Dr Paul Allen

The definite article (“the”) is a bold choice for the title of Matt Reeves’s new film about Gotham’s fabled caped crusader. A more appropriate title for The Batman would perhaps be A Batman because this latest reboot of the lucrative franchise is just one of many iterations of the comic book world. To declare Robert Pattinson’s version the Batman is to boldly go all-in on this rendering of the familiar story, pitting it against other renderings—Christopher Nolan’s so-serious Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012), Tim Burton’s and Joel Schumacher’s campy versions in the 80s and 90s, and Ben Affleck’s Batman in the DC Extended Universe films (2016–2021)—to vie for supremacy in cinema lore. Yet this boldness is what I loved most about The Batman. By going all-in on reenvisioning the world of Gotham—and its many colorful characters, textures, and subplots—Reeves captures why franchise reboots are attractive. Even if our memories of previous Gothams are still fresh, there are something captivatin...

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” ( Isaiah 65:17 ) People often think they are being practical when they place material values ahead of spiritual, emphasizing that we have to “live in the real world.” The fact is, however, that we are not living in the real world at all but in a world that is dying and will soon be gone. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” ( 1 John 2:17 ). This is not even the world that God created, for that world was “very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ). Because “sin entered into the world, and death by sin” ( Romans 5:12 ), therefore, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” ( Romans 8:22 ). In fact, this world is not even as it was soon after God’s curse, for “the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” ( 2 Peter 3:6 ). The present, post-Flood world is now under the dominion of S...