New "The Batman" trailer: The one who laughs when he goes to the nuclear bunker

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I don't feel like joking: Robert Pattinson as "The Batman"

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Uncredited / picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS

"Who are you under this mask?" Robert Pattinson is asked as the current Batman incarnation in the new trailer for "The Batman".

He gives his answer at the end of just under three minutes, after firing, fistfighting and looking deeply from kohl-smeared eyes: "I am revenge."

Doesn't sound like Gotham City citizens want to be saved by this bat superhero of all people.

In fact, Batman appears in the cut as the actual psychopath, next to whom criminals like The Riddler and Penguin look like choirboys.

"The Batman" starts in German cinemas on March 3, 2022.

An outcry had gone through the social media when it was announced in May 2019 that Robert Pattinson would take over the title role in "The Batman" as a replacement for the dropped out Ben Affleck.

Pattinson, of all people, the ex-teen star from the harmless horror »Twilight«.

But of course Pattinson had long since proven that he not only looks good, but is also a really good actor who also has a good nose with dark indie productions such as the frenetic thriller "Good Time" and the psychological horror "The Lighthouse" proved for extraordinary fabrics.

In addition, the commitment of director Matt Reeves guaranteed that the new Batman would not be a lightweight: Reeves is responsible for the dark remake of "Planet of the Apes".

With the first trailer for “The Batman” he already set an exclamation point a year ago: Accompanied by a remix of the Nirvana Depri classic “Something in the Way”, a Batman could already be seen there who didn't go down to the cellar to laugh, but rather in an underground nuclear bunker.

With "The Batman" Reeves has a difficult legacy, after all his British colleague Christopher Nolan established a Batman version that was extremely popular with fans with his "Dark Knight" trilogy, which seemed to leave little room for improvement in terms of gloom.

Even then, the superhero was lost and desperate in search of himself.

In the new trailer, it seems as if Reeves wants to overtake the legendary film series on the trail that has been freed from any hope of sunshine.

The color palette is blue-gray to black, and yet once the sun rises on the horizon, Reeves quickly cuts away.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the finished film will look like his marketing fanfare.

Reeves had actually announced that he would be inspired by detective films and put the superhero more in the foreground as an investigator.

"The Batman" shows the bat man in his sophomore year as a crime fighter.

Perhaps this figure still works so well after countless comic and screen incarnations, because with it a social climate of fear with existential gravity can be told over and over again.

In 2019, the director Todd Phillips demonstrated how the fantasy of the comic genre can be transformed into the bitter portrait of a society in which only self-interest counts with the character of the »Joker«, borrowed from the Batman universe.

At the same time, there is of course a must-have for the ever new versions of veteran comic characters: The genre of comic films simply promises the best sales at the box office.

And the studios, which were badly shaken by the Corona crisis, are more dependent on this than ever, and the streaming services belonging to them also want to be fed with content.

So the Warner Bros. studio is planning “The Batman” as a new cinema trilogy, and there will also be a Batman and a penguin series on HBO Max.

And Ben Affleck, who played Batman in two earlier films, will also return as the Dark Knight: His appearance in the comic book adaptation of "The Flash", also announced for 2022, has already been confirmed.