Tag: Jeffery Wright

Hold the Dark

“Hold the Dark” is a 2018 Netflix thriller/drama starring Jeffery Wright (The Batman), Alexander Skarsgard (The Legend of Tarzan), James Badge Dale (The Departed), Riley Keough (The Lodge), and Julian Black Antelope (Debris).

An expert on wolves receives a letter from a woman in Alaska seeking his help tracking a wolf which is taking and killing local kids. Her son seems to be its latest victim. However, he soon discovers something much darker is going on.

This one was a lot different than what I was expecting, I was thinking it was going to be a man hunting a wolf in a rural Alaskan town. Instead, you have a husband hunting down his wife, and killing anyone in his way, and unfortunately the expert is caught right in the middle. I get the symbolism between wolves and humans and sometimes we’re worse than animals. Still wasn’t expecting it, it gets pretty crazy. It’s a great watch, Alexander Skarsgard plays a great crazy role. The problem with this movie is the ending, the ending sucks. It doesn’t wrap anything up, it’s just a dumb ending, again I get the symbolism behind it, but that doesn’t make it good. Overall, it’s still worth watching, I give it a 6.5/10.

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The Batman

“The Batman” is a 2022 superhero action/mystery movie about you guessed it Batman. It stars Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Zoe Kravitz (The Lego Batman Movie), Jeffery Wright (Shaft), Colin Farrell (The Gentlemen), Paul Dano (The Girl Next Door), and John Turturro (Barton Fink).

The Riddler (Dano) is wreaking havoc on Gotham and killing politicians who are corrupt. Batman (Pattinson) and Commissioner Gordon (Wright) must follow the clues and stop him before it’s too late. Along the way they meet Catwoman (Kravitz) who becomes an important ally.

A lot to unpack here, it’s a three-hour movie which is long for any movie. Marvel has proven to be able to pull it off with their movies, but can DC? The only good DC movies are the Batman movies, I’m not counting “Suicide Squad” because they brought in James Gunn, a Marvel director. Whatever the formula is, DC doesn’t have it, but if any movie of theirs can pull it off, it’s Batman. So yes, it’s long but they pull off the three hours. The second thing to unpack is Robert Pattinson. Most everyone associates him with Twilight and thinks/thought he’s a bad/weird pick for Batman, me included. I heard and read reviews calling Pattinson the best Batman yet, which I thought no way, that belongs to Christian Bale. After watching it though, I have to give Pattinson his props, he is the best Batman. He absolutely destroys this role, he’s not the best Bruce Wayne, however. Luckily, we only have to see him as Bruce Wayne, out of his Batman suit for like twenty minutes out of the full three hours, so that’s good. Third is the Riddler, what is up with his costume? At first, I thought it was awful, which it kind of is, but it fits for the movie and who the Riddler is.

With all that unpacked let’s talk about the movie as a whole. This is and may be the best Batman movie yet. It captures the true essence of Batman, an outcast himself just trying to make Gotham a better place. It also focuses on James Gordon, which the true stories of Gotham he’s every bit as important in Gotham as Batman is. With the other movies, they don’t touch on it enough. They also have Falcone and Maroni in this one, which follows the story line. If you’re a fan of the CW show “Gotham” it follows the same story line pretty closely, which is awesome. All in all, “The Batman” surprised me, it may be the best movie to come out this year. I give it a 10/10.