There is an eternal holiday in the city of Gotham. People here make up regularly and with imagination, and they come up with witty costumes for themselves. Because this holiday is Halloween. It would be called All Saints’ Day, but all saints have already been taken out. But any character in a witty suit is a uniform psychopath or, at least, an evil half-wit. And while the heroes of the Marvel universe flaunt colorful underpants over smart tights, boasting of various superpowers, in DC comics the main superpower is aggressive schizophrenia.
The kaleidoscope of macabre degenerates began to frolic on paper pages in 1939, and moved to the screens only in 1966. The television series “The Movie’s Batman Batmen: The Movie” starring Adam West is impossible to watch without painful emotion these days. For example, Cesar Romero, who first embodied the Joker, portrayed him as a completely crazy Salvador Dali. In 1986, the famous artist Frank Miller finally stopped the farce. His comic book series “Batman: The Movie: The Return of the Dark Knight” turned Gotham City into a really scary place. Inspired by Miller, director Tim Burton gave Batman:The Movie a gothic gloss and noir chic to his film adaptations, until the fourth film slipped back into clowning through the efforts of artisan Joel Schumacher, who picked up the baton.
Oswald Cobb
The film franchise collapsed, leaving the viewer alone with cartoons for eight years, until in 2005 Christopher Nolan turned into the evil streets of the City of dangerous idiots and corrupt authorities in his trilogy. In its second part, The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger‘s Joker overshadowed everyone with his murderous jokes, finally proving that Batman:The Movie is nothing more than a function designed to imprison Gotham pranksters in a local mental hospital until they get out of there again. The appearance of “Joker” Todd Phillips with Joaquin Phoenix due to such successes was already a matter of time. And the premiere of the film “Batmen:The Movie” by Matt Reeves in 2022 became just as natural.
Like Phillips, inspired by such classics of New Hollywood as Scorsese and Friedkin, Reeves did not hesitate to let thick suspense in the manner of Fincher. The young and inexperienced Batman:The Movie/Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson, “The Lighthouse”) here is rather clumsily struggling with the Italian mafia and the Mysterious maniac (the real criminal Zodiac served as a prototype), gradually realizing that they are all symptoms of a disease generated by the oligarchy, of which Wayne himself is a representative. The most charismatic villain this time turned out to be Oswald Cobb, for friends (who are not) just Oz, for opponents – The Penguin. Colin Farrell, who revealed himself as an actor thanks to the filming of Martin McDonagh in “Lay Low in Bruges”, who secured this status in the underrated second season of “True Detective” or in the fresh noir “Sugar”, “steals” every scene with his participation.
"I was playing Alexasha the Great when you were shitting under the table on foot!"
Unrecognizable in obese makeup with a disfigured face, like Tony Soprano after a collision with a train, Pharrell is the complete opposite of The Penguin Danny DeVito from Batmen: The Movie Returns. A separate story should have been dedicated to such a “bird”. The series “The Penguin” starts exactly with the events that ended with “The Movie’s Batman: The Movie”, and Matt Reeves moves to the producer’s chair, providing direction to equally experienced colleagues Helen Shaver (“In sight”) and Craig Zobel (“The World of the Wild West”). So, “The Penguin”!
Oswald Cobb, just Oz to friends, acting capo in the Falcone family. At his disposal is an abandoned factory building, where “eye drops” are brewed and distributed, dope for those, apparently, who quickly get tired of reading. Oz also runs a nightclub where you can catch a French cold for a reasonable price. Having started his career in the mafia as a chauffeur, The Penguin is greedy, prudent and ruthless. A liar, a schemer and an opportunist, however, he is well aware that he himself is a product of a system in which “good guys don’t live long.” Therefore, Oz spares the colored boy Victor (Renzi Feliz, “American Horror Stories”), appointing him as his driver.
The bus stopped abruptly. Who got hit by it?
Meanwhile, in the criminal world of Gotham comes a period of turbulence: Don Falcone is dead, the throne goes to his son Alberto (Michael Zegen, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), a coxcomb with harmful addictions, compensating for the lack of character. Sal Maroney, the head of a rival organization, takes a fancy to kiche. Taking advantage of the situation, Oz decides to pull off a dashing scam, but this house of cards is ruined by the appearance of Carmine Falcone’s daughter Sofia (Christine Milioti, “Modern Love”), who has been dancing for a dozen years in Arkham, a hospital for half-witted fiends and freaking murderers. The fourth series retrospectively highlights the events thanks to which Sofochka thundered into the poorhouse, at the same time reminding that this series is not only a story about a criminal rabble, but also a free interpretation of gloomy, and sometimes frightening graphic novels.
Sofia Falcone. And you'll be cured.
The threads of fate are intertwined with the alleys of Gotham in a tight tangle of bloody intrigues, which few will be able to get out of by the end of the season. According to the laws of the noir genre, there are no positive characters in ThePenguin, even the stuttering schoolboy Victor has already entered the slippery slope. But there are no cardboard ghouls, Oz and Sofia, the supervillains in the comics, suddenly appear as real people with their reasons, injuries and sinister charm. The scriptwriters, in turn, do not allow even a fraction of the snotty pathetics, forcing the viewer to empathize in spite of what is happening, and not because of the use of conventional tear stamps. DC comics are evolving, growing out of short pants stretched in the middle of the 20th century, and all the antiheroes who survived the last series will meet again in the full-length “Batman:The Movie 2”, announced for 2025. Try not to go crazy before the premiere!
