matt reeves | the m0vie blog

277. The Batman – This Just In (#67)

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Graham Day and Niall Glynn, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, a new entry: Matt Reeves’ The Batman.

Bruce Wayne is in the second year of his war on crime in Gotham, and things are not improving. Indeed, the city is thrown into anarchy when a new villain calling themselves the Riddler begins targetting city officials and threatening to unmask the city’s darkest secrets. Can Bruce survive what is coming? Can the Batman? Can Gotham?

At time of recording, it was ranked 67th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: action, america, batman, ben affleck, catwoman, colin farrell, cowboys, films, gangsters, greig fraser, incels, joker, mass shootings, matt reeves, Movies, niall glynn, Penguin, politics, power fantasies, reviews, riddler, Robert Pattinson, superheroes, the batman, trump, violence, Zoë Kravitz | 1 Comment »

New Escapist Column! “The Batman” as a Paranoid Conspiracy Thriller…

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday evening. With The Batman releasing this weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at Matt Reeves’ take on the Caped Crusader.

Reeves has discussed the influence of seventies cinema on The Batman. The film draws heavily from paranoid films of the era, movies like The French Connection, Klute and The Conversation. However, it is more than just nostalgia at play. The Batman finds an interesting thematic overlap between the seventies and the present day, particularly in its recurring fascination with voyeurism and surveillance. The Batman is many things, but it’s also a story about the importance of looking into the darkness, but realising that looking alone is not enough.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 1970s, cinema, Film noir, in the frame, matt reeves, the batman, the escapist, voyeurism | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “The Batman Is a Bold and Beautiful Blockbuster”

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of The Batman, which is in theatres on Friday.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: 3mr, bruce wayne, escapist, matt reeves, Robert Pattinson, the batman, three minute review | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Planet of the Apes” Prequels as the Last Great Movie Trilogy…

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the looming release of The Batman, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at Matt Reeves’ other recent films. In particular, Reeves directed the last two films in the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy.

The recent Planet of the Apes prequels are the rarest of things: beautifully made and powerfully resonant blockbusters. The films are constructed with genuine artistry and craft, but – more than that – they speak to the particular moment in which they were released. These are films that against all odds manage to capture something of the soul of America on celluloid, beautifully encapsulating a deeply troubled era, and skilfully using their nostalgia in a way that deepens their themes and enhances their resonance.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: america, blockbusters, dawn of the planet of the apes, escapist, matt reeves, planet of the apes, rise of the planet of the apes, the batman, the escapist, war for the planet of the apes | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Batman” and the Obsession with a Grim and Gritty Caped Crusader…

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday evening. The latest trailer for The Batman has reopened a familair debate within fandom around a sensitive topic: the question of a grim and gritty Batman.

Certain fans react strongly against takes on comic book characters that do not match their own particular tastes. In particular, there’s a tendency to react strongly to interpretations of the Caped Crusader that emphasise the character as grounded and pulpy, to act as if these takes exist at the expense of others. In reality, there is a rich variety of takes on the Dark Knight in popular culture, of various shapes and sizes. There is a Batman for all seasons, and often these arguments feel less about trying to argue for more diverse takes on classic characters and instead about arguing that there is only one right take.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman, dark and edgy, escapist, grim and gritty, grimdark, in the frame, matt reeves, Robert Pattinson, the batman, the caped crusader, the escapist | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: War for the Planet of the Apes

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Darren

The most evocative image in War for the Planet of the Apes is the United States flag, with an alpha and an omega scrawled across it.

This thematic juxtaposition is repeated throughout the film. The antagonistic human forces at the heart of War for the Planet of the Apes use the symbols as a logo. When they recruit apes into their ranks, they brand them with the symbol. When the audience is invited into their camp around half-way through the film, an oil tanker is marked the graffiti “the end and the beginning.” In some ways, this is a reflection on War for the Planet of the Apes as the final movie in a prequel trilogy, but it is also a much stronger thematic statement.

Cool customer.

At the heart of War for the Planet of the Apes is the idea that the apocalypse is not scary because it represents the end of something, but that the collapse of civilisation is so unnerving because it represents a clear slip backwards. The apocalypse threatens mankind with the idea that people are nothing more than animals, no better than their ancestors when push comes to shove. The apocalypse suggests that everything that has been accomplished can be lost in an instant. In the end, people retreat back to what they truly were, and it is horrifying.

War for the Planet of the Apes is not so much a movie about the collapse of a civilisation as a grim argument that the very idea of civilisation is transient and illusory.

Take a bow.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, matt reeves, Movies, non-review review, planet of the apes, review, war for the planet of the apes | 17 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Darren

Constructing a satisfying sequel is an artform unto itself. It is something that requires a great deal of skill. As with any aspect of filmmaking, building off an earlier film is a very difficult thing to do. Producing a sequel comes with its own set of artistic risks and challenges, its own obstacles and hurdles. Navigating those potential problems and finding a way to meet (and even surpass) expectations without straying too far from the framework of the original film is difficult.

As with making any movie, there are existing frameworks and structures that do a little help make navigating those problems a little easier. Perhaps the structure of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is the most obvious example. Using the trust established by the first film, the ensemble are split up to carry different strands of the plot, revealing scattered pieces of a larger whole, before reuniting for an epic finalé. Bryan Singer used this approach for X-Men II and How to Train Your Dragon 2 also followed it.

Playing him for a chimp, eh?

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is in an interesting position. It is a sequel to a remake; a remake of a film franchise that was originally iconic and influential, before dying a slow and humiliating public death as the series diminished and collapsed. Not only does Dawn of the Planet of the Apes come with the expectations of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it comes with the revived expectations of the entire Planet of the Apes franchise; expectations restored by Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes chooses a very clever structure for this sequel, loosely following the sequel framework typified by Christopher Nolan’s work on The Dark Knight. This is a very clever approach, and it pays dividends. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an ambitious and exciting sequel, a wonderful post-apocalyptic epic and an engaging moral parable.