Weekend Movie Roundup

I saw a couple movies over the weekend, and now you have to hear about them

I saw two movies over the weekend that attempted to breathe new life into existing intellectual properties with varying degrees of success. One of those was The Batman, and the other was Scream (2022). The Batman is a total reboot of the franchise while Scream serves as both a sequel and a reboot of the franchise. I’m going to discuss both while divulging as few spoilers as possible, but here’s a minor spoiler warning if you want to see either or both of these films completely untainted by my words.

Scream

Let’s start with the one that’s already available to rent or buy. The original Scream (1996) from director Wes Craven was both a satire of the slasher subgenre of horror films and an expertly crafted slasher in its own right. It’s about a masked killer who is a huge fan of slasher films and familiar with all of the tropes associated with the subgenre. It becomes a whodunnit where a group of high school friends try to figure out who the killer is while they are picked off one at a time. It’s great. I can’t recommend it highly enough. There were three sequels that followed (all directed by Wes Craven) that all tried to match the self aware meta narrative and scares from the original with diminishing returns. The latest entry (directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) is an attempt to inject new life into the franchise by satirizing the latest Hollywood trend of sequels to existing franchises that also serve as soft reboots (think 2018’s Halloween and this year’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre as examples). Even the title of this latest entry is satirizing the trend of naming these soft reboot sequels the same thing as the originals. The film definitely succeeds as satire. There is one scene in particular that is poking fun at a long-standing horror trope that had me laughing out loud. Where the film is less successful is as a horror film. There are a few tense scenes and plenty of gruesome kills, but I never felt totally invested in the characters. Where the original perfected the juggling act of balancing the scares with the meta narrative, this latest entry doesn’t quite pull it off. It’s still a mostly enjoyable film, but it’s certainly no masterpiece. I haven’t come up with a rating system yet for my movie reviews, so let’s give this 6.5 red herrings out of 10.

The Batman

By my count, The Batman is the fifth attempt at starting a new live action Batman franchise. This one is directed by Matt Reeves with Robert Pattinson in the lead role with a supporting cast that includes Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Ferrell, and many more. It tells the story of Bruce Wayne in his second year as Batman as he investigates a series of murders by someone calling himself the Riddler. When rebooting a franchise like Batman, it’s important to establish a consistent tone and vision. Reeves certainly does that with this film. The Batman is a neo-noir crime thriller that allows the World’s Greatest Detective™️ to actually be a detective. A criticism that is often leveled at Batman films is that they can be more focused on the villain than Batman himself. That is not the case in The Batman. This is a nearly three hour film that centers the caped crusader throughout. It does an excellent job of utilizing sound mixing and shadow to convey how terrifying Batman is to the common criminals of Gotham City. Pattinson also shines at portraying the character as a quiet and brooding figure who is also socially awkward and not always sure of himself. The movie does drag a bit for me in the second act when it focuses more on organized crime in Gotham instead of Riddler’s murder spree, but it makes up for that with an intense third act. Paul Dano’s Riddler is the least comic book accurate character in the film, but he plays the character perfectly for what the film needs him to be: a Zodiac-style serial killer who is mentally disturbed. He’s a perfect foil for Pattinson’s young and inexperienced Batman. Overall I loved this movie and thought it did a tremendous job of capturing the look and feel of modern Batman comics. It’s definitely worth seeing on the big screen. I’m giving this one 9 Colin Ferrells with facial prosthetics out of 10.

I think I’ve rambled enough for this week. If there are any topics you’d like me to cover in the future, please feel free to post them in the comments! I’m open to suggestions on what you’d like to see in this newsletter.