Director Matt Reeves’ The Batman released last week, bringing a live-action version of the iconic DC character with a new actor to the big screen for the third time in the past decade. This long-awaited breakaway from the DC-Verse brings in Robert Pattinson as the fresh new Dark Knight, and he’s joined by a star-studded cast that includes Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as Lt. Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell in an unrecognizable transformation as The Penguin.
The Batman takes place two years after Bruce Wayne has taken the mantle of Vengeance and exactly 20 years after the murder of his parents. Gotham City is at an all-time high in crime. As Batman takes out his aggressions on the streets, a villain that calls himself The Riddler is picking off high-power city officials and politicians while leaving clues in the form of riddles for Batman to piece together a bigger puzzle. Honing his skills as a top-tier detective, Batman finds himself weaved in the midst of a web that has him meeting face-to-face with Catwoman, The Penguin, and the Falcone crime syndicate.
Right off the bat (no pun intended), I want to mention the fantastic aesthetic of this film. The viewers haven’t gotten a great on-screen Gotham aesthetic since the set builds of the classic Burton and even the Schumacher films. It felt like Nolan and Snyder completely avoided any and all styles from the iconic comic book city. Reeves made Gotham seem like Gotham should. It was grimy, wet, dark, and depressing. The city felt like Gotham. Batman was in his natural habitat of darkness and dismay, and though every part of the city oozed with crime, there was a level of tension that Batman could be watching from anywhere. I loved it.
I think the biggest question going into this film for everyone (as it is with all new Batman castings) is, “Was Robert Pattinson a good Batman?” The short answer is that he was excellent. Like Kristen Stewart, Pattinson’s reputation as an actor unfairly rests on his appearances in the Twilight films, which made him out to be mostly just a pretty face. Pattinson is an incredible actor, but his performances generally lie within lesser-known indie films, so you really have to search them out to properly appreciate his talent level at this point in his career. For those that do and have seen him in films like Good Time or The Lighthouse, his role in The Batman is par for the course of what we’ve seen. For those that don’t, you’re in for a hell of a good surprise.
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As a caveat, I will say that this is a different Batman and Bruce Wayne than we’ve seen on screen in the past. This isn’t the playboy billionaire we’ve come to know throughout the Batman filmography. Pattinson’s Bruce is untrusting, uncaring, and unable to separate the anger of his traumas from his alter-persona. The two are very much the same, as Bruce hasn’t figured out how to hide in plain sight, as he’s shown in older versions of the character. Alfred isn’t the trusted member of Bruce’s pack that we’re so used to. The character in this film is very much in a transitional phase and should be viewed as that. This was also the first Batman film to spend a significant amount of time on his world-class detective skills, something many fans have been yearning for since the beginning of time.
Dano’s portrayal of The Riddler is fresh and chaotic. The character’s antics and style are clearly based on real-life serial killers like the Zodiac and Jack the Ripper. With everything going on in this film, he was slightly under-utilized, but the goal of this film was to spread the story out among several different villains, not just focus on one or two as previous Batman films have done. Colin Farrell’s Penguin was riveting as well, lending much more to the traditional mobster personality than the sewer-dweller character made iconic in Batman Returns and Batman: The Animated Series. The Penguin was involved in one of the most impressive scenes in the film, and even Farrell’s makeup alone was a spectacle that was hard to process. Kravitz’s Catwoman was slick, intelligent, and maybe most importantly, very vulnerable, an emotion we’ve not seen in her character on screen.
Technically, The Batman was a gem. Lighting was perfectly executed from scene to scene, creating an intimidating atmosphere not just for the criminals but also for the audience. Michael Giacchino’s score was both haunting and driving, accompanying the story perfectly as the film went on. Batman’s theme was established early and recognizable each time the Caped Crusader came on screen.
Though faults with the film were minor, there are still some to point out. Firstly, it just felt too long. The Batman clocks in at two hours and 55 minutes, but honestly felt like a 3.5-hour movie. Scenes toward the end could have been cut down to save some time, and the audience would have gotten the ideas just as effectively. My second issue was with some of the emotionally transitional moments between Catwoman and Batman. They seemed rushed, but not in a way that signifies poor writing, more like scenes were cut out that held development for the duo. Some of their scenes felt disjointed throughout the movie, but I chalked it up to the depth of the story having a lot of moving parts and didn’t feel it was too distracting.
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I was extremely pleased with The Batman and would consider it one of the top three or four films in the character’s franchise. I hope to see Matt Reeves continue Pattinson’s (Battinson?) story as the Dark Knight, and I’m excited to see what’s next.
