The Batman – Movie Review
176 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by Matt Reeves and Peter Craig
Directed by Matt Reeves
Synopsis:
When the Riddler, a sadistic serial killer, begins murdering key political figures in Gotham, Batman is forced to investigate the city’s hidden corruption and question his family’s involvement.
Matt Reeves, perhaps best known for his work on the recent Planet of the Apes films, writes and directs this iteration of Bruce Wayne/Batman. It is a different take than we saw from the “Snyder-verse” version (played by Ben Affleck), and even from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight version (featuring Christian Bale), though it is close to the latter than the former in tone.
Set in Year Two of Bruce Wayne’s “project” as Batman, Bruce Wayne’s alter-ego becomes the target of the Riddler, a masked, Zodiac-inspired killer, who is systematically taking out high-profile targets, while hinting that it isn’t their positions alone which drive him, but rather some common element in their pasts.
It is up to Batman to figure out what, exactly, is the impetus of the Riddler’s spree. Which brings us to the defining factor of Reeves’ version of Batman: what he actually does.
Unlike the campy 1960’s version, or the shared/evolving Burton/Schumaker universe, or Nolan, or Snyder, Reeves’ Batman does what he did all those years ago when Bob Kane first created him: he’s a detective.
Following clues, developing theories, and following up leads, this Bruce Wayne does more detective work than vigilante work (though there is plenty of that in the film’s 176-minute runtime).
Along the way he encounters many classic Batman villains, both fully formed and half-realized: Carmine Falcone, Oswald Cobblepot (aka Penguin), Selina Kyle (not yet the fully formed Catwoman; here, still just a cat-burglar), the very different Riddler than we are used to after Frank Gorshan’s classic and Jim Carrey’s extravagant depictions, and a special surprise for the credits.
This makes The Batman a detective movie which happens to feature Batman (much as Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a spy movie which happened to feature Captain America), with shades of L.A. Confidential-style criminal plotting grounding the plot in a starker reality than world-ending invasions or silly, dream-stealing plots.
The film tends to the darker side, with only a few scenes shot during the day, emphasizing the divide between Bruce Wayne and Batman. Here, Batman reigns. But that isn’t to say the cinematography is DARK, a la Snyder. You can see everything, and the cinematography is pleasantly lacking what I not-so-affectionately call the “Zack Snyder drama walk” shots (which easily extend any of his films by 8-10%). There is some wonderful camera work here, however.
That isn’t to say there isn’t room for improvement in that area, however. Though lacking the ZSDW shots, Reeves is prone to lingering on shots longer than is necessary, or of including too many shots in a scene, making it unnecessarily long in terms of story necessity.
All that being said, while The Batman could easily be tightened up in the editing bay by 10-15 minutes, I was by no means put off by the nearly 3-hour runtime. It’s not as if I wasn’t enjoying those extra shots, but they were, in the end, perhaps unnecessary in terms of the story.
Andy Serkis’ Alfred is definitely given more than a butler’s role and history here, but his screen-time is sadly deficient, and we don’t truly get to see what he might have added outside a word of advice or admonishment to young Bruce.
With all of the talk of The Batman being a stand-alone DC film, not tied to the DCEU (as Joker was similarly isolated), he history of Gotham and the Wayne family is explored somewhat, and I find myself wondering how much of this is canon to the comics and how much is Reeves’ stretching the limits of what might have been in this contained universe.
Overall, I found (though if you listen to us discuss, you’ll see we disagree on this point) The Batman to be on par with Nolan’s trilogy: different, of course, but very good in its own right. Subsequent viewings may temper that a bit, as The Batman is so different that it may have caught me off-guard in that respect.
The Batman will hit theaters exclusively on March 4, 2022.
The Batman stars Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Barry Keoghan, Paul Dano, Colin Ferrell, Peter Saragaard, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright, John Tuturro, Rupert Penry-Jones, Alex Ferns, and Con O’Neill.
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