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Is Robert Pattinson’s The Batman Able To Surpass Tom Holland’s Top-Notch Spider-Man

With Matt Reeves' The Batman just three months away and the unveiling of another teaser, we're beginning to get a fairly good idea of how the new dark knight will emerge to cinemas. Reeves offered us a perspective of the crime fighter resuming his primary function as "world's greatest detective," as seen in the comics, and it appears Bruce Wayne will be directed into a Seven-Esque race against time to prevent Paul Dano's Riddler from accomplishing a homicidal rampage.
nullIt's an intriguing notion for those of us who like the character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939 and would cheerfully enjoy almost any Batman film (given it doesn't have our hero holding pistols and attempting to take down Superman). Reeves' dilemma is that he needs to perform better than this.
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How so? Since Jon Watts' Spider-Man trilogy has just taught everyone how to reintroduce a character who no one cared to see again. Merely 7 years ago, after the underwhelming episodes of 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it seemed nearly unthinkable to see the disguised wallcrawler returning to the top of the superhero branch for Christmas. Following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker has become the best part in comic book films since Samuel L Jackson was hired as Nick Fury.
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Watts, on the other hand, hit the jackpot. Peter Parker's surprising entrance in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 enabled the filmmakers to entirely sidestep the tiresome old Spidey origins plot played out in Sam Raimi's original 2002 Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man. Spider-Man: Homecoming, released in 2017, capitalized on the character's newly certain place within the MCU by partnering him up with Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man in what proved to be an ingenious, odd-couple match. Watts also offered us an entirely different take on Aunt May, removed both of Spidey's traditional comic book squeeze, and presented a far sillier, far more delightful, and insouciant perspective on Midtown High School.
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The challenge now is how Reeves will refresh Batman without using any of the same methods. The director has previously stated that his interpretation of Gotham's dark knight would not be included in the DCEU, thus he is unlikely to encounter Wonder Woman, Aquaman, or Cyborg. No one is betting on The Flash appearing at some point, given that his movie, due out in November, will go deep into the DC multiverse and could wind-up meeting Adam West's incarnation of Bats if Warner Bros. truly wants to make it happen. However, the odds are that this Robert Pattinson's Gotham City caped crusader will be fighting on his own.
nullSo, where will the justification for resurrecting Batman for the sixth time in three decades come from? No one could really be as bad in a cloak and mask as Ben Affleck, can they? According to the current teaser, Dano's Riddler will share little similarity to Jim Carrey's irritable emerald-suited puzzler-poser. But would the danger he poses to Bruce Wayne be so unlike to Heath Ledger's anarchic, deranged menace in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight? Catwoman has previously played in two Batman live-action films, 1992's Batman Returns and 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, so how will Zo Kravitz's version differ? She definitely has more cat-related jokes up her bag than the more restrained Anne Hathaway in Nolan's picture, but are wisecracks about having nine lives really that, unlike Michelle Pfeiffer's PVC-coated, pun-wielding performance all those years ago?
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These minor things are probably unimportant to those of us who are Batman fans. But, for the general audience, Reeves will need to show that he's delivering us a Gotham City we have never seen before. Could the Riddler's assault against Batman have anything to do with his father's misdeeds, as hinted to in prior trailers? Oops, we've already met the villainous Thomas Wayne in the most recent Joker film.
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Without a question, Reeves will find a new method to delve into the Wayne family's past. He will undoubtedly need to do so if The Batman is to break out of the geek ghetto and reach the type of larger audience that Nolan's Dark Knight saga did. Let's pray for some startling Bat-twists, since, as much as we diehard caped crusader fanboys would like to believe, there are only so many filmgoers willing to lap up new Batman and Catwoman flicks every few years, like bowls of progressively tepid milk.
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