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...

For the boys...  As long as I can remember, hearing the ''Dance of the Cuckoos'' music sends through me waves of joy at the expectation of more antics by ''The Boys''. Who can possibly resist the undeniable charm of these two grown men acting like children. Two well-meaning, accident-prone, clumsy idiots who would try to disguise their immaturity under the ill-fitting suits and bowler hats, in a futile attempt to look respectable. And no matter what ordeals they would go through, and the pain they would inflict to each other, sometimes on purpose, often by accident, they would always remain the best of friends. Their sense of comedic timing was undeniable, and the chaos that would result from their pairing was a constant source of hilarity. Yet they also elicited a sympathy that emerged from their complicity with the audience. Stan's signature desperate wailing while looking straight at the viewer, Oliver's exasperated stare...

  The very first scene of JUSTICE LEAGUE pretty much sums up the film in a way. Superman had just finished a rescue mission, and kids are doing an interview with him for their blog. The point of view is from a shaky phone camera. The kids giddily ask the polite hero what's his favourite thing about Earth.  He turns his head and thinks for a few seconds. He frowns. The answer should be easy, but it's not. He then smiles and turns back to the camera. He starts to speak and his words are cut short as the scene brutally ends. It's probably my favourite scene of the film, showing a certain sense of poignancy in Henry Cavill's acting, and in the symbolic way the scene is cut short, the same way his life was in the unjustly maligned BATMAN V SUPERMAN . It has a charming sense of ''reality'' that has been lacking in a lot of the DC Films and translate well the inherent goodness of the Man of Steel as well as the admiration children may have ...

A quick note before I begin. This review may contain mild spoilers, but nothing that wasn't hinted in the trailers for the film. However, if you want to avoid having some surprises revealed, you may just want to avoid any reviews in the first place. ;) Thor has never been the easiest character to integrate in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In a world dominated by the science and reason of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, we now had to jump into a land of trolls, giants and Gods. The contrast seemed hard to digest, but the makers of the first THOR movie had the brilliant idea to adhere to Arthur C. Clarke's third law : ''Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic''. Hence, Asgard is not as much a realm of Gods, but a race of aliens that have been mistaken for Gods in their early Earthly visits.  Something also pretty much right out of the pages of Erich Von Daniken's CHARIOTS OF THE GODS . A brilliant move. Kenneth Branagh  was ...