The Batman Trailer – The Climb #547

Saturday 22nd August 2020

So the first trailer for The Batman is out.

I’m very interested in this movie and not just because I’m a Batman fan.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with Batman movies. I really didn’t like Batman Begins when it first came out. It seemed too subtle at the time, and it’s only over the following years that I’ve learnt how this builds as an origin story. Gotham, which is a character in its own right with Batman, was a little too “futuristic city gone bad”. They corrected that in future movies, making it a bit more like an alternative Chicago. I was also a little unsure of the tumbler Batmobile.

Interestingly, it was Batman Begins that ended up being hugely influential on Black As Knight, as much for what I liekd as what I didn’t.

Now, ever since seeing The Dark Knight, I’ve thought it the best superhero movie ever made, but I’ll admit that when they announced Heath Ledger as The Joker I was not happy. I was still in my phase of not liking Batman Begins, and when the first image was released of the look of The Joker in the movie, I was convinced this would be terrible.

Dark Knight Rises I really enjoy but it had a hard act to follow, so I get why some people dislike it.

As a result of all this, seeing a new Batman trailer is always an interesting event. I’d like to say something like “You can tell how good a Batman movie is by how good the Batmobile is” but then I didn’t really dig the tumbler at first. But I didn’t not dig the tumbler as much as I didn’t not dig Affleck’s batmobile.

I’m conscious this trailer was cut from 25% of the movie but I have to say there was a lot of positives. I like the tone. As I said, Gotham is a character in Batman stories. I like when Gotham is grounded in reality and when they start adding monorails it loses it a bit for me. This Gotham seemed good. It’s not as clean as Nolan’s later movies, but it’s not the wonderful over-the-top Gothic of Burton (which has its place). In many ways it reminds me of Batman Begins’ Arkham Asylum elements (i.e. the island Arkham is on which they close the bridges to) which were the bits I most liked (minus the monorail).

The costume isn’t bad. I’m not sure there’s a costume I’ve ever really loved. Even Nolan’s. In fact, my favourites have been Affleck Batman’s armoured suit and the desert ops one, also from Batman Vs Superman. This one looks slightly different and that seems the most important thing, as it’ll help give the movie its own visual identity.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the batmobile. Like the costume, I don’t think there’s ever been one that’s perfect but there are definitely ones I like better than others (Nolan’s, Burton’s). I guess for me a lot of it depends on how it gets used. We got a clip but only a very small clip.

I think the most controversial point is going to be Bruce Wayne. I’ve heard a few people say they think this is going to be Emo Bruce but I suspect that a lot of this is due to us seeing him without the Batman mask and the black under the eyes the costume needs. Patterson can do billionaire. Just that clip of him in Tenet shows he can pull that off, and the bits of him as The Batman seem good.

The bit that most excited me though was The Riddler. I don’t think we got to see him, but we heard his voice and I love the direction they are taking this character. He seems more Hannibal Lector than Pet Detective and I definitely think there’s room for a darker take on the character.

So overall, it looks better than I thought it would at this stage. I’ve long learnt to reserve judgement on Batman movies and this is no different.

I do secretly want this to be a massive success though.