Batman

Thursday

Laura Gascoigne

Evocative tribute to the orphaned caped crusader: Superheroes, Orphans & Origins at the Foundling Museum reviewed

Instead of wasting money, like other museums, on extravagant architectural statements, the Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square has sensibly chosen to welcome visitors with a written statement. In 2014 it commissioned the poet Lemn Sissay, who spent his teenage years in a children’s home, to create a memorial in its entrance hall to the many parentless heroes and heroines in fiction. ‘Heathcliff was a foundling… Harry Potter was fostered… Dorothy Gale was adopted… James Bond was fostered…’ The list goes on, running to more than 100 names. Sissay’s mural will trigger a lightbulb moment for any dimwit like me who has failed to notice this narrative trope – and there

Tuesday

Alec Marsh

Why the British don’t do superheroes

I don’t know about you but I’m a rather a fan of Batman or The Batman, if you prefer to give him the definite article as the new film does. It’s also rather heartening to see so many fine British actors earning a pretty penny portraying him – Robert Pattinson dons the cowl in the new film, hot on the heels of Christian Bale. And it’s not just Gotham’s bone crushing vigilante that our acting schools are clearly adept at preparing actors for: Brits Tom Holland Andrew Garfield have both slung webs as Spider-man and of course Henry Cavill has done the blue leotard proud playing Superman four times. As

Friday

Stephen Arnell

Ten cerebral superhero films to rival The Batman

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

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Humourless and stale: The Batman reviewed

The latest Batman film, The Batman, may be a reboot, or even a reboot of a rebooted reboot that’s been rebooted. Hard to tell any more. Tracey Ullman once joked that her mother had served leftovers for so long that no one could recall the original dish and this feels like that. What was the original dish? Was it Tim Burton’s version from 1989 starring Michael Keaton? I don’t know. All I know is that you hope each time for something fresh and surprising and entertaining but every film since has simply attempted to out-film noir the last. We can go darker still! Bruce Wayne, more traumatised by his childhood