I Saw ‘Blue Beetle’

If you had told me just a couple of weeks ago that I would watch Blue Beetle, I would’ve definitely been surprised but here we are. Why did I watch it, you might ask. Well, it’s Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and, according to James Gunn, Jaime Reyes a.k.a Blue Beetle is the first hero in the rebooted DCU. So, that meant I figured I might as well check it out. And to my relief, it was a solid superhero film.

Blue Beetle is, honestly, pretty generic, but through that bland superhero structure shines a beautifully told story about family and its everlasting power. The chemistry between the family is so good that you become completely invested in the characters which, ultimately, makes the film worth watching.

New Footage of ‘Avatar 2’, ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’, and So Much More Debut at Cinemacon

It feels like a lifetime ago when I was sharing updates of a movie from a comic-con but here we are. This week Cinemacon is taking place and there have been a whole bunch of exciting developments. So, let’s get to the movie news of the week.

The Greta Gerwig-helmed Barbie film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling as Ken, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Emma Mackey, Alexandra Shipp, Issa Rae, and so many other actors has released its first official image. Here it is.

This is an amazing picture for only one reason: the car. It looks like an actual Barbie car brought to life and that alone is shocking. Now, is Margot Robbie giving me Barbie vibes? She’s blond, she’s pretty, but I’m not quite sure yet. We’ll see.

Apparently will be dropping on the same day as Oppenheimer next year, July 23.

The Batman is officially getting a sequel with Robert Pattinson and Matt Reeves returning! While this isn’t necessarily surprising it is nice to hear.

‘The Batman’ At Home

A little over two months ago I watched one of the greatest superhero movies I’ve ever seen in theaters. It was, of course, The Batman. From the first minute to the last the film gripped me and never let go. The dank, darkness of Gotham’s world sucked me in and for nearly three hours I was riveted by the journey “Vengeance” had to take to officially become “The Batman.”

It was mind-blowing, intense, horrifying, romantic, stirring, basically everything you’d want a Batman origin story to be but there’s always that question. Was the movie really that good or was it heavily aided by IMAX? Well, I can confirm that The Batman really is that good.

This morning I logged into my HBO Max account and revisited my favorite film of the year so far, a movie so beautiful in its storytelling and visuals that it’s like a feast for a cinema lover. This is no regular superhero film. It is an experience. A moody reimagining of a character we know so well it’s almost shocking a director found a new way to tell this hero’s story.

A Deleted Scene for ‘The Batman’ Reveals Our Official Look at Barry Keoghan’s Joker

Yesterday Matt Reeves, out of the blue, dropped the official five-minute-long deleted scene featuring none other than Barry Keoghan’s take on the Joker and it was fascinating, to say the least. Here it is.

After watching the scene it was obvious why it had, in fact, been deleted, and yet it’s one of the greatest deleted scenes I’ve seen in a while.

Please DC Comics, Do Not Treat Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman Like Finn

I know. The Batman just came out two weeks ago so I shouldn’t be worrying too much about the lack of announcements for a spinoff or a comic book series featuring Kravitz’s iteration of Catwoman…and yet…I’m getting fidgety. Why? Well, I just saw this on Twitter today.

DC has seemingly teased a 'RIDDLER: YEAR ONE' comic for Paul Dano's version of #TheBatman villain. pic.twitter.com/agfGnCTgoX

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) March 18, 2022

And suddenly I’m getting Finn erasure flashbacks all over again.

Finn, next to Rey, was the most important character in the Sequel Trilogy when The Force Awakens first came out. I mean, he was a stormtrooper who turned good! And there was the possibility of him having the Force too? What isn’t more fascinating than that?!

Instead of continuing to broaden his storyline through novels and a comic book series they gave the spotlight to Poe Dameron who suddenly became far more important than Finn ever would be. He got a 31-issue comic series, a novel detailing his story before he joined the Resistance, and when The Rise of Skywalker came out, he was larger than Finn on the poster, cementing the notion that he was more important than Finn.

Meanwhile, Finn only got two comic books:

The left one was a standalone issue which came out in 2019. That’s four years after The Force Awakens! And then the issue on the right also came out in 2019 but as you can see Finn is now placed behind Poe Dameron because Lucasfilm slowly but surely diminished Finn’s place in the storyline.

It feels like the same thing is happening to Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman.

‘The Batman’ After a Second Viewing

So, I saw The Batman in IMAX for the second time yesterday and it’s official, I love this movie. It’s dark (literally), gloomy, intense, mysterious, oddly romantic, and piercing to the very soul.

Surprisingly, this movie is at its best in its first twenty minutes and last twenty minutes. The film’s opening is shockingly fantastic; from the gruesome murder scene that actually makes The Riddler incredibly scary to Pattinson’s ICONIC debut as this decade’s newest iteration of Batman, the movie starts with a bang.

And then the ending is just as moving. Batman is now looked upon as an official hero of Gotham. The Riddler, now in Arkham Hospital, is cooking up a “comeback story” with The Joker. And Selina Kyle and Batman have to part ways despite having incredibly strong feelings for one another. The final shot makes me giddy just thinking about the sequel.

And then there’s the rest of the movie which happens to be a heck of a mystery/thriller with some of the most beautiful shots I have EVER seen in a film, period. There’s so much to love about this film; the perfectly choreographed action scenes (particularly the car chase and the hallway fight), SELINA KYLE, the brooding music, Pattinson’s totally emo take on Batman and Bruce Wayne, the way he uses his eyes in every scene. Oh, I could go on and on about this fantastic film but there is one major problem with this movie: The Riddler.