AFTER a couple of down years during the Covid-19 pandemic, the movie industry is hoping to bounce back. In the last couple months, Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the latest James Bond adventure, No Time to Die came out to great success in the international and local box office. More surefire hits like Spider-Man: No Way Home in December should help breathe life into cinemas.
About the only thing that’s assured to bring people back are comic book movies, and for Warner Bros that means properties falling under the umbrella of DC Comics. To the average person, that means Batman, which like Spider-Man is a character that has endured on the big screen for decades.
The Batman
This latest iteration of the character is an entirely new reboot, with no connection to the more recent Batman played by Ben Affleck in the two divisive movies directed by Zack Snyder. In fact, years ago Affleck was supposed to star, direct and write his own Batman movie, but that eventually fizzled out.
Now starring Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader in his early days of crime fighting in Gotham City, the trailer implies a grittier and grungier depiction of the superhero. In many ways the teaser trailer leans heavily into the aesthetic used by David Fincher in 1995’s Seven. Who’s to say what the end result will be, but it does seem to be going in a different direction, as compared to Christoper Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy.
The Flash
Still in the midst of production, the footage shown only lasted a minute but hints at the direction the DC universe is headed. Much like how rival Marvel Studios has embraced the concept of the multiverse – or multiple realities – this Flash movie has the character (first introduced in 2017’s Justice League) seemingly interacting with Michael Keaton’s Batman.
That Batman, from 1989’s Batman (yes, there’s a lot of Batmen in this article), is unseen – besides the back of his stiff helmet – but Keaton narrates the whole thing. The veteran actor has had a long career since then, and now lends his gravitas to a revisit decades later. There will probably be more complications to the story, and here’s hoping that DC blazes its own path separately from Marvel.
Black Adam
This long gestating superhero project is about a superpowered anti hero who is probably too obscure for most cinemagoers. Of course, that’s why you get The Rock on board. The most tireless self-promoter in Hollywood is such a force of positivity, the studio probably thinks they can sell the movie on his name alone.
However, in the minute or so of footage we barely see his face as he disintegrates a generic mercenary type dude. With a release date in July, there’s plenty of time to build up hype, but what’s shown should be enough red meat for comic book fans. – The Vibes, October 17, 2021
