Creep in a Cowl: 'The Batman' Review
★★★ (3/5)
The Gotham City rendered by Matt Reeves is a sprawling urban metropolis that, in terms of aesthetics, feels different than every other setting in the caped crusader’s canon. As a filmmaker who’s used to taking on world-building franchises with his highly successful Planet of the Apes trilogy, Reeves executes his vision with discernible inspiration from genres that could tap into the essence of his subject’s oppressive backstories. That’s why The Batman feels more in line with grisly crime thrillers than it does with Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan’s established settings.
In this latest entry, Gotham City’s streets are slicked with unrelenting rainfall shot mostly by night, lit dimly by streetlamps and neon signs. Interior settings are grim and moody, overcome by a pervasive melancholy that helps distill the essence of Batman’s traumatic origin story—and stretches for the entirety of The Batman’s lengthy three-hour runtime.
“By the time we were ready to do the movie, there was an enormous history of this specific Gotham, its corruption, and how it worked. I also just wanted it to feel very visceral and gritty, but not identifiable, so that you couldn’t say New York is Gotham or Chicago must be Gotham.”
Matt Reeves | Vulture
Reeves was given a lofty task, adapting a Batman story with 12 previous feature films that already explored the masked vigilante through vastly differing perspectives. How can a director distinguish themselves in the archive of cinema’s most iconic superhero?
With the help of an effective production design team spearheaded by James Chinlund, Matt Reeves scores big with his envisionment of Gotham for exactly what it is, and in some ways always has been: a damp, cold city with a swirling heart of darkness at its core. And through this city, a criminal sludge runs amok, wreaking havoc from the shadows.
That’s where The Batman’s protagonist comes in, a youthful but antisocial Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson), still visibly wearing the trauma sustained from losing his parents as a child. As a man, he’s mostly withdrawn but when he dons the cowl, he evokes invulnerability, a bulletproof identity worn to shield himself from the inevitable horrors of the outside world. But somewhere in the folds of his split personalities, he finds a blurred line between them. Who is he really?
In this timeline, both of Wayne’s identities are still entangled in one. As a man, he’s far from the billionaire playboy we’ve grown accustomed to seeing him as. And as a hero, he’s certainly the most stoic Batman we’ve ever seen in movies, walking into crime scenes and criminal dungeons with a deeply troubled distance you can feel in the way he walks, talks, and looks behind the eyes.
Continuing his streak of image-transcendant performances, Robert Pattinson plays Batman and Bruce Wayne as two strands of the same helix. Even with the mask on, there’s an undercurrent of sadness and fear that ultimately reflects what he is inside: just a young guy trying to figure out his place in the world.
By stripping the vigilante down to his broken foundations, Reeves introduces an unparalleled degree of psychology to Batman we’ve not yet seen in a feature-length film. That deliberate darkness is explored through many different aspects of the film’s execution, including its archnemesis Riddler (Paul Dano) being angled as more of a sociopathic serial killer than a traditional supervillain, the drab aesthetic that adorns the entire film, and the downbeat strums of Nirvana’s Something in the Way employed as a motif for the darker, anguish-riddled narrative.
“He’s succumbing to his darkness. Once he’s put on that suit, he doesn’t really know who he is anymore.”
Robert Pattinson | The New York Times
While many aspects of The Batman’s thematic execution are employed effectively, the film’s inevitable downside is also quite apparent upon first viewing. Many of those flaws are magnified by its hefty three-hour runtime, which feels like it lingers on the minutia of its narrative for much longer than it needs to.
In an effort to craft a more tactile superhero film that takes on more of a serial killer/detective milieu like David Fincher’s Zodiac, Matt Reeves and Peter Craig’s screenplay gets tangled in the lines of its underworld story. The lofty idealism feels refreshingly inspired, though it unavoidably feels derivative at times and also tends to weigh down the overall viewing experience.
Within the criminal underworld of Gotham, many of the film’s moving parts don’t quite match the film’s tonal intensity, with some supporting characters that feel more likened to a comic book or graphic novel. Unlike the grittier films it aspires to, The Batman draws toward its conclusion with way too many bad guys and subplots to keep tabs on, which distracts from the cat and mouse game between Batman and Riddler.
Despite its story flaws, the film still manages to glide on the strength of its immersive set pieces, directed by Reeves with heart-pounding big-budget execution. The film’s sound design is vital to its overall viewing experience, so the action sequences pack a much heavier punch in a movie theater than they would from the comfort of home.
The film’s centerpiece is an unbelievably staged car chase between Batman and Penguin (Colin Farrell). Unlike previous iterations, the new Batmobile is specifically designed as a supersonic behemoth that rattles an auditorium and swallows audiences whole. Reeves’ vision for the sequence is massively empowered by its use of practical effects over CGI. The scene bulldozes toward a satisfying payoff that stands out upon first viewing.
The preeminent third-act sequence is an intricately staged finale, taking place in an indoor arena similar to Madison Square Garden. With the city corralled indoors after a sudden panic, masked assailants in the rafters begin firing rifles down at an unsuspecting crowd, which highlights the inconvenient timeliness of the visceral story Reeves is trying to tell. It’s not a football stadium rigged with C4, nor is it Mr. Freeze entombing Gotham City in a wall of ice, it’s essentially a mass shooting that encapsulates a very real and mounting fear that is scarily omnipresent in the modern world. It’s at this moment Batman comes to a realization of his true position behind the line that separates good from evil.
“When I’m making movies, I’m trying to make sense of my experience, and through his vigilantism, he’s trying to cope with his.”
Matt Reeves | The New York Times
Another point driving The Batman’s discourse focuses on its strong supporting cast including Zoe Kravitz as Selina ‘Catwoman’ Kyle. In this adaptation, Kyle is a well-developed character with clearly illustrated motives that sidestep the frivolity of Michelle Pfeiffer and the deceptive allure of Anne Hathaway. Instead, Kravitz plays Catwoman with a measured balance of class, charm, and spunk that serves as a refreshing counterbalance to the stoic and dour performance needed for Pattinson’s Batman to take shape.
Rounding out the rogues’ gallery of bad guys is Colin Farrell, who undergoes an astonishing transformation as Penguin, the fierce underworld kingpin. His sneers and snarls under an avalanche of prosthetics render him literally unrecognizable. He plays the role with a certain degree of grounded malevolence, diverging from Danny DeVito’s sideshow carney-esque performance in Batman Returns.
One of the biggest topics of conversation surrounds Paul Dano as the primary antagonist Riddler. Unlike Jim Carrey’s manic portrayal in Batman Forever, Dano’s Riddler is illustrated as more of a sociopathic extremist rather than an archetypal comic book villain. His unsettling volatility and aim to expose corruption in Gotham help ground the film in a backstory that is infinitely darker and more fitting to its time.
While certain pieces of The Batman feel slightly out of place, the film takes DC’s most valuable asset in an intriguing new direction. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $134 million in domestic revenue, boasting a stronger performance than any DC movie since Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016 and the second-best box office opener since the pandemic first began.
Looking ahead to the future, Matt Reeves explores rugged new terrain with which he can take Batman’s expansive mythology. While a sequel has yet to be officially announced, it’s a forgone conclusion that we haven’t seen the last of emo Batman just yet. Furthermore, with HBO Max gearing up for an upcoming Penguin spin-off series, we wait with bated breath for whatever lies in store for the world’s greatest detective.