The Batman Review!

Alright! Today I’m reviewing the newest live-action stab at Batman, aptly titled The Batman (Because apparently, the way to reboot a DC property is to add/drop a definite article). Personally, this was the movie I’ve been the most excited about, ever. My morbid obsession with it led to a 558-day streak of watching the trailer and unbelievably high expectations. I was expecting one of the greatest films I had ever seen, a true new icon that would usher in a new wave of movies.

And, for the most part, I do not believe it met my sky-high expectations. There were certain things I liked about the movie - but there was a je ne sais quoi property which I cannot define at the moment that rubbed me the wrong way. I can’t quite put my finger on it, which is weird, because most of the movie is absolutely spectacular. 

Now, production-wise, this is a magnificent feat. Gotham City feels and looks better than ever. The opening scene set during “A Night in the Life” of Batman is absolutely spectacular. Actually, the entire opening is spectacular. My singular biggest gripe about The Dark Knight Trilogy is that, aside from Batman Begins, Gotham is more or less Chicago. It’s not completely absolutely awful, it’s just kind of a buzzing metropolis with, like, four costumed troublemakers running amok. 

This is not the case for The Batman. Gotham is so gloomily and stylistically shot that it feels like its own character, breathing life into the movie. Victorian architecture is found in plenty, a cornerstone in every building that the caped crusader comes across. And this is one of the movies where it’s perpetually rainy. It’s always rainy in Gotham City. 

I also loved the specific characters in the movie - Even if Penguin isn’t allowed to smoke and has the cleanest language of any gangster put to screen, Colin Farrell does a fantastic job, creating yet another Batman villain you just want to hear talk. He’s probably the most interesting and dynamic character in the movie, even if there is no apparent reason he would be called “Penguin.” 

Zoë Kravitz portrays Catwoman here, upping both Michelle Pfeiffer's and Anne Hathaway’s take on the character, combining the latter’s charisma and the former’s chemistry. It’s a pitch-perfect adaptation of Batman’s greatest frenemy, and the film captures her and Batman’s relationship perfectly. And the costume is the perfect representation of the one from Hush, so that was great. 

The great roster of characters played to perfection doesn’t stop there - I especially enjoyed John Turturro's Carmine Falcone, who was one half The Long Halloween and one half the mouse from Zootopia. I wasn’t expecting to like Andy Serkis as Alfred, but the movie’s sparing use of him not only created actual tension for certain scenes but also some much-needed emotional urgency. 

My favorite Batman character is Jim Gordon. I love his wholesome family dynamic and personal struggles to be the only noncorrupt police officer in the GCPD. The Batman doesn’t really touch on any of that (Some scenes of shady cops being rude to Gordon were needed). However, I still enjoyed Jeffrey Wright’s take on the character - he and Batman have a great buddy-cop relationship throughout the movie. However, the sad state of Gordon and his social life being time with Batman reminded me of the Harley Quinn iteration of the character more than anything else. 

The Riddler really divided me. During his first few scenes, he’s actually quite terrifying, appearing in a Michael Myers-like fashion. However, soon after that, the horror aspect of the character is dropped in favor of more maniacal Jigsaw-type traps. I also wasn’t a big fan of the costume. It fit the tone of the movie, but I also bemoan the loss of the green suit and bowler hat. I found Paul Dano’s performance to be a bit overacted as well, as if he saw the Oscar nom for Heath Ledger and Jim Carrey’s take on the Riddler and combined the two for a somewhat terrifying dialect with a lot of weird inflections and vowel howling. He was almost a great villain, but just a bit more on-the-nose dialogue about his connection to The Batman - the dichotomy between the two - was needed. There were some opportunities for iconic lines here and there that were missed.

The Batman is probably the most dividing aspect of the movie for me. While I laud the film for picking its stance on his drive - he is clearly doing it to save the soul of Gotham City - the fantastical elements to his mythical reputation are on and off throughout the movie. The opening absolutely nailed it, and the sound design of his boots brought joy to the audience and fear to the criminals he was about to pummel. However, and this will sound terrible, the fact that it did not glorify beating up the poor was mildly disappointing. 

Moreover, the lack of physical differentiation between Batman and Bruce Wayne was strange. While the overall message of the movie does seem to be about the philanthropist aspect of Bruce Wayne, the complete lack of physical differentiation will have lots of viewers going “How does no one know Bruce Wayne is Batman?” They have the exact same stance, slow turns, slide gares, and grumbly jaw clenching. This is not to say Robert Pattinson is a bad Batman, quite the contrary, he has the potential to be the best Batman yet - it is that he is not there yet. Like how it took an entire trilogy to get Holland’s Spidey to true Spidey, I could see the same thing being done here. 

The basic hook of The Batman reminded me strongly of an MCU movie - that is to say “Superhero + niche genre.” In the style that The Winter Soldier was a spy drama. Spider-Man: Homecoming a high school comedy, and Shang-Chi a wuxia fantasy, The Batman is a crime movie. But while the caped aspect of the MCU movies (Namely the CGI finales)  almost derails them, the superhero bits of The Batman are the movie’s coolest bits and some of the greatest action pieces to be found in the superhero genre.

The fight choreography is absolutely spectacular, solving my other gripe about TDK Trilogy - cool hand-to-hand combat. Batman is an absolute brute in the movie, an unstoppable force designed to terrorize criminals. The Batmobile chase was my favorite scene in the movie, easily the greatest use of the vehicle in any movie. That scene was exhilarating, although the same can be said about all the other action scenes in the movie. However, a lot of them ended rather anticlimactically, which really took a lot of “oomph” out of the fantastical and escapist purpose of the superhero. 

The cinematography was also beautiful. Greg Fraiser, best known for his work on DUNC, has created yet another visual marvel that’s sometimes more interesting to just look at and admire than it is to watch the movie. Everything seen is pure wallpaper material. These shots are also accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s career-best music, a two-note melody that haunts every beautifully composed scene. It was for that reason it was disappointing that his score never had a true moment where we were allowed to just focus on the music - no scene transitions where Batman broods on a building or sweeping shots. The closest it gets it the sunrise that silhouettes Batman, but that shot went on for a disappointingly short amount of time. 

I also noticed that, for a three-hour movie, my gaze was not directed towards anything else for that entire time. While the section after the opening drags, every scene from then on smoothly transitions into the next, creating a very consequential plot that’s hard to look away from, escalating into a giant finale that tests the strength of the Bat. 

Speaking of the finale, I’ve seen some criticism online levied towards it. I’m not getting that, the finale was a fantastic idea and a new and visually intense way to do it, even if the stakes became too large for a bat man and more like a job for a super man. The stakes get a bit too out of hand for a Riddler-based movie, especially one so heavily concerned with being “realistic.” 

And I’d say that’s the biggest problem with the movie - it’s so damn concerned with being realistic it almost refuses to have any levity or joy at all. Unceremonious cutoffs to cool action moments, a singular Batarang, it all feels very much like the only fantastical element they were willing to have was a cape on a detective. The Batman is literally just a cool detective movie but one of them has a cape. I personally prefer the more noble, altruistic properties of the Bat, much like how The Dark Knight and DCAU did it. The Batman’s Bat just feels like a guy in a cool suit with a cape. He has a heroic motivation and refuses to kill or use guns, but the fact he takes damage easily and can’t do fantastic elements was disappointing to me. It’s as if Matt Reeves and co. decided that the audience’s suspension of disbelief would be broken if anything more superhero-y than a guy in a costume showed up. 

Which actually really makes me scared for sequels. I’d love for this Batman to face off against Joker or Mr. Freeze, but if they can’t give Mr. Freeze a freeze ray than what’s the point? This is a movie that contains a mass crowd shooting for crying out loud, it can’t get much darker than that. If anything, I’d hope the Joker could bring some laughter into the fold. This is a universe where Hush, Professor Pyg, Scarecrow, or any other villains that could be made “realistic” fairly easily would work best. I doubt even something like The Dark Knight Rises’s Bane could work in this universe. 

And, yeah. Another comparison to another Batman movie, I know. Can’t we enjoy it on its own merits? But when the perfect encapsulation of the character, one of the greatest films ever made, a literal icon of cinema can be found in The Dark Knight, well, it’s hard not to compare. The bar has been set so impossibly high it would take an act of providence to surpass it. And, digression, every reviewer saying this is “The best Batman movie since The Dark Knight” makes no sense. There have been two Batman movies since The Dark Knight, and I’d almost wager this and The LEGO Batman Movie are on the same level. 

In the world where The LEGO Batman Movie exists as a satirization of Batman where the character rudely tells Alfred he’s not his dad, is a total shut in, has no one else in his life, and is so obsessed with being serious and gloomy and cool, The Batman is basically the exact same thing but a lot more serious and a lot less fun. Like, opposite ends of the spectrum. The Batman is the Batman The LEGO Batman Movie was making fun of, basically. 

However, even with my extreme nitpicks and personal subjective opinions, I did really enjoy The Batman and I recommend it. The fact it stuck through so thoroughly on being dark and gloomy is commendable, even though I wish it had occasional moments of levity. The action sequences were spectacular, the cinematography and framing of the titular character absolutely beautiful, especially when accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s score. I just wish it allowed itself to be a bit less serious and a bit more fun. It didn’t feel like an epic quest to save Gotham’s soul, it felt like Gotham was literally destroying all the happiness in the world, which can work and is a great new cinematic take, but I personally prefer the more noble and heroic traits of the character than the gloomy and sad ones. 

Overall, I give The Batman a 9/10. “A stylized but overly serious crime drama, The Batman lays the groundwork for the best iteration of the character yet.” 

Definitely a movie I’ll have to watch again.