I liked Battinson more than I thought I would.

I have fatigue when it comes to the Batman. So, I really didn't want to go and see another iteration of The Batman. But I have a friend whom I greatly respect when it comes to these things, and he said he loved it. In his words, "I loved seeing The Batman as a detective and not as someone who just punches people and then has fancy toys." So...having absorbed this thought, I decided to go out and watch it. Folks, it was worth the money.

Matt Reeves's iteration of The Batman (Reeves is the director) has DC and Warner Brothers doubling down on the dark and gritty atmosphere of their movies probably because they don't want to be Marvel. With The Batman...it works. This character was always a very moody, brooding figure in the comic books. I can't tell you how many comic book covers feature the Batman walking in the rain, or crouching in the rain, or doing something in the rain. Rain is ubiquitous to the atmosphere of the Batman...a rain-soaked dreary Gotham where everything is bad and no one is there to save you from the darkness is what many of us comic book readers come to expect from this particular brand of superhero. Did it ever stop raining in The Batman? If it did, I didn't notice, and that's good.

In some ways, the Batman is a figure that would transfer pretty effortlessly to the Cthulhu mythos stories, where ordinary people with perhaps extraordinary grit are faced off against the cosmic horrors of the universe and are somehow expected to survive. The fact that the Batman does manage to do this time and time again is why he is a superhero. Ordinary people would never survive the kinds of things that the Batman experiences on a daily basis.

I think that this is also the reason why the Batman isn't a good character for the broader DCU. I know he's a very popular character, which is why they need him in the Justice League of America. But he doesn't fit well with those characters, because what he is just gets lost, and he gets boiled down to a person that provides insights and money and technology to other super heroes who are really good at punching cosmic horrors in the face.

This is exactly why "Cosmic Horror" storylines do not translate well to Dungeons & Dragons. In D&D, you have a game system that makes characters into super-powered versions of Doctor Strange (more or less) or into figures like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings or Aragorn for that matter. There's very little that these people need to fear because they have such a tremendous amount of resources. So the writers end up making cheesy powers that "nullify this and that" in order to allow an invincible character to experience fear and danger. But if you just take a moment to realize what's going on, you see behind the curtain and the whole "suspension of disbelief" comes crashing down. This is also Superman's problem. It must be hell coming up with stories for this guy to do because you always have to nullify his powers or else he just stomps everything. And then when you make something more powerful than Superman, well the whole planet is in danger and the thing isn't so much horrifying as it is absurd. So you lose the scare factor if that's what you were going for in the first place.

Anyway, this new movie called The Batman and starring Robert Pattinson is good. I want more. I want a spinoff of Colin Farrell's Penguin, and I liked Paul Dano's take on The Riddler (for what its worth). It reminded me a lot more of Seven than it ever did to anything in the DC Universe. Additionally, the chemistry between Kravitz (Catwoman) and Pattinson (the Batman) was palpable. I liked it, and Pattinson looks good in the suit.

Anyone else go and see this movie? If so, did you like it?