The Batman (2022)

I am a Batman fan, so there was never a question that I would head out to see the new movie, even if it was three hours long. But the thing that really got my attention wasn’t Batman but the involvement of director Matt Reeves. He made two solid movies in the most recent Planet of the Apes trilogy as well as the first Cloverfield movie. That he managed, with only a quarter of the movie filmed, to put together a solid trailer for the movie in the middle of the COVID pandemic was even more impressive. Honestly, of the various superhero projects on the horizon for the next year or so, this one was the one I most wanted to see.

And now, I have!

The movie opens with a murder as the Riddler (Paul Dano) stalks and kills an important person in Gotham City. Batman (Robert Pattinson) is asked to take a look by the lone police officer that actually respects and likes him, Detective Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). There are some clues on hand, including a note written to Batman. Other clues lead Batman into the seedier side of the city, places he didn’t even seem to know existed. The Riddler, appearing as a mysterious masked man offering cryptic clues, wants the truth to come out. There are liars in positions of power in Gotham, and Batman will need to figure out the truth just as much as he’ll need to find the Riddler. The Riddler has plans, plans that could tear the city apart.

Now, Pattinson is the latest in a long line of actors to play Batman, and I think he actually spends far more time on screen as Batman than he does as Bruce Wayne. But the movie, like many Batman comics, seems to suggest that Bruce Wayne, not Batman, is the disguise. However, the thing about this Batman is how he’s perhaps the most intimidating Batman that has ever appeared on screen. The movie opens with Batman’s narrating how he’s been doing this for a year or two, and there’s even a Batsignal, but even though he is only one man and can only be in so many places, he is still having an effect. A montage of criminals around the city seeing the signal light up the rainy night sky shows them all staring into dark shadows, petrified that the Batman will come striding out of the darkness. When he finally does, he has a slow, steady, heavy pace, one that suggests he may be slightly more than human as he glares silently as his targets. This is a Batman who may be walking around a crime scene with cops, checking for clues, but he also is a guy who, at best, makes most people uncomfortable by his very presence. The only people who seem to be able to deal with him are Jim Gordon, who comes across like a partner of some kind; cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz); and of course, faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis). But then there are underworld figures like the Penguin (Colin Farrell) and mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturo), men who are used to getting their way and seem less intimidated by the man in the batsuit as a result.

Look, I loved this movie. There are so many elements to it that just work, Gotham is almost a character itself, a dark city that is not only mostly seen at night but also seems to be generally raining. I know the talk was the Zodiac Killer inspired the Riddler, but the general aesthetic of the movie reminded me of a very different David Fincher movie, namely Se7en. Furthermore, Batman’s gear, for the most part, looks like something he might have cobbled together himself in many cases, most noticeably the Batmobile, a car that actually matches this Batman’s persona. This may even be the first Batman who actually seems to be doing detective work in a serious manner and not just something in a few scenes, and it’s even easy to see why he terrifies criminals. Heck, this movie’s score, by Michael Giancchino, is the best since Danny Elfman’s. Giancchino’s score sounds almost like a funeral march of some kind, with a heavy piano sound that matches Batman’s stride. This movie just put together everything just about right, and the three hour runtime never felt quite like three hours.

I do think that the movie has a flaw or two, but they’re relatively minor. For one, Turturo is awfully mild-mannered for a mob boss. He’s almost forgettable in the role. By contrast, Farrell as his righthand man seems to be far more over-the-top. But that’s about the only thing I can claim didn’t work as well as the other elements of the film, and they weren’t even bad performances. They were just a bit different. Factor in as well the seemingly required big finale seemed to be a bit out of place for a movie like this, and the end result is a movie that fell just short of perfect for me. But hey, I am a Batman fan, and I got a good Batman movie.

Grade: A-