The tedium of the protracted revenge plot

If you asked me to name five 2022 releases I was sure I'd see in the theater, Robert Eggers' The Northman undoubtedly would have made that list.

Another writer for my site requested the assignment of reviewing The Northman, though, and his review didn't convince me it had been a worthy follow-up to The Witch and The Lighthouse. So I waited until it became available at the normal rental rate, which has just occurred this week.

There's a chance I would have liked it more up on the big screen, but I doubt it.

While I was chatting with a friend on Facebook messenger during a break from The Northman, he told me if he'd seen it at home he would have walked out after 20 minutes. You can't "walk out" of your home, but the meaning was clear, and though I never intentionally leave a movie unfinished, I certainly get the sentiment.

The story follows Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard), who was Shakespeare's direct inspiration for Hamlet, which means the broad strokes of the story were already known to me before I started watching. Well, imagine a version of Hamlet with all the cleverness, humor and wordplay stripped out of it, leaving only the bloodthirsty revenge, and you've got a good idea what the experience of watching this movie is like. (I mean, you probably already have a good what the experience of watching this movie is like, since you saw it in the theater like a normal cinephile.)

I basically knew all that this movie would be from the very beginning, and never did I feel very impressed with it. Oh, a lot of hard work went into it, but for not much reward.

I think the point of the movie is supposed to be about the futility of revenge. Amleth flees the scene where his father was murdered, chanting "I will avenge you father, I will save you mother, I will kill you Fjolnir," that last being his uncle. But he finds out over the course of this movie that his father was probably awful, his mother cheered her husband's death, and she viewed his uncle as a savior. 

We have to spend so much time watching Amleth engage in an increasingly baroque revenge scheme, though, that the movie can't help but sort of endorse it just by choosing to expose us to so much of it. Implicitly, a movie tells you what it thinks is important by the amount of time it devotes to that topic, and maybe if the idea that revenge is hollow is the point, it needs to be more explicit about that. Perhaps because he has already devoted so much of his life to his single-minded pursuit of vengeance, he's already got the sunk costs and doesn't feel like he can abandon the scheme now. That point is not really explored either. 

When I talk about protracted revenge plots, though, I'm not only talking about the length of time it takes to dramatize them. I'm talking about being protracted within the life of the character.

It's of course an age-old narrative device -- and I mean like back to when there was only an oral storytelling tradition -- that the child of a slain father will devote his life to vengeance. And since the common wisdom is that revenge is a dish best served cold, there really is no statute of limitations on it. If you extrapolate this out to its logical endpoint, the best sort of revenge would be if you came and slit someone's throat on their deathbed -- though I suppose the idea is also to deprive them of some happiness they would have otherwise enjoyed.

For me, though, I feel like a person's life is going to feature any number of tragedies, and if you fixate on one of them you will live a much more empty existence. This perspective likely comes from the privilege of never having someone in my life who I needed to avenge. But if I did, and the opportunity to deliver revenge didn't come straight away, I'd like to think I'd "get over it" and channel my life into something more positive and fulfilling. Again, this is the enlightened perspective of a human being raised in the 20th and 21st centuries with access to modern psychological theories, who never had a righteous cause to seek vengeance, not that of a 10th century Viking. 

But here I think we should bring in a character who would have a little bit more of that modern perspective: Bruce Wayne. And I was bothered by this part of the "protracted" quality of revenge in The Batman.

Now, The Batman is not strictly a vengeance story, or maybe not even primarily that. (Or if so, it's on the part of the villain, not the hero.) But the same inability to get over a tragedy long in the past informs it. 

I have never quite believed that the killing of Bruce Wayne's parents would be such an everpresent part of his life, even what appears to be 20 years after it happened. That's always been a part of the Batman mythos, but The Batman makes it more explicit than other versions of this story have done. Because Robert Pattinson's Bruce is excessively mopey, even by the long-established standards of the character, we are even more confronted than usual with the notion that he's never gotten over the murder of his parents in an alley when he was a child.

Certainly it is a psychological reality that we can have scarring traumas that affect the trajectory of our whole lives. There can be no doubt about that. But I think film narratives have become increasingly reliant on what ends up being a romantic notion of this revenge plot, that there are people in our lives who are so good, whose absence is so foundation shaking, that their murder would provide the entire direction for a character's life.

I suppose at least in The Batman, we are meant to conclude at the end that Bruce has seen beyond his own protracted sorrow and is ready to step into the role of a more traditional hero, who does things more out of love than hatred -- love for the people who are still around, rather than hatred for the people who killed his parents. And in turn that's a way of loving them as well. 

And yeah, you can certainly hit me with not understanding vengeance until I or someone I love has been wronged. I do understand vengeance, though. I'm still hoping some day to be in a position of advantage, for example, over the two guys who ran my college radio station in my senior year, who denied me a radio show in my last semester, in what I viewed as an act of spite. I don't want to kill them; I just want to be in a position to hire them for a job or something, and not only deny them, but tell them why I'm denying them. Zach and Nate, one day I will have my vengeance. 

But I don't think about the radio station snub every day of my life and try to execute a plan to execute them. 

I suppose that's the difference between not getting to play DJ and watching your father get beheaded by his own brother. 

The (Excess Fat)man

A few days ago I learned that The Batman is two hours and 55 minutes long.

Jesus fuck.

Half the movies released in 2021 danced around the two hour and 20 minute mark, some of them flirting with the mythical two bucks forty. But only arthouse critical darling Drive My Car dared to breach those already verging on ridiculous upward parameters for mainstream films ... and I suppose you could not really call Drive My Car "mainstream" anyway.

Well I guess this is full-on Drive My Batmobile.

Of course, the more shocking revelation is that there is a four-hour cut of the movie out there, one fans will certainly be petitioning to see the light of day if this movie tanks. (Which it won't. But they'll still ask for it.)

In addition to yet again indicating the extreme bloat of modern blockbuster filmmaking, a boring note for me to keep hitting on this blog, this reveals what my friend pointed out to me: That they are doing the whole fucking story again. 

Oh please can we once again see Martha Wayne's pearls cascade to the pavement of that dank alley.

I was cautiously intrigued -- I'll stop short of calling it excited -- about a new Batman movie. The reality is that of course they were going to make another one, I just thought maybe the more prudent interval would have been another three to five years later than it actually happened. But, especially as a film critic, I am ultimately the recipient of whatever Hollywood wants to spew at me, and writing a bunch of reviews about how "it's too soon" or "it's too long" is as dull for me as it is for you.

The real issue is not the length, but the fact that the whole story needs to be told over again from the beginning.

The devil's advocate argument justifying that choice is that it has now been almost a generation since Batman Begins in 2005, the last time this story was really told outside of a Lego movie. At least I don't recall that being in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which makes sense as it dealt with both heroes, and one of them had already had a recent origin story in Man of Steel. So really, it's not that recently. 

But given the prevalence of Batman in our culture, I think the argument that a new generation of fans needs to learn how Batman came to be Batman is bogus. When you reach about six years old, someone delivers you a memo on the playground about how Batman's parents were killed by a thug in an alleyway, and then he trained to become both a ripped vigilante and a louche playboy. And if that's not literally true then at least it is figuratively true.

The last film to make headlines for such a gargantuan length -- before Zack Snyder's Justice League, which I alluded to with talk of fans demanding four-hour cuts -- was Avengers: Endgame. While people were shocked about the three-hour length of that film, consider the particulars:

1) It featured 54 different superheroes, rather than just one superhero.

2) It was the culmination of 20+ movies.

3) I had a lot of work to do narratively to wrap up an arc that had been going on for 11 years.

The Batman cannot claim any of those excuses. 

Then I also considered another disturbing possibility:

What if it's 175 minutes long without the origin story?

Jesus fuck.

I'll probably still see it on opening weekend. 

More Batman, eh?

I watched the new trailer for The Batman.

Yawn.

I wouldn't have normally done so, since I try not to be spoiled on too much of the imagery for big new movies. I've been generally avoiding trailers for years and have talked about it many times on this blog, so I won't bore you by going back into that now.

But this year, I'm so starved for any kind of moving cinematic images that do not seem to have been designed for, or easily optimized for, a phone, that I'm willing to go against my usual rules of thumb on this.

Yawn.

I'm sorry, but is this really the best someone has to offer on a "reinterpretation" of the character? Somehow these images look exactly halfway between the way Christopher Nolan envisioned the character and the way Zack Snyder envisioned him. Just because it's not exactly like either doesn't mean it's not so in the neighborhood as to seem entirely superfluous.

To be honest, I've already forgotten half of what we even see in this trailer -- or maybe 75%. I do remember there's a part where Batman beats an opponent so vigorously, it sounds like he's pounding his fist into the squishy remainder of a corpse's face.

Yawn.

I've seen Batman be "dark" before. Like, a hundred times.

No no -- this is darker! 

Puh-leeze.

I recognize that a fair number of people whose opinions I trust are looking forward to this quite enthusiastically, maybe because for them, it'll have been nine years since they got the kind of Batman they wanted on screen. They're probably happy to just erase Batfleck from their memories entirely.

For me, the Nolan films are still fresh enough in my memory that I wouldn't feel like I needed a new Batman reboot now, even if there hadn't been a botched reboot still leaving a bad taste in our collective mouths.

It seems clear now that they are just going to keep rebooting this character ad infinitum, every seven years or so, which will coincide with the previous version running its course. If they do, maybe at least next time they can make Batman a POC.

The only really new way to left to reboot him, it seems, is to go back to his origins -- to his silly, slap-happy, sound-effects-on-screen origins.

Make Batman a comedy -- and not just Joss Whedon trying to add funny lines to a dour story -- and maybe I'll be genuinely excited again.

Vampire Batman

Robert Pattinson had done such a good job convincing us that he had transitioned, now and forever, into an indie movie actor. In fact, his transition from Twilight heartthrob to seeker of challenging roles has been so extreme, the mere presence of Pattinson in a movie is the most likely indicator that it will not be traditionally accessible.

And now this.

"This" is that Variety reported this week that Pattinson is in talks -- like, serious enough talks that it's basically a done deal -- to be the next Batman. That's in Matt Reeves' The Batman, which is due out in 2021.

Really, Robert?

Hey, even actors have to eat -- a little bit, anyway -- and as he's been lowering his salaries to appear in increasingly off-the-grid movies, maybe the ability to keep his refrigerator stocked has become a genuine concern. If so, I don't fault him any more than I fault anyone else for taking the money now and again to make their lives a little easier.

But I have to imagine Pattinson put a way a ton of cash from appearing in four extremely popular vampire movies going on ten years ago. He might not have been thrifty with it, but there should be enough left to buy quinoa and vegetables, or whatever people who are conscious about their physique eat. (Believe me, I wouldn't know.)

It's possible that this is not selling out, but neither is it inherently laudable, as the role of Batman has taken something of a hit in recent years. I don't necessarily think it was Ben Affleck's fault, but let's just say he didn't do anybody any favors. Zack Snyder is likely more to blame for the dark and humorless tone of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and then Justice League, the latter of which actually tried to have a lighter tone due to the punch-up work of Joss Whedon, which also didn't work. Not only did Affleck want to get away from the role, but you got the impression being cast as the caped crusader might be considered a black mark on anybody's career.

And Pattinson has forged quite the career, if not as a matinee idol than as a critical darling, which is clearly more important to him. In recent years he has worked with the likes of David Cronenberg, James Gray and the Safdie brothers. Next month his collaboration with revered French director Claire Denis, High Life, will release here in Australia, and I understand it's pretty inaccessible.

However, there are other indications that Pattinson wants to have it both ways. He's scheduled to appear in Christopher Nolan's next movie, due out in 2020 and so far shrouded in secrecy (as far as I understand it; it's only called Untitled Christopher Nolan Project on IMDB, and it's coming out in only 14 months).

So maybe this gives us an indication of whose career he's trying to use as a template for his own. The most critically acclaimed Batman -- for the movies he was in, if not always for his own performance -- was Christian Bale, another English actor. Nolan directed those movies. Bale effectively bounces back and forth between tentpole fare and weirder indie movies, or at least performances you would not expect from him either because he doesn't look like the person in question or because he has to gain or lose a lot of weight to do the role. Something tells me that if Pattinson could have Bale's career, he would.

And besides, now that Zack Snyder won't (presumably) have anything to do with any future Batman movies, or DCEU movies in general (if there is to still be a DCEU), maybe the taint will fall away from the character. A step in the right direction is already coming this fall, when one of the best actors we have, Joaquin Phoenix, will play the Joker. I think that's a career Pattinson would take as well.

I guess this is a development we should root for rather than criticize. Marvel has been smart about its creative choices, plucking actors and directors who would seem to be above all this from the indie scene. DC is trending that way as well, and pretty soon, maybe Batman will again be a character most actors would love to have on their resume.

We should want one of the most beloved superheroes of all time to be beloved again.