The other night my husband and I finally watched The Batman.
I say finally not because I’m a big fan and I’ve been eagerly waiting, but because my twenty-year-old son really liked it and has been telling us we should see it. When Alexander recommends a movie, I listen, even though our tastes are different. It makes me remember when we watched things together, when the movies and TV series we streamed every night helped him refine and burnish his love of story.
After he decided he was too old to be read to, we started an evening tradition, taking turns choosing what we called “TV,” even though it was all streaming. We watched plenty of silly stuff—from Muppet movies to MacGyver—but more challenging things, too. We watched movies from when my parents were young, and countless episodes of a Spanish teen drama called El Internado. Now I count it as a little parental victory that my son doesn’t shy away from subtitles or a black-and-white classic.
So when he kept urging us to watch this new Batman movie, I knew we’d have to give it a try. We streamed the three hours over two nights, and overall, we found it… not too bad.
Alexander had told me I’d like it because it wasn’t the usual nonstop action roller-coaster. He knows my eyes glaze over at CGI-enhanced battles: as cars explode, buildings collapse, and fire rains from the sky, I start squinting at my watch in the dark and wishing if I could just go read a book. (I mean, really, what could be more boring? We all know how it’s going to end!)
But The Batman was structured, as Alexander promised, more like a mystery. I appreciated having a real story to follow, though I think it could have been told more quickly. The camera moves very slowly and Batman speaks all his lines in a throaty, whispered monotone. I do wonder if that was truly necessary. I also wonder when the era of superhero movies will finally come to an end. It’s been, what twenty-five years? Thirty? Can we please move on to something else?
However, I stayed interested in The Batman, which is saying something. I appreciated the consistent bleak tone, the mystery, and the Riddler’s creepy homemade costume, apparently stuck together from trash bags and electrical tape.
After we watched the movie, I texted Alexander and told him my impressions.
“Oh my god u liked it!” he responded.
And that was my favorite part.
Lynn Fulton 