Knee-jerk review: "The Batman"

1. It's three hours long, people.  That's important to know up front.
2. Does it feel like three hours?  Not really.  Does it need to be three hours?  Not really.
3. It's well made.  And at times, there is a definite artfulness to it.  The fist fight illuminated solely by the intermittent flash of machine guns is haunting.  This is no surprise.  Director Matt Reeves knows what he's doing - Cloverfield is fantastic and his two Planet of the Apes reboot films are top notch.
4. The movie has the same sort of vibe as Christopher Nolan's overrated The Dark Knight (2008).  It's all very serious and important.  And mostly humorless.  These are sad, rather hopeless characters.
5. It may feel like The Dark Knight, but the closer cousin is David Fincher's masterpiece Seven (1995) what with following a serial killer's trail of creepy clues amid the dark and rainy streets of an amoral urban nightmare.  The Riddler is John Doe, you see.
6. Robert Pattinson's pasty, ghoulish appearance makes for the strongest onscreen suggestion yet that Batman is perhaps a little too similar to the unhinged criminals he pursues.
7. At least we didn't have to again watch Bruce Wayne's parents die in an alley. 
8. This is one dark, dark movie.  It's like someone didn't pay the electricity bill.  Even a hospital ward suffers from moody, dim lighting.  The Little Fry whispered to us at one point "Why is everything so dark?"
9. Can we agree that Jeffrey Wright elevates any movie he's in?
10. The plot is pretty complicated and doubles back on itself, connecting the leaders and gangsters of Gotham City in unexpected ways.  We weren't expecting that.
11. Cool contact lens camera.
12. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as the Penguin, but one thing is clear: he's doing an Al Pacino impression.  And it's pretty good.
13. The ending is nice and big, but the water business seemed a bit too much to us, like someone somewhere thought the ending needed to be, you know, just a little bit bigger.
14. There is a fairly satisfying arc to Batman involving his "I'm vengeance" catchphrase.
15. Yes, Batman does spend a lot of time acting like a cop chasing down leads and examining evidence.  It's a got a solid police procedural feel.  But several of his successes come from happenstance and coincidence, like the random cop in the right place at the right time who has an uncle that installs carpets.  Okaaaay.
16. They just couldn't do a Batman movie without including the Joker, could they?
17. Did we mention it's three hours long?
18. The car chase is pretty exciting, at least what we can see of it in the dim lighting and pouring rain.
19. We suppose the biggest problem with the movie is just the question of... why?  At what point do audiences grow weary of watching yet another incarnation of the same characters exploring the same sorts of stories?  Given that The Batman has made $500 million in less than two weeks, the answer would seem to be "not anytime soon."
20. Can the next Batman be more fun possibly?  Turn on a light, Bruce.

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Knee-jerk review: "Uncharted"

1. A lot of fun. In fact, it's so good-hearted and earnest that any criticism feels like a cruel nitpick.  It know what it is and totally delivers.
2. Whether you call it a shameless rip-off or a clever homage, it's most definitely in the vein of Indiana Jones-style globe-hopping action-adventure treasure hunts.  See also: The DaVinci Code, Tomb Raider, and National Treasure.
3. Apparently it's based on a video game, but the film never feels convoluted like so many game adaptations.  The only clue to us was the Playstation logo that appeared during the producer logos at the start of the movie.
4. Tom Holland looks like he might be able to leverage his aw-shucks Spiderman success into genuine movie stardom.
5. It's the kind of movie that relies on some pretty crazy plot points, like the plausibility of working-class thieves and pickpockets figuring out a 500-year-old mystery.  While at the same time a billionaire with every resource available can't do it without their help.
6. If you can put your heroes in tuxedoes at a swanky auction heist, we're pretty much already on board.
7. Mark Walhberg is just playing himself at this point, right?
8. Everyone's after plundered treasure from hundreds of years ago: gold crosses and coins and ingots.  That's cool, but we couldn't help but wonder what you do with that once you have it?  How do you convert that into cash?  Sell it to a museum?  Melt it down into bars?  You make bars, okay, then what?  Take those to the local Wells Fargo teller?  You really would need a specialized underground precious metal fence to help you... and then we wonder, will how do you trust that person not to double-cross you?  We eventually had to stop that train of thought and focus back on the movie.
9. Yes, there are "plot twists" that do what the story needs them to do and sends the action in a new direction, but you likely won't be surprised by any of them.
10. Okay, not quite true: we were sort of shocked by one unexpected character elimination.
11. One of the little Fries was quite annoyed that the "You're a little young to be a bartender" and "You're a little old to be going to prom" exchange featured in the trailer didn't make it into the movie.  We had to explain movie editing and marketing to her.
12. It's been said that memorable set pieces are what makes a good film great.  Uncharted has three - maybe four - knockout action scenes.  The ending is particularly over the top in the best way possible.
13. It's a dumb pet peeve, but we hate when movies just begin without a title.  What's the impulse in filmmakers to play the movie and then only after the final fade out (and right before the credits roll) will we finally see in big letters... Uncharted.  What's the deal?  This is becoming more and more common and we do not approve.
14. See it.

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