HBO's 'The Penguin' Is Reviewing Better Than 'The Batman'

The Penguin

Rotten Tomatoes

It certainly seemed weird at the time that Colin Farrell’s Penguin, a supporting, somewhat significantly changed from the comics character in Matt Reeves’ The Batman was going to be getting his own HBO show, it turns out that may have been an extremely good idea.

Reviews are coming in for The Penguin, which releases on Thursday, September 19, and they are stellar. In fact, they’re better than The Batman’s reviews.

The Penguin, marketed as an HBO Original rather than a Max production, which is still meant to mean something, has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes with a full 45 reviews in from TV critics. That’s stellar, and yes, it actually does beat out The Batman’s 85%, though of course that’s still an excellent score. Here’s a sampling of why critics like The Penguin so much:

London Evening Standard – “This is a five star series that mafia film fans will adore. It’s very much an Italian-American gangster Penguin, with Farrell finding the sweetest of evil spots between Tony Soprano and De Niro’s Vito Corleone.” Empire – “A spin-off that makes this return to Gotham feel both necessary and earned, with excellent performances from Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti.” NPR – “I’m here to tell you — and no one is more surprised than me, I assure you — that if you skipped The Penguin, you’d be making a big mistake, and missing out on one of the best television series of the year.”

The Penguin

WB

While Farrell is obviously being praised a lot for his titular role, so is Christin Milioti who plays Sofia Falcone on the show, a key character. This is in fact a miniseries, one that is supposed to end a week before the events of The Batman 2, which will take place over the Christmas holidays, it seems, as director Matt Reeves has indicated.

As for the show, Colin Farrell seems happy to be done with it for one major reason:

“I don’t know, man. Don’t get me wrong – I loved it – but it got in on me a little bit. By the end of it, I was bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I f***ing wanted it to be finished. I tried to remind them that I had ‘grumpy gratitude…But when I finished I was like, ‘I never want to put that f***ing suit and that f***ing head on again.'”

So it’s not really about the show, it’s the fact that he had to be covered in latest and his chunky fat suit for the entire production, a process that took hours and hours to realize, plus he had to act inside it the whole time. It was always something of a question as to why Farrell was chosen for the role when he’d have to be made up to that degree, but clearly it’s worked out for him and the whole Batman universe. We don’t know if he will appear in The Batman 2 and be forced to yes, put on that suit and head again.

Cannot wait for The Penguin now after these reviews. It seems like it’s going to be stellar.

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