Matt Reeves

2022 - 3 - 3

batman review - the batman review

'The Batman' Director Matt Reeves Wants to Put You Off-Kilter (CNET)

As DC's Dark Knight returns, the writer-director describes how his take on Batman contrasts with previous movies. ... The Batman director Matt Reeves took inspiration from noir cinema. Jonathan Olley/DC.

And I similarly wanted this idea that early on, Batman had proven helpful to Gordon in a way that was very unexpected, and let Gordon know that there was more to him than just being a vigilante. This movement from an emblem of vengeance to an emblem of eventually hope was one of the early conceits that shaped the movie. In so many ways he's rejected what it means to be a Wayne, and he's engaged in this sort of compulsive, almost addiction to being Batman that's really just about trying to make sense of his life, which he can't really do. But I wanted him to be early enough in his years of being Batman that he had room to improve and to change and to evolve. The shadow side, his desire for revenge, and this personal animus and rage, those are pushing him in a way that makes him a little bit out of control. I just kind of went backwards from that and thought about what it would be like in the real world; it made me think of the Zodiac Killer, leaving ciphers and puzzles for the police, which made me think of the Riddler. Falcone, I thought, was kind of like the John Huston character, Noah Cross, that he's this supposedly legitimate figure of power who you realize is a terrifying presence in that movie. I felt that the other films had made reference to some of the spycraft, but it wasn't the thrust of the narrative. I thought that would allow us to create a movie that felt tonally very different, a kind of a psychological thriller, almost a horror movie at points, with this serial killer's cat and mouse game. It was important to me that when Batman sees the mayor's son in the wake of what happens, that he is really looking at himself. In a way, Bruce and that boy are bonded very profoundly in that moment, because not many people he comes across experienced the same trauma that did when he was 10 -- to see another child going through that would affect him really deeply. And I thought the idea of putting the audience into the shoes, or in this case, the binoculars of the Riddler, and having him spy right from the beginning, would be an unexpected way to begin a Batman movie.

'The Batman': 7 Movies That Influenced Matt Reeves (Collider.com)

Here are the seven films that unexpectedly influenced Matt Reeves for his version of the Batman.

Robert Pattinson is effortlessly magnetic as unscrupulous Queens-bred scumbag Connie Nikas in the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time – so magnetic, in fact, that with that performance, he managed to convince Matt Reeves that he was the dude to play one of the most famous and beloved superheroes of all time. Fincher’s almost unreasonably engrossing Zodiac, about the Zodiac Killer’s bloody reign of terror in the San Francisco of the 60s and 70s, is a decade-best masterwork that combines the director’s fascination with murders and psychopaths with the details of routine minutiae as it relates to true crime. With the Riddler’s murders revolving around a set of opaque clues, most of which are constructed with the intention of taunting and obstructing the authorities, it’s hard not to think of David Fincher’s grisly Se7en, one of the all-time serial killer films. One of the most disarming changes to the Gotham City mythology that we see in The Batman is the decision to turn The Riddler into an outright serial killer, one whose deviance ultimately brings a battle-worn city to its knees. In SyFy, Reeves insisted that there “had to be a very deep conspiracy going on” in The Batman, with the most pertinent question being how far up the ladder it goes, and who’s got their hands dirty. The good news is that critics, for the most part, have responded with overwhelming positivity to the Cloverfield director’s brawny, brooding take on the darkest days of the Caped Crusader. Ever since its moodier-than-usual trailer first premiered, The Batman has felt gloomier, stranger, and certainly more cinematic than your average superhero tentpole.

The Batman review: Dives into mind of the bat and the man like no ... (Hindustan Times)

The Batman movie review: Matt Reeves' addition to the lore of the Caped Crusader might just be one of the best film made on the Batman. | Hollywood.

In the end, at almost three hours, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is a whole lot of movie, and somehow still not enough. An origin story in the truest sense, it’s the journey of a vigilante who’s still discovering what it means to be a hero. Finally, we get a Batman movie that gives us fight sequences worthy of the Caped Crusader (Nolan’s movies famously lacked in their action sequences, and Batfleck only really gave us that one thrilling warehouse assault set-piece to cling onto). But Daniel Arrias’ action choreography goes beyond slick martial arts and badass brawls. Everything from the Batsuit (one that doesn't rely on parlour tricks or theatrics for presence) to the gadgets to even the Batmobile is lighter and more functional. Amidst its gradually unfolding noir detective story, the action and violence in Reeves’ movie is matter of fact but never overlooked. Much like the celebrated Batman: Year One storyline from the comics (and subsequent 2011 animated film), Reeves’ interpretation of the Dark Knight covers the end of the first age of the Batman - when all he had to contend with were mobsters and street thugs - and ushers in the era of ‘freaks’ and villains. As a man possessed with his mission, Robert Pattinson emanates a seething rage and achingly channels a man in pain like no Bat on the big screen before him. He’s not a flashy playboy or fancy CEO, but a recluse, living in his trauma and solitude. And has one hell of a car. I can only say that this is the richest interpretation of Batman on screen I've ever experienced. Aside from Year One, Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig equally take inspiration from the Batman: The Long Halloween comic book storyline (also recently adapted into a two-part animated film). Like that story, Reeves’ film follows a series of gruesome murders plaguing Gotham. A new psychotic murderer who calls himself The Riddler is executing corrupt officials. Think David Fincher’s Se7en, except one of the detectives just happens to be dressed like a Bat and brutally takes down bad guys on the side.

'The Batman' and Matt Reeves: Emerging from the shadow of other ... (Forbes India)

At first glance, it's not clear that Matt Reeves has any secret identity like Batman. The 55-year-old filmmaker is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy, ...

“Where the story goes, for sure, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about that,” he said. Reeves said in our interview, “I think Ben was just evaluating what he wanted to do and it wasn’t what I think he had fallen in love with, in terms of playing that character in the first place.” (Affleck was unavailable for comment, a press representative said.) “It’s immersive, it takes you along and it keeps you engrossed.” He has tested it with preview audiences and, he added, “by the way, it was once longer.” “Gotham has always been a metaphor for our world — Gotham is the dark side,” Reeves said. “Once you see the movie, I think that ceases to be an issue,” he said. After a search in which Nicholas Hoult was also said to be a close contender, Reeves landed on Robert Pattinson, the “Twilight” star he’d seen branch out into adult dramas like “The Lost City of Z” and “Good Time.” Warner Bros. waited for Reeves to finish his last “Apes” movie so it could hear his Batman pitch, and with the studio’s go-ahead, he began working on a script in early 2017. “Moviemaking lets you go into the fear, but when you’re in control of it, you start to exorcise it,” he said. That hunt — in which the names of filmmakers like Ridley Scott, Fede Álvarez and Matt Ross were reportedly kicked around — led the studio to Reeves. “He is a world-builder,” Emmerich said. “There was just something cool about that Batman, and that was my way in.” Other times, Serkis said, the work prompted more personal reflection: “We’re both fathers, so we talked a lot about father-son relationships and the difficulties and the failures of that.” When he was an adolescent, his amateur films were shown at local festivals, earning him acclaim and news media attention for his precociousness: “I eventually want to get into stories with a purpose, with a message like ‘Ordinary People,’” the 15-year-old Reeves told the Los Angeles Times in 1982.

Rounding up the Easter Eggs in Matt Reeves' The Batman (DC Comics)

Naturally the movie begins with an Easter egg. There is a news article on Mayor Mitchell's wall about the arrest of Sal Maroni. Boss Maroni is a Gotham mobster ...

This was a major theme in the graphic novelBatman: Ego,which has been cited as one of the biggest influences when making this film. - The Commissioner of the GCPD is a corrupt man named Pete Savage. A man named Pete Savage was also seen in the 1966Batmantelevision series. When it was first seen in Batman #258, the facility was called Arkham Hospital. - Unfortunately, the flood is just the beginning. The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz, is now in theaters. - We get to visit Gotham’s East End region, one of the most dangerous areas in the city. Selina scratches Carmine Falcone across the face, an homage to an iconic moment in “Batman: Year One.” - During one of the Riddler’s videos, we learn that Edward Elliot was a reporter who was digging into Martha Wayne’s past before he was killed. - While visiting the Iceberg Lounge, Batman learns that a GCPD officer named William Kenzie is corrupt. The “Gotham Gazette” has been delivering news to Gothamites since 1941’sBatman #4,and it’s also the name of this website’s monthly Batman column! - Naturally the movie begins with an Easter egg. The Batman has arrived in theaters and if you haven’t seen it yet, you’d better get on it because this is all comic fans will be talking about next week.

'The Batman' Filmmaker Matt Reeves On New Dark Knight, Pic's ... (Deadline)

'The Batman' Filmmaker Matt Reeves On New Dark Knight, Pic's Sequel & Colin Farrell Penguin HBO Max Series - Hero Nation Podcast.

The cop is then reawakened by a rising Gotham City vigilante in a story set in the events before Reeves’ Dark Knight movie. However, the filmmaker was encouraged to embrace the more popular DC characters from the franchise, given that his concept was based on an entirely original character. Director, producer and co-scribe Matt Reeves joins us on Hero Nation today to talk about his direction for a Dark Knight detective story, laced with horror, like we’ve near seen before in the history of the franchise.