Is It 2021 Yet?

There's always a bit of the jitters around here whenever a new actor or actress is cast as one of my favourite heroes or heroines.  From way back when they cast Michael Keaton as Batman to the casting of unknown commodity Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, I'm always keen to see the result but worried that Hollywood might not really understand what makes these characters tick.

Sometimes I'm wrong about a casting choice, like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, and am pleasantly surprised.  Sometimes I'm convinced of the perfection of a casting choice, like Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, and left less than thrilled with the result.  To be fair, my track record is probably not as good as the professionals in Hollywood, but as a fan I can't help but speculate how an actor or actress will work out in a given role. 

While the just dropped trailer for next (Covid-19 complications permitting) year's The Batman doesn't give us much of Robert Pattinson's take on the character, what little we get looks pretty damned good.  On first watch, this little glimpse of the yet to be completed film got a grin and a thumbs up from me. 

Nice to see a pet peeve character detail done right.  For the VERY first time we see Bruce Wayne with the eye makeup that he so obviously wears under the mask to avoid looking like Adam West's version of the character.  It always bugged me that in every movie we see Batman take off the cowl and somehow have no makeup around his eyes when he does.  Even in Batwoman, a show where there's a perfect opportunity to do a stylized, sexy eye-shadow thing under the cowl, this same bullshit instant makeup removal trick happens every time Kate Kane unmasks.  Drives me...batty.

The other key to a movie like this one is the villain.  Poor villain casting can turn a potentially brilliant superhero film into so much B movie celluloid in the time it takes to twirl a moustache.  I don't know much about the plot or even who the actor is, but the voice of The Riddler (?) is sufficiently creepy and well delivered to make me think they've made a good choice.  The brief bits of Catwoman look pretty great too.

For yet another reason, 2020 can't get in our rear view quickly enough...