Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show. I’m your host, Paul, and in this video, we’re breaking down The Batman. I feel like this is one of the greatest comic book movies of all time and, to me, it’s a crime noir classic that’s one of the Dark Knight’s best stories. Taking inspiration from several comic books and movies, throughout this video we’re going to break it all down.
I’m lucky enough to own pretty much all the major Batman graphic novels, and there’s a tonne of nods to the library laced throughout the movie.
Though we’ve covered this film before and some of the Easter eggs are the same, overall this is a much more in-depth look.
Obviously, there’s going to be heavy spoilers, so head off like Gil Colson if you don’t want to know. We won’t be talking about anything from The Penguin except how that final shot of him shows up in the trailer. But beyond that, if you’re good to go, so with that out of the way, let’s get into The Batman.
So, as I’m sure you remember, this movie was originally going to be starring Ben Affleck. Multiple movies were planned with the actor which would all branch out from the back end of Justice League.
The film closed out by teasing Deathstroke, who was going to be the villain of the film. Snyder actually filmed this after reading the script, thinking it would be a good way to set up that movie.
Announced in 2014, both Affleck and Geoff Johns worked together on the script.
Expected to start filming in 2016, Affleck would direct it as his next project after Live by Night.
Said to be influenced by Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, they also took nods from the Batman: Arkham Asylum game. Along with this, we got some little nods to Knightfall, as Deathstroke would cause a breakout at Arkham Asylum.
In the comic, Bane did this, which meant Batman had to round them up, and after weeks of doing it, he was simply exhausted.
Bane then struck and broke Batman’s back, which is one of the most iconic moments in the character’s history.
Deathstroke would systematically destroy him, and he blamed him for the death of his son. Akin to David Fincher’s The Game, he’d rip both Batman’s and Bruce Wayne’s life apart.
Described as being a horror movie, Affleck announced the title was going to be The Batman and that it would release in 2018.
A planned Justice League movie was even delayed to accommodate it, and it was expected to be a major hit.
However, things started to fall apart, with Affleck’s personal life taking a toll.
HOW WAS THE BATMAN DEVELOPED? IS IT CONNECTED TO THE DCEU?
Affleck said he’d shown The Batman’s script to a friend who said, “I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through [on Justice League] again.”
Justice League had really ruined his experience, and he said there were multiple factors to it. His friend Zack Snyder’s daughter Autumn died, so he had to leave the project, and this led to them reshooting most of the movie. Joss Whedon’s behaviour on set has been widely publicised, and Affleck was also going through a divorce.
So he said the entire experience was soured, and it made him lose interest in the character.
Stepping down as the director, he initially said he did this to focus on starring as Batman. It’s obviously a long, gruelling shoot that deals with basically becoming a bodybuilder, and you can kind of imagine how much pressure there would be on you.
However, over time, he became Schrödinger’s Bat, and fans didn’t know whether he was in or out. The Weekly Planetcame up with that phrase, by the way – I’m not that clever. They also came up with the name Robat Battinson, which is even listed on the IMDb page.
Either way, Batman v Superman had Warner Bros re-evaluating their slate, with them thinking the light and comedic Marvel tone was a better way to go. We could spend hours just talking about Josstice League, and the future of the universe was up in the air. The Deathstroke scene was reshot for Justice League, with it instead setting up the Legion of Doom.
Several directors were brought in to talk about the movie, with all of these being notable names. There was Ridley Scott, George Miller, Denis Villeneuve, and Fede Álvarez.
Who won out, though, was Matt Reeves, due to his extensive Batman knowledge. Signing on in February 2017, the only issue was that he didn’t like the script. Writing his own in March of the same year, he initially kept it connected to the DCEU. However, he started working with Affleck, but instead of being a sequel, he wanted to do a sort of prequel. This would focus on a younger Batman who was just starting out in his career.
Now, you can see why this wouldn’t work with Affleck, but they said for a while he was still in the role. However, come 2017, Warner Brothers secretly wanted someone else, and by 2018, Affleck had checked into rehab. Reeves then finished his script, and in 2019, Affleck had stepped down.
Reeves then removed all the connections to the DCEU and had the movie in its own universe. Said to be on Earth-2, it would be a standalone story. Reeves said he modelled Bruce Wayne on Kurt Cobain, and he listened to Something in the Way when writing the first act.
Describing the way he took it, Reeves drew parallels between Cobain’s drug addiction and Bruce Wayne’s addiction to getting revenge. He said:
“And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He’s like a Batman Kurt Cobain.”
This is something Robert Pattinson talked about, with him saying this about his take:
“Bruce is obsessed with being Batman. He has no desire to be Bruce, and he wants to just throw it away. He hasn’t gotten over being the 10-year-old boy who, in his mind, let his parents die. For him, being Batman is like a strange kind of therapy. He thinks this is the way he can save himself, by living in this kind of Zen state as Batman, where it’s just pure instinct and no emotional baggage. It feels like he has a death wish going out at night. I always get the impression that he wants to keep recreating the night when his parents died. In his mind, every single person he is fighting is the person who killed his parents.”
Which I love.
In Wayne Tower, we can catch that he has an electric guitar and an amp, which was difficult to spot on first watch because this column was in the way… yeah… hmmmm.
On top of that, Something in the Way has lyrics that refer to how the tarp has sprung a leak, which many have seen as foreshadowing the flooding at the end.
This flooding comes from Batman: Zero Year – Dark City, in which Riddler floods Gotham.
Beyond that, though, Reeves also based his version around The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. Those books are both by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale and work perfectly being read back to back.
The first one has a serial killer named Holiday who’s going after members of the mob. The second is one called The Hangman, who’s taking down members of the police force. In the end, I’ve always seen these books as the rise of the supervillain, with them taking control away from Gotham’s Mafia families.
There’s even a section that’s ripped directly from that book when Falcone talks about Thomas Wayne saving his life – it’s pulled right from the pages. He was shot several times, put on a table, and operated on while Bruce sat looking down on him. This is very much mirrored in Falcone’s death later on when he’s shot, and he lays on his back, looking up at Bruce.
Here, the Riddler’s killing the elite, but all of the elite happen to be corrupt criminals. So, you can see how the influences are there, and that takes us into the movie. After the red Warner Brothers logo, we then get The Batman title card. Though it isn’t part of the same universe as Joker, that movie did something similar. I love these title cards, and it could hint at this being the sort of DC Black Label of movies.
The Batman is also a callback to the early comic roots before they dropped the “The”. It’s just cleaner.
The artwork used for the film, namely its posters and banners, all heavily used red and black imagery, which feels like it’s based on the book Dark Victory.
Now we open with Riddler watching the Mayor and see things from his point of view. Reeves said he based this around The Conversation, which begins with a sort of voyeuristic point of view. I feel like killers in films are often portrayed like this, with it also being used in the opening of Halloween.
Later on, The Riddler grabs Colson in his car, which is also extremely similar to a kill from that movie.
In both, the windows are fogged up from the inside, indicating that someone’s been hiding in there for a while.
You can actually spot that SUV earlier in the movie down the road from where we see Selina exit the club. (32:00)
Across from this is the diner where the character is later captured.
Riddler sort of operates like Jigsaw in that he even has handmade death traps and riddles as a calling card.
One of these is a rat cage head trap which is lifted from 1984. There, it was also used on a member of the government, so it’s clear that Nashton is well-read.
Beyond that, though, we can also tell that these are special goggles due to the markings on the screen. Whether this is intentional or not, it reminded me a lot of The Silence of the Lambs. In that, Buffalo Bill uses night vision goggles to stalk his prey, and Reeves said he read Harris’s work when writing the script.
When Batman enters the crime scene later, we see all the officers staring at him. This is just like how the police stare at Clarice, and it instantly lets you know how they view him.
In a deleted scene, Batman also meets the Joker, who in the movie is played by Barry Keoghan.
In it, it’s akin to Clarice meeting Hannibal Lecter, and they do something similar in the moment. At the hour mark of Lambs, Lecter watches Chilton with a pen, which he later steals from the character. He uses this to escape, and in the deleted scene, the Joker may have done something similar. In it, Batman sends a file through the drawer, which is also just like how Clarice gave a file to Lecter. In The Batman, though, the file has a paperclip, which is later missing when it’s returned.
This is something they could explore in the future, and it could explain how the Joker escapes.
This could potentially set up a War of Jokes and Riddles sequel, which turned Gotham into a warzone. There are also heavy allusions to No Man’s Land from the comics. Gotham was rocked by an earthquake in the book Cataclysm, and after the government abandoned the city, it turned into a wasteland with every criminal vying for control.
Covered in The Dark Knight Rises, it seems like they’re setting things up here, with Bella Reál potentially reaching out to Bruce to help save things. In the comics, he ended up travelling to the Senate to beg for help, and this could be what makes him realise that he needs to pay more attention to this side of his life.
Either way, we’ve got a big breakdown of that movie on the channel right now, and it’s in this opening that we get to see some of the horror themes. This highlights the similarities between the characters and how even Batman is sort of like a horror figure.
The way Batman operates is similar to a horror villain like Jason Voorhees, and like them, he tends to walk slowly towards his prey as an intimidation tactic to let them know there’s no escape.
Both the Riddler and Batman first appear from the shadows, and the pair are meant to mirror each other throughout the movie. Their costumes have similar nose pieces, they, of course, wear masks, and are both orphans.
They also both keep diaries and spy on people using binoculars.
Riddler is just the next step up from him though, with his influence creating this killer.
Riddler was also heavily inspired by the real-life Zodiac killer, with his costume being based around that. The Zodiac also created ciphers and would send letters to the press and police.
Even the line, “This is the Riddler speaking” is a nod to the real-life killer. The Zodiac began his letters by saying ‘This is the Zodiac speaking,’ and the pair both wear glasses over their masks.
These glasses are also a little nod to Batman Forever, as Jim Carrey’s Edward Nigma wore clear-framed ones as well.
The Riddler also riffs heavily off Batman: Earth One Volume 2, in which he was a terrorist who placed explosives around the city. Riddler would challenge the police and Batman to solve his puzzles within a certain time limit, and if they didn’t manage to, he’d detonate his traps.
Now though we fully encounter him in the Mayor’s home within the opening five minutes, there’s actually a split-second shot at the start of the movie where you can catch him. Through his eyes, we watch as he surveys the scene, and when he looks up to the roof, if you pause the footage and zoom in, you can catch him in the reflection of the glass. A really creepy detail, and there’s another moment where we can find him hidden in a scene.
At one point, we cut to a wide shot of the Iceberg Lounge, and if you look in the top left-hand corner, you can catch Edward sitting in his room, taking photos. (31:00) Had Batman simply thought about where the nightclub images were taken, he would have realised that they were from this point and could have caught the guy even earlier.
Either way, in this intro we get the idea that crime is a constant presence as we see police sirens reflected in the windows of the house.
Now as Riddler watches over the scene, we see the Mayor’s son in a ninja costume for Halloween. It’s possible that this kid might end up becoming Robin, and we have a couple of hints towards this.
He’s wearing red, practising martial arts, and he’s also an orphan.
Dick Grayson saw his family die in front of him, and we discover that this child was the one who found his dad. He stares at Batman later when he enters the scene, and this gaze is also repeated at the funeral. Potentially, he’s aware of who Batman is, and Robin was a major part of Dark Victory. There, Bruce took Dick Grayson in, and eventually, he drafted him into his ranks.
Seeing his dad dead and taped up like this is clearly going to traumatise him, and hey, congratulations kid, you’re Robin now.
Bruce obviously sees some kinship in him though, and both are single children that come from wealth, with the death of a parent drastically changing things.
This moment in costume was actually inspired by Reeves and his own son, who did something similar for Halloween. Sons and their fathers play into the “sins of the fathers” theme that Riddler goes with, and it’s thematically building out from this.
THE BATMAN BREAKDOWN
Anyway, inside the Mayor’s home, we see a headline detailing Maroni’s capture. In case you don’t know, he’s a gangster from the comics that ended up throwing acid in Harvey Dent’s face. This happened during The Long Halloween, and in that, Holiday also left clues at the scene of the crime.
These attacks terrify Gotham, and Batman ends up working with Gordon and Dent in what’s a Year Two story.
This can be seen in Bruce’s journal, with the entries being headlined Year Two.
Now The Long Halloween even has a section where Catwoman goes off on her own side story, which was detailed in Catwoman: When in Rome. In this, she attempted to uncover whether Falcone was her father, but unlike in this movie, she never got an answer.
Either way, we watch the news report, and the Mayor talks about the Renewal Fund.
2:20 either way my opponent wants to gut the Renewal Fund established by the great Thomas Wayne.
The Mayor is playing up that it’s part of his legacy, but we know he doesn’t care about Thomas. Instead, he’s only interested in lining his pockets, which is something that this fund provides.
From here, we then see Riddler smashing the Mayor’s head like the like button.
These news reports appear throughout the film, with them being a reference to The Dark Knight Returns. In that, Frank Miller used them to lay out the story and tell us a lot of information about what was happening in the city. Tim Burton also later adopted them, which is why we get them in Batman ’89.
The Riddler also makes a point to retrieve the murder weapon, which is strange, as forensically, he’s safe and wants people to know he did it. However, in hindsight, we know this will be left in his apartment for Batman to find. (2:12:00)
Cutting to Bruce’s narration, we hear that it’s:
October 31st
Dating this as being Halloween. This, again, is a nod to The Long Halloween, with it also playing into the themes of that night. People, of course, dress up and do things, and we now have these costumed vigilantes and criminals. As I mentioned before, that saw the rise of the supervillain, so it’s fitting that it takes place on this night.
Now with this being the date, we can also work out when the final stage of the plan is. That goes down on November 5th, which my British viewers will know as Bonfire Night.
On the 5th of November 1605, Guy Fawkes took part in the Gunpowder Plot, in which he attempted to blow up Parliament. Had it succeeded, this would have completely destabilised the British Government more than a lettuce, and I think Reeves is very much giving a nod to that with the date. Riddler ends up detonating explosives that destroy Gotham, and he also kills a lot of the people controlling Gotham.
So thematically, it all plays into that and works as a way to build off real-life attacks.
In the background, we can hear that thumping score, which feels like it riffs off the Imperial March.
The Bat-Signal also lights up, and they use colour brilliantly.
We start with green, which is linked in with the Riddler, and it highlights how intertwined the characters are.
He’s very much infecting the idea of what it means to be Batman, or rather, Vengeance.
Batman describing himself as Vengeance first appeared in the animated series when we got this unforgettable monologue by the late Kevin Conroy.
Vengeance is the name Batman uses in the movie, with Riddler also being out for revenge. At the end, though, Batman realises how futile that is and instead decides to be a beacon of hope.
That beacon of hope could eventually be seen in the Bat-Signal, and we watch as its light shines above the city.
There’s this feel of it almost being like Blade Runner, in which we see that it’s constantly raining. Reeves said he did this intentionally in order to add to the detective noir feeling of the film. He wanted Gotham to feel harsh and relentless, almost like it’s beating down on you constantly.
In our first wide shot, we can see several locations, the first of these being The Gotham Empire. There’s also The Odyssey, which may be a nod to the book of the same name by Neal Adams.
On top of this is the Bank of Gotham, which appears later on, and a Little Caesars advert. They actually ran a promotion alongside the movie with a Batman pizza that looked…looked stupid, mate…that looks stupid.
There are also signs saying “Stop Drops”, and these show up on the train too. Though we don’t learn what they are, it is likely that they’re linked to either Joker or potentially Scarecrow. We learn that there’s a drug epidemic in the city, with Drops being linked directly to it. This is how a lot of the underworld gained their power, and the addicts are known as Drop Heads.
They may even potentially tie in with Joker’s origins at Ace Chemicals, and let me know if you’re watching this breakdown after they’ve cleared it up.
Tell me from the future.
Now Bruce’s narration here is something we see as part of his journal entry later on. Everything he says appears in the pages, with this being what he uses to narrate his inner thoughts.
They’re rambling and long, with them also being a mirror of the Riddler’s journals. (2:11:00) Reeves wrote them so that if a random person picked up his and the Riddler’s, they’d struggle to say who wrote what.
The journal entries are also akin to Rorschach, who narrated his nights in Watchmen. He’s basically a darker version of Batman, with him being the next step.
This plays heavily off Batman: Year One, in which his narration was presented in the form of notepad entries.
According to IMDB trivia, this was also akin to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which he keeps a log of his experiments. He has two sides to him, just like Bruce, with one of these being darker and vengeful.
This scene itself pulls heavily from Bruce’s first night going downtown, in which he dressed up as a drifter and walked into the centre of Gotham.
He was deliberately looking for a crime to stop, and in this, he ended up meeting Selina.
Several of the same shots and angles are used, and interestingly, everyone around Bruce is in a costume.
He, however, is in what would be classed as normal clothes, but this is very much a mask or rather a disguise.
He’s using this disguise to blend in with regular people, and I love how we have this kind of symbolism here. A disguise like this was also used in Batman Begins when Bruce was spying on Rachel Dawes.
We cut to several crimes across the city, including the robbery of the Good Times Grocery Store.
Reeves said that he chose to cast Pattinson because of the film Good Time, which this is clearly a nod towards. Going beyond that, the Drop Head also wears the exact same clothes that Pattinson had on in that movie, and as I say…
Now intercut with this, we see an attack on the Bank of Gotham. What I love is that this shows the unrest amongst the city and how there’s this feeling of wanting to take down the rich. Batman, at this point in his career, goes after petty criminals while ignoring the reasons why the people are angry. This blinds him to things like the Renewal Project, and thus his family’s involvement comes as a gut punch.
Early on in the film, he sees himself as vengeance, which is done in response to crimes. However, at the end, he wants to become hope and look to the future.
This is supposed to be shown in the man he saves at the beginning. He’s as afraid of Batman as he is of the gang. Bruce realises the damage this persona has done when one of the Riddler’s followers says it back to him. The civilian lying down is meant to mirror the girl at the end, with the latter showing how he’s changed.
So I love how he starts off by taking down the criminals, but then slowly works his way to the top. It thematically builds off this moment and shows he’ll help things that will stop further criminals from being created.
Now amongst this gang, it’s possible that one of these is Anarky, a low-level Batman villain that uses Molotov cocktails and also spray paint to send his message. I love how we linger on the shadows, and you can imagine criminals thinking Batman’s there. It really lets us see things through the eyes of the criminals, and your mind would fill these shadows with the character. That’s the importance of a symbol, especially as he can’t be everywhere at once.
Who Batman encounters tonight, though, is the black and white gang that appears to be based upon the Penguin’s goons from the comics. He made his forces wear the colours black and white just like a penguin, and this design featured heavily in Arkham City.
They aren’t part of his group, but we see how tribal the criminals have become. This feels like it’s riffing off The Warriors, in which the gangs and criminals all wore costumes. Due to this, you can kind of get the idea how supervillains would arise wearing colourful costumes and also why Batman would rise up to combat this.
On the train, we see them attacking pedestrians, and this was originally reported by the Daily Mail as being Bruce Wayne. Which is why you shouldn’t read it.
Now this gang is trialling a new member who only has half of his face painted, showing that he’s not yet fully part of them.
This sort of feels like it may be a nod to Two-Face, but we’ll not bring that up in the video because it’s a massive reach. He’s not Harvey Dent obviously, but this actor played Robin on Titans, and I did kind of get the feeling that he might end up becoming influenced by Batman.
Basically, everyone is Robin.
It is possible down the line, though, that kids like this could form their own gang that does good, which could be akin to the Sons of Batman from The Dark Knight Returns.
Batman stops them, and they very much represent random acts of violence that don’t have a meaning, much like what took his parents.
It’s at this point that he introduces himself: “I am vengeance.”
This is a direct nod to Batman: Earth One when the Caped Crusader introduced himself like that to the Penguin.
Beating up the gang leader, this was said to be inspired by the scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill beats up the man who assaults Karen.
During the fight, Batman busts out a shocking attack, which we know from the book on the film is his taser glove.
There was a similar power-up in Arkham Origins, which also allowed you to electrify your gloves. Now speaking of Arkham Origins, the Batsuit feels like it’s based on elements of that, however, it also brings in certain aspects of the suit from other iterations.
The cowl looks extremely similar to the one in Gotham by Gaslight, and this also had a collar. This collar also appeared in Batman: White Knight, which too was a more grounded tale. There are also traces of Lee Bermejo’s drawings, and the darts on the wrist also look like the Talons.
These assassins were introduced in the New 52, and they were servants of the Court of Owls.
We also get a potential nod to these in the first clue, which has an owl on the front of the card. The owl is a predator of bats, so it makes sense to have this appear here.
I love how Officer Martinez stops him, and then later on at the funeral, he waves to Bruce Wayne. Such a good way to highlight how Bruce can actually use his persona down the line, as it’ll make the same people who don’t trust Batman more welcoming.
Batman walks through the scene with a strong focus on his feet, painting him out like he’s almost a character in a Western movie. This is later mirrored at the end of the car scene, and there are notes you’d find in a Western laced throughout the soundtrack.
At this point, we meet Commissioner Pete Savage, who’s played by the Savage Trevor from EastEnders.
This is different to the comics, though, as in Dark Victory, it was Commissioner Loeb who was murdered. They might have changed it up because Loeb was the Commissioner in Batman Begins.
ALL THE REFERENCES TO BATMAN’S COMIC, MOVIE AND TV PAST IN THE BATMAN
The name Pete Savage is something from the ’66 Batman show, where we learned he was one of the three families that founded Gotham.
Falcone appeared in both, but here they change the pronunciation to Fal-cone so it sounds more like Falcon. Falcone is also a sort of dark mirror to Bruce in many ways. Both are recluses that hide themselves away, but one lives up top looking over the city, whereas the other resides at the bottom of the iceberg.
Now in this intro, we get it hammered home that Batman disregards the Bruce Wayne side of his life.
He’s either being Batman or dressed up as a drifter riding his motorbike about the city.
I feel like the movie very much also pulls from elements of Batman: Year 100. This is a great graphic novel set in the future in which Batman rides around the city on his motorbike. He’s very much a mechanic that also uses horror motifs from movies to scare his prey, much like what the Pattinson version does.
Frank Miller also worked on a Batman script at one point that had Bruce being a mechanic. Alfred was called Big Al, and though it was scrapped, I liked that there are these little ties here.
On Bruce’s black T-shirt, we can see the logo “Mickey Thompson Tires”. This provided the tyres for the Batmobile and hints at the interest in cars Bruce has.
Zero Year also had Bruce working as a mechanic, and he refused to use his Bruce Wayne persona. At the end of the book, though, he realised how valuable it was, and then started putting in place his playboy persona.
Now in the movie, Batman very much neglects the Bruce Wayne side of his life, but had he paid attention to it, he would have unearthed the Renewal Project early on. Alfred tells him that it won’t be long before he goes bust, and thus he calls in the accountants.
Bruce doesn’t really seem to care about this, but had he paid attention to the books, then he would have found out straight away that his funds were being funnelled into the pockets of the corrupt people in Gotham.
Bruce mounts a bike similar to the one from Zero Year, and he rides past Gotham Square Garden, which has Bella Reál adverts up at it. This is where the final battle takes place, and we can see that it’s showcasing the upcoming election night. Bruce passes by here later on when he’s following Selina from her apartment, and it slowly teases this as a major location.
Batman returns to his base of operations called Wayne Terminus. This is revealed to be a disused train station created by the Waynes, similar to the monorail that they built in Batman Begins. Having a train line would allow Batman to travel under the city without having to go onto the surface, and it is a strategy that’s popped up in the comics.
During the Knightfall arc, Jean-Paul Valley, who took over the cowl, fitted his Batmobile with wheels that could run on train tracks. With his underground method of transportation, he was able to journey through the city undetected.
Now in Zero Year, the first reveal of Bruce showed him rocking a shaved head, which was a big change-up from what had come before. Again, this was because he was distancing his playboy persona, and a shaved head had its practical reasons. It was one less thing to worry about, and it showed he was treating this like a military operation.
Here we see he’s got an emo haircut and is going through his Spider-Man 3 phase. I feel like it might show a similar thing, in that he either doesn’t have time to cut it or just doesn’t care.
Bruce then plays back the night and jots down the narration that we’ve just heard. At one point, we can see that it also creates a transcript so that Batsy never ends up missing a trick. These contact lenses appeared in the New 52 and allowed him to connect to the Batcomputer anywhere.
Bruce ends up looking up over his shoulder to the news announcement, and this shot is later mirrored in the reveal of the Riddler. (1:42:00)
This hints to us how the two are linked, and it’s sort of like poetry – they rhyme.
On the headline, we see “Echoes of Wayne Murder”. Under this, it says “Port Adams”, which is a nod to Neal Adams. There’s also the number 52, which may be a nod to the New 52.
We also get a proper look at the black paint around Batman’s eyes. In the past, this was just done with movie magic, and it disappeared when Batman removed the cowl. However, Reeves rightly leaves it on and it helps play into Bruce’s madness.
As Alfred descends, we can catch the Batmobile engine, which is something that sits under a tarp. We get shots of this laced throughout the cave at several points in the movie, and it very much hints at its reveal.
Alfred looks over the video of the child, and clearly, this reminds him of young Bruce, who he feels like he failed.
Next, we get Bruce coming out of the shower and see his highly scarred back. This is a nod to the Alex Ross piece of art which also had similar cuts on it.
I love the camera work here, and throughout the film, there are several scenes where we follow characters from behind, such as Gordon, Selina, and of course Bruce.
Lots of feelings, like we are voyeurs ourselves, are added with moments like this.
Alfred has started to crack the code, and he brings up his days in the Circus. The Circus is actually the nickname for MI6, showing he’s had a history in the secret service.
As for Bruce, he has very much become a nocturnal animal, and upon seeing the sun for the first time, he has to cover his eyes.
At this point, we meet Dory, who I kind of feel might be a nod to Aunt Harriet from the 1966 Batman show. We get a much clearer Easter egg that pulls from this later on when we can catch the Shakespeare bust next to Alfred. (1:32:00) This was a big part of the show, and I love how Reeves included it.
Clearly, he could only afford all these if someone was lining his pockets.
Now during his search, Batman busts out a tube light which he carried in the New 52 and also Earth One.
In the tyre of an Aston Martin, they find the weapon used to sever his thumb and a thumb drive with his thumb attached to it.
Thumb drive, I get it.
Should’ve turned off Wi-Fi though, because activating it sends out emails to everybody, including the Gotham Gazette. This is a newspaper that’s popped up in the animated series, in the New 52, Black Casebook and a lot more. Also, I feel like Reeves took a lot of inspiration from the animated series, namely down to the film’s logo. If you look at how it appears on the box set, you’ll notice a lot of similarities to the one in the movies.
We get a split-second shot of Gordon’s inbox, and this contains several bureau memos that are repeated.
However, there’s also Casefile 0281, which may be a nod to Batman 281 titled Murder Comes in Black Boxes.
Now it’s in this that we start to learn about Annika, who feels like she’s based on Holly Robinson.
This is a girl that Catwoman lived with during Year One, and in Rebirth, it was revealed she was sort of a villain who was ruining Selina’s life.
Later on in the Batmobile chase, we get a sign for Robinson Park, which also happens to be a location in Gotham based on her.
Batman arrives at the Iceberg Lounge, which in the comics is Penguin’s base of operations. This scene pretty much happens three times in the movie, with him first going as Batman. He then goes in as Bruce before finally sneaking in as Batman. This shows that he’s constantly learning and has worked out the best strategy to get in there without getting caught.
The twins also feel like they’re based on the villains Tweedle-dee and Tweedle Dum. Beyond that, though, they could be a nod to the twins from Arkham City, with these villains both working for the Penguin.
Batman goes into the club, and then he starts doing that Batdance from the 60s. Now we wish, mate, we wish.
He deploys his grapnel gun from his wrist, which was inspired by the gun sleeve used in Taxi Driver. You can definitely see a lot of inspiration from that movie, with the narration of course being similar.
This is the first time we see William Kenzie, with us later learning he’s an off-duty cop. Shoutout to FixIt on Reddit for pointing out that there’s a little clue he’s a policeman.
“Put the bat down, or I’ll blow your head off” (29:00)
The twins just fire immediately, whereas he gives a warning, which is what police would be trained to do. Also, Batman having a bat… he’s a Bat…man.
Either way, he comes face-to-face with Penguin, who isn’t intimidated at all. He calls him “sweetheart”, and it kind of shows that people just view him as a man in a mask.
Come the car chase, he’s terrified, and you can imagine how the legends would be cemented after he pulls off all these impossible acts.
Now who’s going through his own rise is The Penguin, and no one really respects him. He waddles as he walks, and though people say this is because he’s tied up, we can see at the 50-minute mark that he actually has a limp. On top of this, he has a scar that looks almost like it creates a beak and is generally just mocked by his peers.
Watched it like, Colin Farrell’s really let himself go.
Nah, the makeup here is fantastic, and he looks absolutely unrecognisable. This was in contention for the Best Makeup Oscar, but it ended up losing out to The Whale.
Farrell really nails the role though, and when he was announced, I have to admit I was sceptical. Jonah Hill was really close to signing on, but they got into disagreements on the character. It was rumoured that he wanted to play the Riddler as well and that he wanted to be paid $10 million.
Toby Jones was originally in the running too, who at the time I thought might have been the better actor.
Happy to say that Farrell proved me wrong, and he completely disappears into the role. On set, he was referred to as Richard Unkind due to his resemblance to the actor Richard Kind.
Taking four hours to put on the makeup, they were originally going to do something different.
Early concept art shows Farrell as himself, looking like your typical gangster. However, Farrell put on weight for the role and wanted to add something more to the look. He started doing impressions of a recording he had, which had the voice of a New York caretaker from the 80s. He wanted the nose to be crooked for being in so many fights, and slowly they put together the costume.
According to IMDB trivia, Farrell stated that he went to Starbucks to try out his prosthetics and makeup for the first time. Nobody recognised him, but he got a couple of stares from people, and this is when he realised it was going to work.
Now, if you want to support the channel, then check out our new Penguin-inspired T-shirt. Available at the merch store below, you definitely need to go p-p-p-p-pick up a penguin. We also have ones for Alien, Theory Time, It’s All Connected, and more, and it all goes towards helping videos like this get made. If you want to listen to these breakdowns on the go, you can also check out the podcast versions available on all good podcast services.
Now, when Penguin sits down to talk about the photos, we can see a Pipistrelle lamp. This word translates to “Bat”, which is another great bit of set dressing.
It’s here that Bruce also meets Selina and sees her interest in Annika.
Interestingly, Zoë Kravitz has played Catwoman before, with her voicing her in The Lego Batman Movie.
Batman follows Catwoman back to her apartment, and he ends up spying on her much in the same way that he looked over Andrea in Mask of the Phantasm.
HIDDEN DETAILS AND SUBTLE HINTS IN THE BATMAN
Now there’s a really subtle thing that they do with Selina when she really likes someone and when it’s just an act.
Initially, she calls Annika “Baby”, and this is because she cares about her a lot.
“Listen baby…”
Throughout the rest of the film, she calls everyone else “Honey”.
This even happens to Bruce, however, she finally calls him “Baby” after their kiss.
Seeing her suiting up, we can tell she’s an experienced cat burglar due to the amount of equipment on the wall.
He then follows her to the Mayor’s office and body-pops his grappling gun like it’s the start of Smooth Criminal. Ow.
Also, notice how Bruce drops the Batman voice when talking to her as opposed to how he interrogates Penguin.
Now, Selina attempts to get back Annika’s passport in a scene that is somewhat riffing on The Long Halloween. In that, Selina went to Falcone’s apartment to crack his safe, and Batman confronted her there. He then ended up grabbing a ledger full of the mob boss’s dealings, with this ledger playing a big part in the movie.
They then return to Selina’s apartment, and in the comics, this was where they originally met. Bruce was knocked out, and Selina found him before she nursed him back to health.
You might wonder why she didn’t take it with her, but this is a smart move by a burglar. Phones can be location-tracked, and thus if she’d taken it with her, they might have something that could tie her to the Mayor’s office.
We then get a video of the Riddler with Savage in the rat trap, which feels similar to the Joker’s hostage video in The Dark Knight.
After Pete Savage is killed, we get our second clue, which has an old man on the front that then has an explosion inside the card. This might be foreshadowing the explosion that happens with Alfred, as the following clue has a woman answering the phone. This is much like what happens with Dory, and it’s possible that Riddler was spying on Bruce. He ended up spying on all his other targets, so it makes sense that he’d do this as well.
Batman then recruits Catwoman to help, which plays into her anti-hero roots in the comics.
Here Selina dons black leather and long boots, which is also similar to what she wore in Year One.
On her way to the “clubception” club within a club, she comes across William Kenzie again. He’s a character from the comics Gotham Central, with him working in the narcotics department. Here he’s handling Drops, which is why they brought the character across.
This idea of there being a secret club also perfectly fits into the name Iceberg. The top of the club is just the tip of the iceberg, whereas there’s a larger, unseen threat below. This is where all the corrupt police and politicians hang out, and thus discovering the stuff up top is like the tip of the iceberg.
In the basement, she meets the DA, Gil Colson, who’s possibly riffing on Gilda. In the book, this was the name of Harvey Dent’s wife, who was of course the DA in The Long Halloween.
There’s also Carla, possibly a nod to Carla Viti, who too featured in that book.
Selina then ends up coming across Falcone, and as we learn later, he’s her father. On top of this though, he murdered her mother, so it makes sense she’d completely abort the mission after Bruce asks if they have a relationship.
Gil’s then grabbed with a collar placed around him, and Riddler later gets one at Arkham. This collar is reminiscent of the one Victor Zsasz wears in the game Arkham Asylum.
Jumping to the Bat-Signal scene, we see a real advert, Drops, and get a hint at Renewal on one of the billboards. Renewal is purposely laced throughout every aspect of the city, and it shows how wide it stretches. It even shows up on the back of a garbage truck, and it’s got its pockets in everything.
Now, beside the signal, we see the WGOT radio tower. This was a radio station in the comics that Jack Ryder reported for, and we heard news from it during the Arkham games.
These scenes were inspired by All the President’s Men, namely when Deep Throat meets with Woodward. Always loved that nickname, and I heard from All the President’s Men that Nancy Reagan was… dear… me.
We then get the next clue.
“you are el rataalada”
Which has “You are”, so “You are L”, but they mess up the translation.
Just before this, Alfred says that his Spanish is a little rusty.
“His Spanish is a little rusty”
So this shows that they actually cracked the code beforehand but they dismissed it as being a mistake rather than it signifying it’s a URL.
Now, from here we go to the funeral, which was one of the most widely leaked scenes. Due to being shot on location, a lot of it was shown on the internet.
However, this gave Reeves an opportunity which helped to keep Barry Keoghan’s role a secret. He filmed fake scenes with him as a policeman so that people would think he was a policeman if his casting ever leaked.
How it got out was actually through his brother, who got drunk and told people on a night out. Which I love. That’s how Kevin Spoilers gets his leaks as well.
Keoghan actually originally wanted to play Riddler, and the audition tape for this can be found online.
There were also several shots with Zoë Kravitz and John Turturro that made it seem like they had a relationship. Selina doesn’t actually appear in this scene though, just like Bruce, we are supposed to believe that the woman with Falcone is her. So I’m guessing that they used Zoë for this scene.
Bruce rides in a Corvette, which was also used in the 1970s as a basis for The Batmobile. This was put in place by Neal Adams, and huge shoutouts to Canadian Lad for pointing that out.
In the scene, we also meet one of Riddler’s followers, which highlights how they’re in every aspect of society. There’s one who tries to pass through the line and then one who brings up how his daughter died.
At this point, we meet Bella Reál, and we learn Bruce has been ignoring her calls. On IMDB, it states that Reál might seem callous in approaching Wayne here at a funeral, but he’s a recluse that’s not responding to her, so it might be the only chance she gets.
The Riddler also watches over the proceedings, which is such a cool way to keep him mysterious. He’s basked in light, whereas Batman works in darkness, and it kind of shows the difference between the characters. Whereas Riddler appears like a darkness in the light, we see as Batman appears like a light in the dark.
The funeral is then sprung by Colson’s car. This leads to Bruce saving the Mayor’s son, and I’m telling ya, telling ya it’s Robin.
Now, as for the car, it has “DOA” on the DA’s ride, which of course stands for Dead On Arrival.
His licence plate reads S39 7WD, which is a reference to Detective Comics 27, released all the way back in 1939.
Many of the officers in the movie are from the 39th Precinct as well, and like Batman says… it’s all… all connected.
As Batman walks in, we also get a shot of a monitor with four screens. Two of these are black and white, while the other two are green, which highlights the Batman vs. Riddler conflict with this man in the crosshairs.
We see Riddler’s strapped an explosive collar to his neck, and this actually pulls from a real-life bank robbery. That was documented in the Netflix film Evil Genius, which went on to inspire these moments.
During the live stream, there’s also a comment that says, “hope it’s a dud and we gotta do it all again Tuesday”, which sets up the attack that comes at the end of the movie.
The live stream also has some puns in it, which I love, like saying “mind-blowing stuff” and “this is going to be such a blast”.
Now the explosion by the Riddler is a big talking point around the movie as it blasts Batman in the face, and he still comes out looking like Robert Pattinson.
His mouth isn’t even burned, and it’s one of the big critiques I see about the movie. However, being able to slow the footage down means we can catch him actually putting his hand up to cover his mouth just as it goes off, and you should always cover your mouth when another dude explodes in your face.
Waking up at the station, the police then start to question Batman, and we see the tension between him and the police.
They say he could be an accessory to murder, and as we learn, the Riddler views him and The Batman as allies.
Now, the police were against Batman early on in his career. In both Year One and Mask of the Phantasm, he ended up taking down a whole SWAT team, which was somewhat referenced in The Dark Knight.
Arkham Origins had you sneaking into the GCPD, and you had to escape similar to this. Here, though, Gordon is his ally, with him allowing him to smash him in the face like the like button. This is a reference to Batman Earth One, where Batman does the same thing. They were allies at that point though, and it was done to show that the book was doing something new.
They follow him throughout, and if you fancy following me on Instagram, I’d really appreciate it. That’s where all our big announcements are going now, so if you want to stay up to date with the news and selfies, then give us a follow. I try and reply to all the comments I can, so yeah, get it, get it, get it.
Now Batman ends up gliding off the top of the police department and smacks his face, which is potentially also playing on the opening of Earth One. In that, he goes to jump across a building, but he ends up falling after his grapple gun breaks. This was done to show how inexperienced he was, which is definitely a thing that repeats throughout the movie.
Reeves looked at wingsuit YouTube videos when composing this shot, which is why it’s framed like this.
It’s a far more tangible and realistic glider, whereas the one in things like Batman Returns was more like the wings of a bat. Nolan, of course, built the glider into the cape through electrified fibre, whereas The Batman’s cape doesn’t have that ability.
This scene was also shot on the same street where Nolan flipped the truck in The Dark Knight.
Returning to Gordon, I love how he says “You could’ve pulled that punch”, and Batman says he did. Could’ve kicked your arse, mate, but I was being nice.
They unpack the “rat with wings” clue and believe that it could hint to the Penguin due to his nickname.
Down at the Iceberg Lounge, we see him and his gang moving a shipment to the docks. The docks are a massive location in Batman comics, and yeah, I always imagine stuff going down at the docks.
You might also notice that on the warehouse, you can see the Renewal sign again, highlighting how it’s linked to the mob.
Spying on them from the roof, we get hints about how the Maroni drug bust was a fraud. In the comics, the Maronis and Falcones were rival families, with the former initially being hit first. This caused tensions to flare further until Alberto Falcone was seemingly killed. However, there’s always the feeling that the Maronis are on the back foot, which is summed up in Sal being in jail here.
Selina arrives and finds Annika before it all kicks off with the confrontation, leading to a big chase.
Reeves stated that he took a lot of inspiration for the Batmobile from the John Carpenter classic Christine.
It also gets covered in fire and chases after someone, much like the monstrous machine did in that movie.
I love how the car comes from the shadows, and it fits this Batman perfectly.
Just in the same way that James Bond will forever be tied to his range of Aston Martins, Batman is very much tied to the car. The design encapsulates the character, and each one of them is symbolic on a number of levels.
Anton Furst’s Batmobile perfectly fit Michael Keaton’s stylised gothic take, Nolan’s Tumbler echoed the groundedness and practicality of Bale’s Batman, and Robert Pattinson’s is also a machine that mirrors the way that he is.
Batman also stalls in this moment, showing he’s not as finessed as he used to be.
For the chase itself, Reeves stated that he took inspiration from The French Connection and also elements of Steve McQueen’s Bullitt. However, what Reeves does differently than most car chases is that he filmed this at night. Typically, car scenes are shot during the day, as it can be a nightmare to film night-time road scenes. It’s also pouring with rain, so you have cars slipping and sliding all over the road.
This just differentiated it, though, and helps to highlight those horror motifs.
We mentioned Jason Voorhees before, and I see a lot of things like the Terminator in how he’s portrayed. The guy will stop at absolutely nothing no matter what, and he’s always gonna keep going, no matter what’s thrown at him.
Along with the Robinson reference in the sign, there are also nods to Hinckley River, which is a feature in Gotham.
A lot of Farrell’s lines were improvised, and I love this cat-and-mouse chase. Batman bursts forth from the fire and then walks towards Penguin in what frames the character upside down. This is, of course, playing off him being a bat and yeah, one of my favourite car chases of all time. Worth getting a Dolby Atmos setup for, and even when making this breakdown, I closed the laptop, restarted the scene, and just sat back and enjoyed it.
Interrogating him, I know you killed about 40 people on the highway, mate, but… you do it again, we’ll take you to jail.
Figuring out the clue, they get the website, which leads them to the orphanage. We can see that this was donated by the Wayne family, and there are theories that in this universe, they donated the manor to be this. This was something Bruce did in The Dark Knight Rises, and it’s possible that’s why Bruce now lives in Wayne Tower.
Batman and Gordon explore it much in the same way that the pair went through an abandoned building together in Earth One.
Coming across drop-heads, we see how the drug epidemic has turned some people into what are basically zombies, and it highlights how much Falcone is destroying lives.
Here they see a campaign video for Thomas Wayne, and in Earth One, the character was running for Mayor. This is what led to his murder, with that book pinning it on the Penguin.
Here, we get the feeling that Falcone’s involved, but I like the fact that it’s also ambiguous. We never know whether it was Falcone who ordered the hit or just a random gunman. However, Falcone is the one who’s strangled the city and led it to the point where the majority is in poverty. Thus, even though he may not have ordered the hit, he still created the circumstances in which it could happen.
Now, Thomas has run for Mayor outside of this, with it also being a plot point in Joker.
This one seems a lot more sincere… even if he does want to get journalists beaten up. The idea of the Waynes being corrupt was also explored in the Telltale Batman game, with it doing a different take on the family.
Now, here we also hear the song “Ave Maria,” which opens the movie. This is typically used at both funerals and weddings, and it was actually one of John Wayne Gacy’s favourite songs.
Notes from this are also present in Riddler’s theme, with him also singing it at the asylum. He sings it in falsetto, which is something he would’ve learned to do as a child, hence why he continues it as an adult.
Now this time, it’s sung by a children’s choir, and we later learn that Edward is a member of this group. This explains why he likes to sing and why he has a fascination with the Waynes. He promised to change his life for the better, but we see how they left him and his friends to rot.
Across town, Alfred gets a letter for Bruce Wayne that says “For His Eyes Only.” As soon as I read “Fireproof,” I’m throwing it, bruh, get that out of there.
Now, there’s lots of debate over whether Riddler knows Bruce is Batman or not. In the comics, during the Hush storyline, he figured it out, but he decided not to tell anyone.
That’s because of how worthless a riddle is if everyone knows the answer.
Hush is also referenced in the film during the campaign video (1:41:57), and we see the surname “Elliot” pop up on screen. Thomas Elliot became the villain Hush in the comics, but the animated movie changed things up so that it was actually Riddler under the mask. Here, the hush refers to the hush money that was going to be used to keep him quiet, but there is the potential that they’re setting up the villain for the future.
Potentially Riddler is the journalist’s kid, though we never get this confirmed.
Now, a clue that Riddler might know is that Bruce is the only target he doesn’t try to kill himself. Therefore, it might be because he wanted him to survive it, but hey, I’ll leave that up to you to debate in the comments. Initially, I thought Riddler knew, but after sitting on it for a couple of years, I actually don’t think so.
I think realising that Bruce was taking down the corrupt would shatter his worldview and make him realise the elite aren’t all bad.
There’s also the note that he leaves when attempting to kill Bruce that says “See You in Hell.” This is wrapped in fire-resistant material, showing he was expecting Batman to get this after Bruce was killed. At Arkham, he also says:
“I told you I’d see you in Hell.”
Obviously, Hell means Arkham, and he didn’t know that Alfred would get the explosive. In his mind, it would take out Bruce, and it was only because he’s Batman that Bruce wasn’t there. So, I doubt that he would’ve done this, and instead, I don’t think he has a clue. The package being for Bruce Wayne’s eyes only as well… yeah, shows that he was the one it was intended for.
The reason I don’t think he goes after Wayne himself is because Wayne’s a recluse, and this is the same with Falcone. This is why he uses Batman to bring him out, and thus, I don’t think he knows Bruce is the Caped Crusader.
Batman also seems convinced of that as well, as at Arkham, he starts off in the shadows. He’s visibly shaken when Riddler starts saying “Bruce Wayne,” but then he realises he has no idea. This makes him way more confident in confronting him because he knows that Riddler doesn’t know.
Now we also learn more about Martha Wayne, who, like in Earth One, is revealed to be an Arkham. Originally, she was called Martha Kane after Bob Kane, but this was changed up to add a flavour of insanity to Bruce’s legacy.
THE BATMAN: ENDING EXPLAINED
This is not too dissimilar to Bruce, who developed his own issues after watching his parents be killed.
In the book Flashpoint, a young Bruce is shot instead of his parents, and this makes Martha go on to become the Joker. Thomas ends up becoming Batman, so we have these issues sort of laced within the family.
This was also played upon in the Arkham Asylum book, where it was further expanded in the New 52.
According to IMDB trivia, Matt Reeves cited the Batman graphic novel Ego as an influence on Batman’s portrayal in this film. He said, “I wanted to get into the mindset of the character, and I wanted to think of the psychology for me. I think one of the cool deep-dive ones was Darwyn Cooke’s Ego. He’s confronting the beast that is Batman, and there’s a kind of duality. There’s a lot in the story about Bruce Wayne confronting the shadow side of himself that’s Batman and the degree to which you have self-knowledge. There’s psychological union, where Batman is broken, and he does things for reasons he knows and reasons he doesn’t know yet.”
The Wayne cease-and-desist demand is also sent by the law firm Miller and Moore, which are nods to Frank Miller and Alan Moore.
This is I Have But One Heart being sung by Johnny Fontane in The Godfather. The Godfather was heavily influential on The Long Halloween, with several panels and lines pulling directly from it.
Clearing the room, we get hints about Falcone murdering Thomas, though he blames Maroni. Bruce returns to the tower, and he goes to his parents’ rooms. There are massive chains on the door, highlighting how he and all others are not allowed to enter. It really is just too painful for him, but this trip makes him closer to Alfred as he realises he’s all he’s got.
Alfred reveals how Thomas didn’t want the journalist killed, but it shows how within everyone there exists some darkness. A really complex look at the character, and it makes Bruce question whether that darkness is corrupting him. Alfred divulges that he actually didn’t care about the campaign trail and only did it to protect his mother.
It hammers home how important it is that Batman also wears a mask, as he can’t risk the people close to him being hurt. Thomas was going to go to the police, and he apparently went to Falcone to tell him. That night, he was killed, but I feel like the police wouldn’t have done anything about it. The city was too corrupt, and thus, Thomas was always going to be a victim.
Finally holding Alfred’s hand and saying he doesn’t want to go through losing his parents again, we then see the Bat-signal in the sky.
Catwoman has called him, and she’s got Kenzie.
At this point, Falcone is revealed to be the rat with wings, and they play a recording of him strangling Annika. This is what he did to Selina’s mum, and it’s also what he eventually tries to do to her.
Exposing he’s the rat with wings that runs the city, we then get a desperate race to the club.
Batman ends up ziplining down the side of the building, which is sort of a reverse of the ’66 show when they’d climb up the side of one.
At the club, Selina goes in wearing a pink wig, with the character having pink hair in The Dark Knight Returns.
Bruce ends up using his chest piece as a weapon, with us theorising at the time of the costume reveal that these were karambits. Both pieces can be detached and used as weapons, which is something that Batman could also do in The Brave and the Bold.
While this is going on, the news report is leaked, and we get a good look at Falcone’s face. You might notice that he has three scratches on his cheek here, which is something Selina later repeats. This is exactly what she did during Year One, but there is the wonder why he has them before that happens. In doing my research, I found that this is to highlight Selina’s mother did the same thing when he was killing her, and it’s sort of like poetry—they rhyme.
Descending into the basement, I love the scene where Batman walks through the darkness lit only by gunfire. Just before this, the character appears in the elevator, hanging from the ceiling, which is similar to Ben Affleck’s first appearance in BvS.
Batman saves Selina from not only being strangled but also from the darkness that would consume her from killing her father. We get a great look at her nails when he takes the gun, and Kravitz said she deliberately picked the longest ones possible to resemble a cat.
Taking Falcone out, he says he’s going to take all his secrets to the grave, and because of this, Bruce never finds out what really happened to his father.
Penguin also threatens him, showing his quest for power, which will no doubt be built upon in the series.
Falcone is then shot, with Bruce realising he’s brought him into the light. Spotting him in the window at his apartment, they catch him at the diner across the street.
They catch him in a diner that pops up throughout the film, with it constantly being in the background of scenes. The diner itself might also look familiar, as it’s based heavily on Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. A diner like this appeared in the opening of Arkham Knight, where it was part of an attack by the Scarecrow.
Riddler’s head gets smashed against the counter, which cracks his glasses, and I love how this detail remains on them for the rest of the film.
He says that he’s just ordered pumpkin pie, which was inspired by the Golden State Killer. When he was captured, he said he’d just put a roast in the oven, and it shows where the character’s mind goes after finally being taken in.
He also carries two IDs: Edward Nashton and Patrick Parker.
The latter of which was apparently from the comics, but nobody could find the origin until Alex Jaffe looked into it. Working for the DC Comics webpage, he uncovered that the Riddler Wikipedia page had been edited to show it for a couple of days. It was never the case, though. I got that fact from IMDB trivia, but now I’m even questioning if I should believe it just because it was written on the internet.
However, we still don’t have his true name, which is Edward Nygma aka Mr. E. Nygma. He was raised at an orphanage, and it’s possible that we’ll learn more about his true family down the line.
This arrest is similar to the one of Lee Harvey Oswald, with him also using a rifle to assassinate someone. That was obviously JFK, but where the similarities come in is that they both had two IDs. Oswald’s second card said Alek Hiddell, and he told the police to figure it out when they asked who he was.
With the bat also potentially being seen as a rat with wings.
One of the IDs then comes back and identifies Riddler as a forensic accountant. This is at KTMG, which is a play on the big American law firm KPMG. Forensic accountants are also hired due to their due diligence, and they get access to everything. Thus, this explains how Riddler unearthed it, and it’s his background that made him see the injustice.
His final plan is located under his carpet, but because Bruce comes from a privileged background, he doesn’t recognise the working-class carpet tool. I mean, I grew up broke, mate… and… pffft I didn’t recognise it either. Privileged life of a YouTuber.
IS THE RIDDLER IN THE BATMAN BASED ON A TRUE SERIAL KILLER?
Seeing the newspaper clippings on the wall, we see a sketch of the Batman that looks very similar to one of the Zodiac Killer. Again, this highlights the Riddler and Batman similarities, and it leads to Batman going to Arkham.
He then visits Riddler at Arkham and talks about how he and all his orphan friends were ignored while Bruce was made a fuss of because he was rich. This echoes the sentiments of the guy at the Mayor’s funeral, who said that no one made a fuss about the death of his daughter.
The Riddler says that Batman inspired him, and all it took was fear and focus. It breaks Riddler, and I love the:
The guy is so unhinged, and he said the plan was that both would be safe here. Returning to the apartment, the explosives go off, which is just like how the one at Wayne Tower went off, with him figuring things out but being too late.
These plans are written on the floor in white, which is also similar to how Bruce laid out the clues by spray painting the floor.
We also see that there’s a line of winter combat masks, which was something fans figured out when looking up his mask. You can also see a comment that says “rifles are good,” highlighting what weapons will be used at the end.
On top of this, there’s talk of cling wrap, with this being used as part of the mask. Dano apparently wrapped his head in it several times, but Reeves said he had to stop because it just made his face red. Instead, the top of his head is done, but you might miss it if you’re not looking closely.
Now, the film culminates with the seawall of Gotham being destroyed. This heavily pulls from books like Batman: Zero Year, which featured the Riddler taking over Gotham after he flooded the city. However, the Riddler’s plan in this film is also heavily in line with the Joker’s in the graphic novel The Man Who Laughs.
In that, the Clown Prince of Crime kills several high-ranking politicians, and he even makes an attempt on Bruce Wayne’s life, like what we have here. Come the end of the work, Bruce discovers that Joker plans to use the reservoir to take down the city, much in the same way that Riddler does here.
Now, the seawall being destroyed is something we actually get a hint towards being weak at the start of the movie.
During the debate with Bella Real, we learn that the funds haven’t helped at all, and thus things like the seawall have been left to rot.
Beyond this, though, we can also catch a newspaper wall chronicling Don’s wins, and if you zoom in on the one below the “L” in lies, you can catch a mention of this.
It asks whether the seawall construction has been stalled, and due to the greed of the corrupt in Gotham, it’s turned it into a weak point that the Riddler exploits.
Batman ends up taking down the Riddler’s forces, and though I was hoping that it would be Venom that he uses, the official book released alongside the film reveals that it’s just adrenaline. This scene is so good, though, and it reminds me a lot of the SWAT team one in The Dark Knight. Batman really shows how capable he is, though, and yeah, cracking entrance, cracking fight, and cracking skulls.
There’s also a moment where he moves out of the way of someone shooting at him, and though there were a lot of complaints on Twitter that he let that guy die, if you slow down the footage, you’ll see the bullet actually hits his gauntlet and head, which then causes a ricochet.
He also ends up clouding the whole area in smoke, which is reminiscent of the scene from The Dark Knight Returns, in which he did the same thing when fighting Two-Face’s forces.
He ends up almost beating one to death, which is when he’s stopped by Gordon, who stopped Batman from killing Joker in Hush in a similar way.
Now, though people think this is the same guy as the one at the funeral, it is actually a different character.
Through him, Batman realises that he needs to become a symbol of hope, and he somewhat goes through a baptism.
This idea of baptism is what the Riddler wanted, as he believed the floods would wash away the corrupt in the city.
However, both Gotham and the Batman will now rebuild and hopefully become something better.
Emerging as a new kind of hero, he is now seen as someone that people shouldn’t cower away from, and this is symbolised by the child he pulls out of the wreckage. Wait, is that… is that Robin kid?
There’s then also the girl on the roof. The man at the train station at the start was terrified of him, whereas she refuses to let go, showing how his arc has gone from being about vengeance to something more.
Either way, Batman leads them out of the darkness by being a light amongst it.
The flare almost creates a question mark in the smoke, and he helps everyone out of the watery grave.
Flooded locations litter the finale, including City Hall, the diner, the Iceberg Lounge, and we watch Penguin staring over the city. This has been shown to us in the Penguin trailer, and my guess is that it’s going to start immediately from here.
Bella Real says that we will begin to believe in Gotham again, and the phrase “I believe in Gotham City” was the opening line of The Long Halloween. This is what Thomas also said in his campaign video, and it’s showing how Real is carrying on his ideals.
We also get the scene with the Joker and Riddler, which Reeves said wasn’t put there to tease a sequel. Instead, he said it adds to the stakes of the final scene where Selina says this place is never going to change. There’s constantly the idea of power brewing, and even in the power vacuum, people are scheming.
Joker and Riddler finding kindred spirits was also supposed to mirror Selina and Bruce finding each other.
Joker’s riddle is:
“The less of them you have, the more they’re worth.”
This is actually a play on Knox’s comment in Batman 89, where he says, “The more you’ve got, the less they’re worth.”
Catwoman says that he’s spoken for, which is a line that ended Batman Zero Year, showing that Bruce is committed to Gotham. She also states that she’s going to Blüdhaven, which is a sister city to Gotham in the comics that is a haunt of Nightwing.
Batman rides off beside Selina and then watches her disappear in his rearview mirror before turning his eyes to the road. He’d love to go with her, but Gotham is where his heart is, and I love how this shot is used to convey that.
They ride in different directions, which highlights how they’re both making different choices. She will go off on her own for herself, whereas he’ll remain behind and help out the city.
Come the end of his arc, I’d love to see a similar scene, but with Bruce finally deciding to ride off with her. It sums up the sacrifice he’s giving, and I can’t wait to see what they do down the line.
After the credits, we also get a message that says “Goodbye” with the URL www.rataalada.com.
This website was used as a viral way to promote the film, with it being a way for the Riddler to send clues and messages. It’s still up to this day, and the final clue unearthed so far reveals the name Joker, possibly teasing the future.
Either way, that’s the breakdown, and huge thank you for watching until this point. If you enjoyed it, please hit the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe for our breakdowns on the Penguin.
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