1997 Batman and Robin);
7. Robert Lovery (1949 film series);
8. Val Kilmer (Batman Forever 1995);
9. Lewis Wilson (1943 film series, first big-screen Batman)
Insider's ranking is as follows:
1. Michael Keaton;
2. Christian Bell;
3. Robert Pattinson;
4. Adam West;
5. Val Kilmer;
6. Ben Affleck;
7. Will Arnett (three LEGO movies from 2014, 2017 and 2019);
8. Robert Lovery;
9. Lewis Wilson;
10. George Clooney
In the part I've seen, the results in both rankings are mostly agreeable. Interestingly, the two rankings invariably put Pattinson in third — a good result for a new Batman, indicating acceptance of him by experts and the market. Another point of agreement is that Bale is stronger than Pattinson, which is also in line with the views of most domestic fans. There are three reasons for this: one is that the trilogy directed by Nolan has achieved a rare high quality of super British films; the second is that the film came out at the stage of the rapid rise of the mainland film industry, and the number of audiences has increased sharply; the third is that Bell plays a young Batman, handsome with a hint of badness, which is more in line with the aesthetics of the Chinese people.
In Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, Christian Bell plays Batman
However, when Pattinson's new trilogy is all filmed, whether this ranking will change, we can wait and see.
The biggest drawback of "New Batman" is that the supporting characters are not exciting enough. You know, the Batmen of the 1989s and throughout the '90s, each living in the shadow of the opposite angle, whether it was Jack Nicholson, Kim Carey, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger, were much better than their respective Batmen. But in "New Batman", Paul Dano, who plays the riddle man, may want to get rid of Kim Carey's shadow and deliberately restrain himself, but the result is weak. Jeffrey White's James Gordon is also too low-key and lacks a sense of presence, but the temperament can connect with Gary Oldman. But Zoe Kravitz's Catwoman is eye-catching, comparable to Michelle Pfeiffer, and seconds to kill Harry Berry.
After George Cruise played "Batman and Robin", he kept laughing at himself in various interviews, saying that so many bad guys failed to kill Batman, and he killed this IP on his own. After the defeat, Clooney never touched the superhero genre, but chris O'Donnell, who played Robin, a rising star fell from then on. A blockbuster of Batman's size, like a Concorde, can make you soar into the sky and can also make you crash in an instant. Judging from the current global box office and word of mouth, Pattinson has flown away from the territory of vampires and can fly well for a while.
(Source: Tencent News)
* Some images are from the internet