Stephen Arnell

Ten cerebral superhero films to rival The Batman

  • From Spectator Life
Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne in The Batman (Warner Bros)

With an added ‘The’ for extra gravitas, Matt Reeves’ fresh take on The Batman is picking up generally favourable notices both for the movie and Robert Pattinson’s interpretation of the character, which apparently makes Christian Bale’s dour Bruce Wayne a happy-go-lucky scamp in comparison. The Spectator’s Deborah Ross wasn’t convinced by yet another dark twist on the superhero but elsewhere the film has received solid reviews.

The Caped Crusader has seen many iterations on film, the most recent being Ben Affleck’s constipated billionaire, which never really caught on with audiences.

Christopher Nolan’s three motion pictures (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) raised the bar for both Batman films and superhero movies as a whole, earning praise from critics who previously shunned the genre.

With Reeves’ new movie upping both the grimness ante and the political subtext of TDKR (which was seen as anti the Occupy movements of the time), The Batman promises to be a superhero flick that film snobs can be seen to enjoy. If that’s the right word.

With this in mind, a cinematic smorgasbord at the more intellectual end of the latex-clad hero market.

Watchmen (2009) Amazon Rent/Buy

Deemed ‘unfilmable’ by many, Alan Moore’s dystopian superhero story was brought to the screen rather too literally (with one major plot exception) by bombastic director Zack Snyder (300).

Snyder’s overuse of slow-motion, poor prosthetics, a cringe-inducing sex scene (to the decidedly unromantic strains of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah) and slavish attempt to recreate the panels of the original graphic novel can be off-putting, but the picture remains a watchable diversion from the more run-of-the-mill superhero flicks.

For me, HBO’s 2019 mini-series sequel was a far more enjoyable experience, writer Damon Lindelof (Lost/The Leftovers) taking Moore’s concept in an interesting direction, although some accused the show of being ‘a woke left fantasy’.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Disney+, Amazon Rent/Buy

A Marvel movie for those who hate Marvel movies? Probably not, but The Winter Soldier stands out from the herd with its deliberate evocation of 1970s conspiracy movies, referenced in the casting of Robert Redford (Three Days of the Condor) as chief bad guy Alexander Pierce.

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