Month: February 2022

The second season of HBO’s hit series Euphoria came to its dramatic conclusion last night, and even HBO Max couldn’t keep up. After weeks of ups and downs, viewers finally got some closure, particularly from Rue’s storyline. But could that be the end for the Euphoria teens? As you’ve probably guessed, no, it’s not.

A third season was recently ordered by HBO, though it likely won’t premiere until late next year or even 2024. There was a long gap between the first and second season due to COVID, so perhaps the new season will get started on production earlier rather than later. But, there are a few things to consider.

First, there were some rumors and reports of a toxic work environment behind the scenes, with showrunner Sam Levinson not being as, uh, prepared as he’s supposed to be. Reports stated that the creator often came to set without a complete script, forcing the cast and crew to work long days. That, paired with a main cast member Barbie Ferreira walking out could cause some tension between the cast and crew. Maybe Levinson needs some more time to actually complete the script.

Another factor that might affect season three is the rising careers of most of the cast, specifically Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney, who have both taken on major projects over the past few months, which will likely shoot this year. The show probably wouldn’t go on without them, so they might have to postpone and schedule the season around them.

The show is insanely popular, so it’s safe to say the next season will be just as hyped up when it happens…eventually.

The Chicks are heading on the road for the first time since before the pandemic to celebrate 2020’s Gaslighter, which came after a 14-year hiatus and a name change. The trio is bringing Patty Griffin and Jenny Lewis along with them for select dates out of the 27 across the country. Find the full tour dates below.

06/14 – St Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre*
06/15 – Chicago, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre*
06/19 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center*
06/21 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center*
06/22 – Detroit, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre*
06/24 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage*
06/27 – Cleveland, OH @ Blossom Music Center*
06/29 – Syracuse, NY @ St. Joseph’s Health Amphitheater at Lakeview*
06/30 – Hartford, CT @ Xfinity Theatre*
07/02 – Wantagh, NY @ Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theatre*
07/05 – Boston, MA @ Xfinity Center*
07/06 – Holmdel, NJ @ P.N.C. Bank Arts Center*
07/08 – Camden, NJ @ Waterfront Music Pavilion*
07/09 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live*
07/12 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek*
07/14 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion*
07/16 – Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre*
07/23 – San Diego, CA @ North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre^
07/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre^
07/26 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre^
07/29 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl^
07/30 – Mountain View, CA @Shoreline Amphitheatre^
08/02 – Denver, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre^
08/05 – Salt Lake City, UT @ USANA Amphitheatre^
08/06 – Boise, ID @ Ford Idaho Center Amphitheatre^
08/09 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater^
08/13 – George, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre^

* with Patty Griffin
^ with Jenny Lewis

With The Batman, director Matt Reeves had a daunting task ahead of him. Not only did he have to restore the character that didn’t exactly light audiences on fire with Ben Affleck as the Caped Crusader, but by going back to a standalone universe with Robert Pattinson, he faced unavoidable comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s epic The Dark Knight Trilogy. Essentially, Reeves had to bring Batman back to his former glory while also putting his own spin on the classic DC Comics character.

After the pandemic pushed the film back nearly a year, allowing Reeves and Warner Bros. to hype up this new Batman that would be more Kurt Cobain than dashing millionaire playboy, the big question is does The Batman and its three hour runtime deliver the Bat-goods? According to early reviews, the answer is yes. In fact, several critics are already boldly claiming The Batman weaves a gothic story that surpasses The Dark Knight, long considered to to be the crème de la crème of Batman films.

You can check out spoiler-free excerpts from the first batch of reviews below:

Mike Ryan, Uproxx:

Matt Reeves’s The Batman, at least as far as superhero movies go, feels so old-fashioned that it has come all the way around to unique again. While watching The Batman, it feels like it has more in common with gritty crime mysteries like L.A. Confidential or Se7en than, say, Spider-Man: No Way Home. (A movie I like quite a bit, for the record.) The Batman is a movie fully embracing its present and not looking forward to what everything might mean five movies down the line.

Peter Debruge, Variety:

This grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes.

Ross Bonaime, Collider:

Reeves has made the best Batman film since The Dark Knight, with a captivating and rich world that reinvigorates characters we’ve already seen on screen over and over again. With The Batman, Reeves prioritizes the shadows of Gotham, setting up this city in a way we’ve never seen before onscreen, bringing life to the world around Batman. Instead of heroes and villains that live in black and white, Reeves has presented a city defined by the gray.

Pete Hammond, Deadline:

In terms of action, this is meant to be a slower-paced and far moodier take on the 80-year-old fan favorite but is worth the price of admission just for a midfilm car chase that ranks with the best in any previous version. The Batman might not be The Batman, but what Reeves has wrought is pretty damn good and worth a few spins in the Batmobile. In other words, this is a Batman you have never seen before.

Julian Roman, MovieWeb:

Director Matt Reeves and star Robert Pattinson have crafted a stunning noir epic that rivals The Dark Knight. The Batman is a tour de force cinematic experience that will engulf you utterly. Gotham City drips in blood, corruption, and treachery as a tortured vigilante hunts a serial killer with a diabolical agenda. He uncovers frightening truths that shatter his sense of purpose. Raise your expectations to the stratosphere. The Batman is stupefyingly awesome.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:

A brooding genre piece in which the superhero trappings of cape and cowl, Batmobile and cool gadgetry are folded into the grimy noir textures of an intricately plotted detective story. Led with magnetic intensity and a granite jawline by Robert Pattinson as a Dark Knight with daddy issues, this ambitious reboot is grounded in a contemporary reality where institutional and political distrust breeds unhinged vigilantism.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

While Reeves unfortunately retreats to the safety of franchise-building mode with the penultimate scene, “The Batman” succeeds in transforming the Bat-Signal into a beacon of hope rather than something to fear. Not just for the citizens of Gotham, but also for the multiplex audiences who will inevitably have to visit the city a few more times before Hollywood gives us somewhere else to go. Compared to the superhero movies that came before it, “The Batman” is already halfway there.

Alex Stedman, IGN:

This is the scariest Batman yet. Right from the violent opening scene, the message is clear: this is not your mother’s Caped Crusader. This is a creeping, angry, white-knuckle-inducing psychological thriller with a heavy dose of crime noir – and believe it or not, Reeves absolutely pulls it off, achieving a grimly beautiful masterpiece.

The Batman opens in theaters on March 4.

Mary J Blige and Method Man have made magic together for nearly 30 years, since their 1994 collaboration, “I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Last night, both were honored during the NAACP Image Awards with wins in the Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for their roles in 50 Cent’s Starz crime drama, Power Book II: Ghost as drug matriarch Monét Tejada and shady lawyer Davis MacLean, respectively.

Mary celebrated her award with a post on Instagram thanking the NAACP Image Awards committee along with 50 Cent, Power creator Courtney A. Kemp, Starz CEO Jeffrey Hirsch, and the show’s cast, crew, and producers. Meanwhile, Method Man’s post about the win touted his new negotiating power as a two-time award winner, as he cracked in the caption: “Price just went up!!”

Both stars are flying high lately, but Mary J has been on another level thanks to her recent appearance in Dr. Dre’s Super Bowl halftime performance, which she followed up with an appearance during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend performance alongside DJ Khaled, Gunna, Lil Baby, Lil Wayne, and Migos. Meanwhile, 50 Cent even made a joking reference to Mary’s Power character after a viral moment with Michael Jordan.

Congrats to both stars for their wins as we look forward to seeing what they do next.

Fox News dropped the “fair and balanced” slogan about five years ago, and when it comes to some hosts, it’s been balls to the wall in terms of far-right propaganda. The notoriety of those talking heads is so great that SNL‘s most recent “Weekend Update” segment largely went to town on Tucker Carlson, who has even been called out by Newsmax for all of his pro-Putin, Russian propaganda.

The conservative news network’s sure on shaking footing when it comes to Russia-vs-Ukraine (given the whole Trump-favoring thing, obviously), and on Sunday Night In America With Troy Gowdy, a former Trump advisor didn’t hide his bias. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor stood up for Putin while arguing that economic sanctions aren’t worth it, that all of this is NATO’s fault, and that Ukraine should roll over while every other country should stand by and let Putin do as he pleases.

Well, Jennifer Griffin (the Fox News national security correspondent at the Pentagon) was up next with Gowdy, and she wasn’t having this propaganda party:

“I just heard your last guest, and I feel like I need to correct some of things that Colonel Doug Macgregor just said. And I’m not sure 10 minutes is enough time to do so, because there were so many distortions in what he just said, and talking about the west and NATO vilifying Putin and sounding like an apologist for Putin.”

Griffin wasn’t done yet, and the Daily Beast notes that she’s had to take this on-air route more than once since Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine. Griffin noted that Putin wants to take Russia back to 19th-century imperialism, and she’s followed Putin closely for decades, given that she’s worked at Fox News’ Moscow bureau. Then Griffin came for Macgregor’s own actions, which she says helped make Putin’s current situation possible and even emboldened him to do so:

“The kind of appeasement talk that Col. MacGregor, who should know better, when he was in government, he was the one who was advising Trump to pull all troops out of Germany. That projection of weakness is what made Putin think he could move into a sovereign country like Ukraine.”

As MSNBC is noting, Trump had actually planned to place MacGregor as U.S. ambassador to Germany, but all of that fell apart when Macgregor started popping onto Fox News with an arsenal of conspiracy theories. That didn’t totally fly with Gowdy on Sunday night, but Griffin’s pushback was a lot louder.

The fallout from Omerette The Great’s “Sorry Not Sorry” continues to settle as more Atlanta notables weigh in on the upstart rapper’s declarations about who’s really from the city. After T.I. “respectfully” offered his thoughts — along with a helpful visual aid — now, another of Georgia’s rising stars, Latto, has entered the debate. Surprisingly, she agrees with Omeretta but says it’s not the scandal so many people are making it out to be.

Latto, who recently issued her own pledge of allegiance to her hometown with the single “Soufside,” posted a TikTok quoting a line from Omeretta’s controversial song outro. “Clay Co ishnot Alanna,” she wrote in the caption as she doubled over with laughter in the video. When one follower asked whether the song was “really that big of a deal,” Latto replied, “It’s not a big deal lol clay co is the south we not the city she said the truth tbh.”

Clay County, Georgia, is certainly not part of Atlanta’s metropolitan area, which seems to be the common factor in all the places Omeretta names in “Sorry Not Sorry.” “College Park is not Atlanta / Lithonia is not Atlanta / Clayco is not Atlanta / Decatur is not Atlanta / Gwinnett is not Atlanta / Roswell is not Atlanta / Forest Park is not Atlanta / Lilburn is not Atlanta,” she declares. The song went viral as people from Atlanta and the surrounding areas debated the merits of her arguments — which may have been the whole point.

You can check out Omeretta’s “Sorry Not Sorry” above.

A new four-part documentary series about James Brown is coming in 2023, according to A&E network. Titled James Brown: Say It Loud, it’ll be produced by the Rolling Stones‘ Mick Jagger and the Roots’ Questlove and Black Thought. It’ll feature tons of interviews with people from Brown’s life such as friends and collaborators, while also including exclusive archival footage.

“He was a brilliant performer who inspired me from the beginning and was deeply committed to the Civil Rights movement,” Jagger said in a statement, also stating that he’s “thrilled” to help produce it. “I have always admired James and learned so much from him.”

“The life of James Brown is significant not only to understand his immense musical impact, which inspires us and other artists to this day, but also for the deep and lasting impression he has had on American culture,” Questlove and Black Thought added. “Brown’s life is a crucial and timely story of struggle, redemption, and self-identity and we are honored to have the chance to share it.”

James Brown: Say It Loud will be directed by Deborah Riley Draper. It follows the 2014 biopic Get On Up, in which Chadwick Boseman played Brown. That was also produced by Jagger.

The Righteous Gemstones Halo Report is a weekly recap feature that assigns between zero and five halos to people, things, events, and general topics from each episode. There is very little to this beyond an excuse to highlight cool stuff from a good show and make jokes. And do crappy drawings of halos in MS Paint. We’re having fun.

ZERO HALOS

The Lissons

Well well well, there you have it. The Lissons were behind the cycle ninjas and the attempted hit on Eli and the charred remains of any number of bodies at Thaniel Block’s journalism cabin. It is not important who among us called this weeks ago. (ME. I DID IT.) What’s important is that the reveal played out in dramatic fashion at the opening of Zion’s Landing, right there in front of God and Joe Jonas and everyone, and that the two of them were eventually taken out in the Alaska wilderness by their own cycle ninjas and/or a pack of hungry wolves. That was really just a lot of fun.

It’s also a good opportunity to note something: For all the silliness of this show, for all the toilet babies and Keef slapping muscle men and BJ just being a sweet man among jackals, there is a real storytelling structure here, with foreshadowing and payoffs and twists and all of it. Please do not overlook that. The silliness does not work nearly as well without that foundation. It’s a funny show, sure, of course, and please see Lindy Lisson and various Gemstones shouting about who needs to eat shit and why as BJ bleeds out into the sand if you need yet another example, but it’s also just, like, a good show.

The Righteous Gemstones: A good show. You heard this here first.

Getting burned alive

The whole cold open was a thing of beauty, with its reveals about Thaniel and Lyle Lisson hiding in the closet as the Gemstone siblings flopped around in the blood, all of it circling back to the first time we saw that scene from the other perspective. But the main thing I took away from it all is that I do not think I would like to be burned alive. It does not seem fun. Pass.

ONE HALO

Thaniel Block

What a scumbag, just out for scalps and willing to burn sources and perpetuate the stereotype of an unethical journalist. I hate him. But I also kind of love that he went out shooting after the bozo Lisson crew set off multiple grenades — concussion and otherwise, they saw it on YouTube — in the front yard by accident. And I kind of want to read his previous work, just to see who else he’s taken down and how.

But mostly I appreciate that the man’s name was Thaniel. That’s just a lovely piece of business.

Joe Jonas

I feel kind of bad for Joe Jonas. The show had been setting up this payoff for most of the season and it should have been a bigger deal to me, but then they went and just slipped in freaking Macaulay Culkin out of nowhere last week. That’s a tough act to follow. Almost impossible, really. And John Amos showed up this week, too, as Lyle Lisson’s hard-pushing father. Lindy Lisson slapped him square in the face. Joe Jonas could not have lived up to any of that, even in a perfect scenario, even if he was on site as Tiffany squeezed out Baby Lionel into a mess of portable toilet goop.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

Chad and Mandy

Please imagine sitting in that massive megachurch, right there in one of the seats, getting ready to pray and sing and worship, and then you get what I choose to believe was 45 minutes of marriage counseling for a couple who could not stop talking about the size of the husband’s pecker. Get a real good visual on that. Close your eyes if it helps.

Let’s go ahead and add Chad and Mandy to the growing collection of characters I would watch a standalone episode about. Just one, with the two of them at home all day, maybe bickering about groceries or leaves or some other domestic issue. I may be alone on this one. But I do really want it.

TWO HALOS

Baby Lionel

This poor guy was squirted out into the sloppy mess of a portable toilet, and fished out in part with his own umbilical cord, at the grand opening of a religious-themed beach resort where other members of his extended family were marched into the ocean at gunpoint. And his parents, the people responsible for his DNA and upbringing, are Tiffany and Baby Billy Freeman. Yes, I know Baby Billy appears to have been shown the light via closed fist, but still. Old habits die hard. It’s tough to pay for college with mysterious health elixirs.

Point being: I am very worried about Lionel and I would appreciate it if the show checked in on him periodically to see how this all works out. He’s either going to end up being a criminal or the President of the United States. Maybe both.

Gideon

I am happy for Gideon that his Hollywood career is taking off and that he has mended the relationship with his parents but I was really hoping he would transition into becoming the family’s enforcer, like a baby-faced John Wick, and it bums me out a little that this scenario did not play out on the beach, like with him showing up on a dirtbike with a lasso or something to corral Lindy Lisson. I have no one but myself to blame for this one. I got too excited. That’s on me, really.

THREE HALOS

The cycle/snowmobile ninjas

On one hand: They are assassins who have allegiance only to money, which is bad in general and especially bad if they have been paid that money to kill you.

On the other hand: I hooted and hollered a little when they showed up in Alaska on their neon snowmobiles to follow Martin’s order and take out the Lissons.

It’s a tricky situation, really, made even trickier by the thing where I can’t concentrate on any of this too long because I start wondering what other neon-lined forms of transportation they have at their disposal. Jet skis? Lawnmowers? Rollerblades?

It’s a problem

Kelvin

Kelvin has traded in his muscle men for a Youth Squad. Which he appears to be turning into a new muscle squad. And who he appears to be planning to take to the desert with or without permission slips from their parents. He’s still working on it. He’s still figuring it out. None of it is ever going to end all that well for Kelvin. He’s too needy and misguided, too much the dictionary definition of a youngest child. But at least now he has a flock he could take in a fistfight if it came down to it.

Maybe.

Probably.

Actually, no, I would not like to supervise a crew of muscle-bound teens. I repeat what I said about this ending badly.

Jesse

Jesse should not be ranked this high. His dalliance with the Lissons caused almost everything that happened here. Eli got shot. BJ got shot. Things went real sideways in any number of ways all because he was a little insecure about his place in the church and the family and all of it. The man has rarely if ever had a good idea in his life.

But he did whip that rock pretty good with that slingshot. That’s not nothing. Even for all his faults, we do have to give him that.

FOUR HALOS

Blowing something up by flicking a cigarette into a trail of gasoline

This is… cool. Again, the Lissons were murderers and being burned alive seems bad and no one should ever slap John Amos, but come on. This is cool. Tell me you’ve never wanted to do this, just once. Do not lie to me.

DO NOT LIE.

Screw it. Meet me in that old abandoned factory yard later tonight. Bring like two gallons of gas and a pack of Marlboro Reds. We are crossing things off the bucket list out here.

Junior

It was both very funny and not surprising at all to discover that Junior has a network of arms dealers he keeps in contact with and can call out of the blue to identify various weapons. This is a very Eric Roberts character trait. The casting throughout the whole season has been incredible, the cameos and the recurring roles and all of it, but please do not overlook this one when you are making the list I assume you are making.

Bring him back next season. Please.

Keef

I do not think I can explain to any of you how excited I was when Keef tiptoed into the dance line at Zion’s Landing. I had no clue what to expect. We know he has a history of goth raves with satanists (fun phrase to type), but he’s also so shy and awkward. The possibilities were limitless. There was a chance he could have gotten scared and started crying.

But then…

BUT THEN

I did not in one million years expect to see Keef do The Worm. Anywhere. Under any circumstances. Especially not on the sand. I’m still not over it. I might display this GIF on an LCD screen that I mount to the hood of my car and just drive around town tonight. It’ll be fun until I drive under an overpass and leave a trail of glass and crystal shards all over the street behind me.

Which would be fitting, in a way. Nothing this beautiful can last forever.

Baby Billy and Aunt Tiffany

I do not know if or how any of this ends well. I do not know if Baby Billy’s change of heart will last. It appears to be going well, at least from what we saw in the month-later flash-forward, with this happy family together and Macaulay Culkin’s happy family there, too. It’s nice. It’s very nice.

But. Baby Billy gets ideas. He doesn’t stay still. He has a lifetime of following various schemes toward disaster and then speeding off through the flames as everything burns down. I am curious to see how it works. I want to see how it works. I want to see Baby Billy on my screens as soon as possible, as much as possible. That’s what I’m getting at here.

Judy

Most of the things I have to say about the supernova that is Judy Gemstone can be found here. For now, just three notes:

• The conversation between her and BJ about having children and their post-birth sex life was maybe the hardest I laughed all episode
• The bathing tips she gave Tiffany — who she is now like weirdly motherly toward — might have been number twp
• Sparkly boots
• I loved her little smug dance at the beach, which I have GIFed above and expect to use a lot going forward

Judy Gemstone is the greatest. I want only the best for her. And the worst. Both are equally funny. I keep picturing her and BJ as parents and it is relentlessly funny to me. Let’s pencil this in for next season. The people — you, me, mostly me — have earned this.

FIVE HALOS

Umbrella drinks

Delicious. Not always socially acceptable to drink, though. Like, you can’t show up at a football game in November and hand out mai tais. I mean, you should be able to, but people would look at you funny. Which is a shame. We need to normalize umbrella drinks. They don’t need to just be for vacations and Jimmy Buffett concerts. I am suddenly very passionate about this.

Order a mai tai this weekend. Ignore the bartender’s face when you do. There are always doubters in the early stages of a revolution.

BJ

I was so worried. I’m not kidding here. When BJ got shot and started squirting blood out of what appeared to be an important artery (I guess all arteries are important, shut up), I was so, so worried. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if the show had killed him off. I would have been inconsolable. I might have stayed in bed for the whole week. I love him very much and want him to be happy.

I’m fine.

Eli

Since surviving his assassination attempt, Eli has:

• Made things right with Junior and used him for valuable intel
• Strengthened the bonds of his family
• Taken over Zion’s Landing and made it a Gemstones property
• Sent Martin and a team of assassins to kill the Lissons

The lesson here is one we learned on another HBO program many years ago: If you come at the king, you best not miss.

Martin

I must know everything about Martin. He fascinates me. I felt this way before he chased the Lissons to Alaska and supervised the cycle/snowmobile ninjas in their revenge assassination, but now I suuuuuper feel that way. He might be the most interesting character on the show. I am not kidding.

What a beautiful television program, truly. I can’t wait for it to come back.

In the age of streaming, Yellowstone has been a surprise powerhouse for the Paramount Network as the show continues to bring in record ratings season after season. However, despite folks like your mom and dad tuning in every week, there is a satiable hunger for the Kevin Costner western series, which has also seen huge numbers on Peacock where its first three seasons are about to be joined by the recently wrapped Season 4.

Starting March 28, Season 4 of Yellowstone will be available for streaming on Peacock. Not only will this give fans a chance to catch up on the explosive events of the latest season, but new fans can catch up on the rugged adventures at the Dutton ranch. As for why Yellowstone is streaming on Peacock instead of Paramount Plus where showrunner Taylor Sheridan is slowly building a TV empire, well, that all comes down to a licensing deal that parent company ViacomCBS made back when it had no idea that the Montana soap opera would become a smash hit. Needless to say, they’re regretting the decision.

Via Deadline:

“In terms of where to catch it online, we had content licensing deals well before Paramount+ was thought of and our solution to that, our great solution, was to create a broad universe of Yellowstone by bringing 1883, its prequel, exclusively to Paramount+.”

[Chief Programming Officer Tanya] Giles is correct that Paramount+, which launched in March 2021, didn’t exist when that deal was done. However, the company did operate CBS All Access in this time period, and in fact the merger between sister companies Viacom and CBS had just gone through a month before the Yellowstone announcement.

In short, ViacomCBS didn’t think Yellowstone was worth the gamble at the time, but you better believe they’re betting big on the franchise now as Paramount Plus has no less than three spinoffs either already streaming or in the works.

Yellowstone Seasons 4 starts streaming March 28 on Peacock.

(Via Deadline)

Matt Reeves’s The Batman, at least as far as superhero movies go, feels so old-fashioned that it has come all the way around to unique again. While watching The Batman, it feels like it has more in common with gritty crime mysteries like L.A. Confidential or Se7en than, say, Spider-Man: No Way Home. (A movie I like quite a bit, for the record.) The Batman is a movie fully embracing its present and not looking forward to what everything might mean five movies down the line. At just under three hours in length, yes, it’s long, but it’s self-contained. And also rare for a Batman movie … Batman is actually the main character.

It was about halfway through The Batman when it hit me that the plot of this movie is just a murder/mystery movie where Batman happens to be the main character. I found myself caught up in the actual plot and mystery of the case Batman is trying to solve as opposed to wondering something like, “I wonder if Adam Strange might show up.” (It’s funny reading “fan theories” on the internet about The Batman because it’s just not that kind of movie.) Also, the use of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” really does set the mood, even though there’s no way Kurt Cobain would be happy about this, no matter how good a Batman movie this turned out to be. (Though considering how many Nirvana songs pop up in movies now, maybe the spirit of Kurt Cobain has given up on this particular issue.)

A lot is being made about how “dark” The Batman will be. Look, I think I’m about all full-on “dark” right now and would much rather have something that’s just, I don’t know … good. And the thing is, The Batman doesn’t feel all that dark. (Keep in mind, it is a PG-13 movie.) Sure, yes, it starts out with a deceptively grizzly murder (deceptive in that we don’t see much, but Matt Reeves is very good at ratcheting up the tension) carried out by the Riddler (Paul Dano), dressed up in a number that makes him look disturbingly like the Zodiac. (This is not a subtle reference to Zodiac, the Riddler also likes to use ciphers. Though Riddler’s seem much easier since there are still people out there trying to solve the Zodiac version.)

There’s a letter addressed to Batman so James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) invites Batman to the crime scene to have a look around. The Riddler is killing city officials, leaving clues behind as to why these officials are being targeted and who might be the next on his list. Is Riddler mad, or trying to expose something even more sinister? I mentioned earlier that Batman is actually the main character of this movie and what I mean by that is we see a lot of Batman in this movie. There’s really not that much of Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, but there’s a whole lot of Batman. The Burton and Schumacher movies all had an established Batman and let whatever big movie star who was playing the villain dance and prance his or her way through the movie. (Granted, this could be very entertaining.) Two of the three Nolan movies go long stretches without Batman. And in The Dark Knight, it’s kind of hard to make the case the villain didn’t overshadow Batman when the actor who played the villain won an Oscar for that role.

The Batman does not subject us, once again, to the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne. There’s no reckoning with bats attacking a young Bruce. No training montages. When The Batman starts, Bruce is already Batman. He’s a young Batman (Pattinson is playing younger than his actual age and can very much pull this off), and his relationships with people like Gordon are new, but they are already established. So, from start to finish, we have Batman and the Batman that begins this movie is very different than the Batman that ends this movie. At the beginning of the movie, Batman identifies himself as vengeance. As he learns over the course of the movie, there are a lot of different people who also think they are on the side of vengeance – whatever that even means. And Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is something we haven’t really seen before in the films. In that instead of a playboy, he’s a full-on recluse. At one point he shows up for a funeral and everyone seems shocked Bruce would attend. Nobody in Gotham is expecting to see much of Bruce Wayne. It’s a nice redefinition of Bruce Wayne that allows us much more Batman.

It’s hard to even pinpoint who the main antagonist of this movie even is. Okay, yeah, it’s probably the Riddler, but he works mostly in the background and at one point disappears for a good hour of the movie. I’ll admit, the number of Batman villains in this movie was a concern. But what Reeves does is weave them in pretty seamlessly where each interaction with Batman seems like something natural as he tries to solve these crimes. Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) works at a nightclub that one of Batman’s suspects owns and a lot of city officials hangs out at. The Penguin (Colin Farrell, who is having the absolute time of his life here) is a mid-level goon with no real power yet, but has ties to people Batman is investigating. And it’s hard to figure what angle Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) is coming from: Is he a mob boss? Is he a longtime Wayne family friend? Is he both? Is he neither? These are all things for Batman, the world’s greatest detective (which is said out loud in this movie), to figure out.

Look, I really liked this movie and I went in feeling pretty suspect of the whole endeavor. I do think Matt Reeves is a terrific director, but, gosh, there have been a lot of superhero movies as of late and now it feels like charts and graphs are needed to figure out what timeline or universe anyone comes from. But with The Batman is all feels back to basics. It feels like a street-level Batman movie where Batman is just trying to figure out a murder and a mystery. There’s a pretty nifty car chase between the Batmobile and Penguin … and even that feels pretty grounded. This particular Batmobile looks literally like something this Bruce Wayne just tooled around with on the weekends. It makes sense it would be a car that wouldn’t draw much attention to itself, yet still goes really fast. No one would look at this Batmobile and think, I bet the guy who owns that is a billionaire.

The one drawback to The Batman is that it ends on a set piece that, considering the tone of the rest of the movie, feels marginally out of place. And it’s not even that crazy of a set piece! It’s not as of Batman is fighting off aliens or anything (which, come to think of it, we have seen in a movie not that long ago). So I guess that’s a testament to the first two and a half hours of this movie being so character an plot-driven that anything using effects seems a little out of place.

The Batman isn’t revolutionary. It doesn’t upend the superhero movie dynamic. Heck, people used to the recent superhero movies getting more cosmic and playing around with alternate timelines might not even like this more back to basics approach. But I, for one, found it refreshing. A nice little breather amidst the chaos. And proof that a good story with good characters can go quite a long way.

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