What Matt Reeves has done in "War For the Planet of the Apes" is bloody brilliant. The third, and presumably final, chapter in the "Apes" series is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen this year. The miraculous thing about it is that it barely has any dialogue. Sure, there are lines uttered here and there, but the fact that 99% of the apes can't speak and the main human character, a teenage girl, is deaf which results in a film that relies HEAVILY, instead of visuals, to tell its story.
"War" is better than "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" as it relies more heavily on character than actual war. There's no excess here, just pure unadulterated thrills that rely on the audiences smarts to pull through. Don't worry summer movie buffs, there is action, gloriously on display, especially in its final third, but Reeves is after much much more here. He's made the closest thing to a silent movie that we will likely have in today's Hollywood zeitgeist.
The director chatted with New Trailer Buzz (via Batman-News) about his love for Batman and the "Apes" series, but more intriguingly what his vision is for "The Batman."
"I see a parallel, emotionally, between Caesar and Batman in that they're both characters who are tortured and trying to sort of grapple within themselves to find a way to do the right thing in a very imperfect, and to some degree corrupt, world, And so it's really that emotionality that I'm interested in. I want to do a very point of view-driven -- you know, this film and with all films what I try to do in an almost Hitchcockian sense is to use the camera and use the storytelling so that you become the character and you empathize with that point of view, and I think there's a chance to do an almost Noir-driven, detective version of Batman that is point-of-view-driven in a very, very powerful way that hopefully is going to connect you to what’s going on inside of his head and inside of his heart."
If this is true at all I would think Riddler would be perfect. Turn Riddler into a Jigsaw for the Saw movies type killer that leaves clues to his next crime. I could also see a movie version of The Long Halloween story, it would very much fit the Noir style. I just don't know how they could translate it from comic to screen well. I know Deathstroke was to be the big bad, just don't know how he would fit the noir style. That's exactly what the character needs, we've had Batman as the superhero and we've had Batman as the vigilante, having Affleck showcase the criminal detective would be a perfect spin on his tenure, providing he stays on which I hope he does. So many villains lend themselves for such a style too; Riddler, Hush, Calendar Man, Court of Owls etc.
