Brain Dead and Loving it!

    I remember in 1989 thinking just how dark and gritty Tim Burton's vision of Batman was. And ever since, except for Joel Schumacher's failed attempts at recapturing the goofiness of Adam West's 1966 version of the Dark Knight in BATMAN FOREVER (1995) and BATMAN & ROBIN (1997), every new cinematic versions of the character have gotten darker and grittier. Matt Reeves' THE BATMAN is only a confirmation of that trend, where even Bruce Wayne doesn't provide with some respite for Batman's sullenness. Robert Pattinson's definitely emo version of Wayne, lock of hair falling over his gaunt, humorless face, dark mascara spread around his eyes, conveys the lingering pain still troubling the world's most famous cartoon orphan (after Annie , of course.) There is no room for levity in this Gotham that rivals in griminess the diseased city portrayed in Todd Philips' JOKER (2019) . In that way, THE BATMAN is probably the most « realistic » movie ab