Lieutenant Gordon and Batman uncover an intense conspiracy as they hunt the Riddler.
Jonathan Olley/DC
The Batman hit film theaters on Friday, with Robert Pattinson donning Bruce Wayne’s iconic cowl and brutalizing Gotham City’s criminals in an intense journey set early in his vigilante profession. In writer-director Matt Reeves’ film, Batman faces off towards the wildly creepy Riddler (Paul Dano) because the puzzle-obsessed supervillain targets town’s sleazy elites.
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Teaming up with Selina Kyle (AKA Catwoman, performed by Zoë Kravitz) and GCPD Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), our hero unravels Riddler’s darkish plot to show the depths of town’s corruption. It’s a twisty-turny story, so let’s take a more in-depth have a look at the ending, a number of the main revelations, that chilling cameo and sequel prospects. We even have a separate explainer for the post-credits Easter egg.
Be warned, SPOILERS are about to swoop in.
Gotham underwater
The Riddler permits himself to be arrested after exposing the depths of Gotham City’s corruption, however solely so he can watch his scheme’s ultimate act play out from the protection of his cell in Arkham Asylum. A collection of vans are rigged to explode the seawall across the metropolis, flooding its streets and forcing everybody to flee to the venue the place new mayor Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson) is celebrating her victory.
A bunch of the villain’s on-line followers don his Zodiac Killer-inspired costumes like his and infiltrate the occasion. They open fireplace on the trapped crowds, however Batman, Catwoman, Gordon and town’s cops cease them in a reasonably epic motion sequence.
The Riddler’s endgame sees Gotham City flooded.
Jonathan Olley/DC
Stunned after getting shot at point-blank vary, Batman jabs himself with adrenaline and virtually beats one of many goons to dying however is stopped earlier than he goes too far. After unmasking the man, Gordon asks who he’s.
“Me, I’m vengeance,” he responds, mirroring Batman’s slogan and making the hero understand he is been a bit too darkish and broody in his method to crime combating.
Batman leaps into motion to cease folks from getting electrocuted within the flood waters, then rescues the brand new mayor and a bunch of others who acquired trapped below particles. As the facility goes out, he lights a flare (a Bat-flare?) and leads everybody to security, turning into a literal beacon of hope for town.
The Bat and the Cat have a fiery alliance.
Jonathan Olley/DC
With town flooded and below martial regulation, Selena tells Batman she’s going upstate or to Blüdhaven (a close-by metropolis that, within the comics, is historically stomping floor of Batman ally Nightwing, however that character hasn’t been established on this universe). She tries to steer Batman to go together with her to allow them to be broody vigilantes collectively, however he opts to remain in Gotham.
Joke(r)’s on you
Stuck in Arkham, Riddler is understandably upset that his horrible plan did not play out totally. However, he is greeted by a seemingly sympathetic fellow inmate (Barry Keoghan). We solely see him momentarily, however his facial scars and creepy snort trace at his id.
“One day you are on high, the subsequent you are a clown… there are worse issues to be,” he says. “Gotham loves a comeback story.”
We haven’t got a picture of Barry Keoghan in The Batman but, so right here he’s trying decidedly un-Jokery on the Eternals premiere.
Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images
“Riddle me this: the much less of them you’ve gotten, the extra one is price,” he asks Riddler, taking part in into his shtick.
“A pal,” the Riddler responds. Yay, villain buddies.
Keoghan’s character is credited as Unseen Arkham Inmate, however he is virtually definitely this universe’s Joker. It’s unclear if he is encountered Batman but or why he is in Arkham, however this seems to be setting some form of supervillain teamup in a sequel or not less than hinting that our hero will face a brand new form of risk on this universe. This film is reportedly the primary of a trilogy, and two HBO Max exhibits (a police procedural set within the GCPD and a Penguin-centric crime collection) are seemingly within the works.
Gotham conspiracy
The mayor, police commissioner and district lawyer undergo horrible deaths as a part of Riddler’s insidious plot, as a consequence of their roles in a conspiracy to bust crime boss Sal Maroni. The villain’s puzzles ship Batman and Gordon on a hunt for an unidentified informant often called El Rata Alada — Spanish for The Winged Rat. Which sounds prefer it’s referring to a bat, but it surely’s revealed that Riddler is attempting to find a snitch whose identify is derived from a chicken — the tremendous sleazy mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).
Carmine Falcone is the rot at Gotham’s coronary heart.
Jonathan Olley/DC
With Maroni off the streets, Falcone took over his drug operation. Those who helped him or regarded the opposite manner acquired paid, and all people gained. Except Gotham, which became much more of a cesspool. So Riddler determined to disclose the depths of town’s corruption as he broadcast his killings on-line.
Before Batman and the GCPD can take Falcone into custody, Selena confronts him with the revelation that he is her father and prepares to kill him. He turns the tables and taunts Selena by confessing to strangling her mom as he chokes her however is stopped by Batman.
Penguin could also be Gotham’s new kingpin.
Jonathan Olley/DC
Falcone is then led outdoors to be arrested, the place the Riddler weapons him down from afar — the supervillain wished to get the mobster into the open so he may kill him. This leaves an influence vacuum in Gotham’s legal underworld, which can probably be stuffed by Oz (AKA Penguin, performed by Colin Farell).
Wayne household secrets and techniques
Riddler additionally targets Bruce Wayne by sending him a bomb within the mail. It would not attain its supposed recipient (what sort of billionaire opens their very own letters?), as a substitute wounding devoted butler Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis).
During considered one of Riddler’s broadcasts, he reveals a number of the darkness within the Waynes’ previous. Bruce’s late mom, Martha, was a member of the Arkham household whose mother and father died in a murder-suicide, with the trauma main her to be institutionalised a number of occasions rising up.
Alfred affords Bruce perception into his late father.
Jonathan Olley/DC
Martha apparently discovered stability when she married Thomas Wayne and had Bruce, however Thomas’ choice to run for mayor of Gotham led reporter Edward Elliot to dig into the household’s previous.
This threatened to show Martha’s story, and Thomas went to Falcone for assist (as a result of going to a mobster for assist all the time ends effectively) and Elliot ended up lifeless. Falcone tells Bruce that Thomas had him kill Elliot, however Alfred affords a special model of occasions: Thomas requested Falcone to scare Elliot off the story, however Falcone killed the reporter and Thomas stated he was going to admit every thing to the police.
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The Waynes have been killed shortly afterward — the homicide stays unsolved on this continuity — leaving the charity fund Thomas established to resume Gotham to be snatched by town’s corrupt elites.
This left Gotham’s poor in worse form than ever, however none extra so than younger Edward Nashton. The super-smart orphan grew up in squalor, and seeing Bruce incomes town’s sympathy after Matha and Thomas have been killed stuffed him with a jealous rage, reasoning that the Wayne household fortune made dropping his mother and father simpler than had been for others. And so Edward grew as much as be the Riddler.
We get one other dose of the Riddler’s creepiness after the credit.
Jonathan Olley/DC
Post-credits Easter egg
The Batman would not have a post-credits scene, however there may be one final reference to the Riddler’s marketing campaign — we see a typed “?” adopted by “GOOD BYE” and www.rataalada.com appears to flash up on the display screen for the briefest of moments. That URL brings you to a viral advertising and marketing web site the place you reply a collection of the villain’s questions.
Comic inspiration
This film is conceptually and tonally just like iconic 1996 story The Long Halloween, which sees Batman attempting to infer the id of a serial killer who slays folks on holidays. He additionally works with Gordon and DA Harvey Dent to stop a gang battle between the Falcone and Maroni crime households.
The Long Halloween is among the many most beloved Batman tales of all time.
DC Comics
It acts as a followup to 1987 Batman origin story Year One, which The Batman director Reeves additionally cited as inspiration. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy weaved in components from Year One and The Long Halloween as effectively — they’re important studying for any Batman fan. They’ve additionally been tailored into animated films.
Martha Wayne is not historically a member of the Arkham household within the comics, however 2012 graphic novel Batman: Earth One takes place in a continuity the place she is. In quantity 1 of that story, Martha’s mom killed her father and left the household scandalized. Thomas Wayne additionally runs for mayor towards Oswald Cobblepot, however he and Martha are killed by a mugger. Bruce’s relationship with Alfred is sort of just like the dynamic seen in The Batman too.
Earth One’s second quantity introduces a serial killer Riddler who crops a bomb to get Batman’s consideration, resembling The Batman’s model of the character.
The thought of the Riddler flooding Gotham mirrors the wonderful 2013 storyline Zero Year, which takes place at a equally early level in Batman’s profession.
In an interview with CNET, director Reeves famous that 2000 story Ego influenced the film’s method to Bruce’s internal battle.
“It acquired into the psychology of the beast inside being Batman, this drive for vengeance, this instinctual facet,” he stated.
In the 2011 comics storyline Gates of Gotham, Edward Elliot was one of many folks chargeable for the development of Gotham City within the 1800s (together with Bruce’s ancestor Alan Wayne and Penguin’s ancestor Theodore Cobblepot). Elliot is the ancestor of Thomas Elliot, a childhood pal of Bruce whose jealousy led him to develop into the supervillain Hush and launch a marketing campaign towards Batman.
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