The Batman (2022) – This time he’s serious

Starring Robert Pattinson, et al. Written/directed by Matt Reeves

Seen in theater opening weekend

It’s impossible to review The Batman as a movie; it can only be analyzed as yet another Batman movie. It’s great if you love Batman or don’t have standards. More Batman is more Batman. And it’s fun in the way it’s fun (for me and my wife at least) to compare the endless adaptations of Dracula and A Christmas Carol. More Dracula is more Dracula. But it’s also a bit exhausting and distracting because when I see the Penguin I see Colin Farrell but I also see a ghost version of Danny Devito waddling around next to him like a ghost racer in Mario Kart. When Robert Pattinson growls that he’s Vengeance, I’m both thrilled because it’s a cool line delivered well and curious if he’s doing a Christian Bale impression. I’m watching the movie along with every previous Bruce Wayne right in my mind. The last thing I should be doing while watching a new movie is thinking about an old movie. Or 10 old movies in this case. This conundrum makes it that I’m unlikely to hate the experience of watching a new Batfilm due to curiosity in comparison but I’m also possibly incapable of loving the film because I walk into the theater knowing so so much about the character and the world and all the ways the story has been told before.

My immediate response to Batman ’22 was that it’s a breath of fresh air in that for once Batman is actually being a detective. The film barely constitutes being an action film, it’s more of a detective film with a few action scenes. But that’s only a fresh take within the world of Batmen movies. It’s still Batman and Penguin and Riddler and Gordon and Gotham and Falcone and Alfred. He’s still rich and a vigilante and an orphan and consumed with childhood trauma. So maybe more of a breath of air conditioned air.

This isn’t to say I didn’t like the film. Because I do. (Of the 7 films I’ve seen thus far from 2022, it sits comfortably at #1). The cast is great across the board. Pattinson is good at everything but being a vampire, so no surprises there. He brings an impressive vulnerability to the character, impressive because he’s wearing the cowl for 80% of the film so you can see only his eyes and lips in most scenes. Zoe Kravitz is the MVP, one of two characters allowed to enjoy being in this film, the other being Farrell, who absolutely nails being a gross head henchman who makes sense being called the Penguin without looking like a cartoon character (no offense to Davito who is amazing in his turn as the character in a much differently toned film). I have to imagine that the producers were dying to have James Gandolfini play the part but realized too late he’s been dead for several years, so they cast an A-lister who looks nothing like Gandolfini and covered him in prosthetics to make him fit the part. Jeffrey Wright and Andy Serkis aren’t given much to do but do it well anyway. And John Turturro and Paul Dano bring a lot of life to their well known characters. Beyond the acting, the movie also looks great, primarily with thoughtful production design that makes Gotham look like a bizarro New York/Chicago that isn’t either New York or Chicago. I don’t know where this Gotham is but I believe it exists and once was a cool place to go on vacation when you’re 22.

Since I can only view this film through the lense of 35 years of major Batmen movies, I have no idea what new viewers will think of it. If they haven’t seen The Dark Knight they won’t care that this one is somehow even darker and broodier. They might not care to learn it’s not corny like Batman & Robin or a jumbled mess like Batman v. Superman. But they might care that the movie is 3 hours long and absolutely not fun. There’s no jokes, no light moments (or really any light at all). There are a few action scenes but nothing to make you stand up and cheer and high five the guy next to you (do people do that?).

Tonally, the movie feels like instead of hiring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman in Se7en called Batman in to help him stop this serial killer. There are a lot of crime scenes and conversations with stressed out police officers. And there are a lot of long shots of dark corners where the camera is making you squirm in worry there might be something there you just barely can’t see. I wouldn’t be surprised if some casual viewers thought the movie was borderline too scary at moments, which is another wrinkle to the oft-told story that I appreciated.

Now The Batman is quite long, which isn’t automatically a good or bad thing. A movie should be as long as it takes to tell the story correctly. And this movie definitely uses the runtime. No plot points are rushed, no characters glossed over. And the screenwriters did a good job with how they structured it because there are no subplots that could be cut to shorten the film. The Catwoman story and Penguin story and Alfred story and Falcone story are all integral to the final climax. If any one of them were cut, the ending wouldn’t really make sense. (This is how all movies should work).

Overall, the movie is strong. There’s a forced cameo near the end that is the only actually bad part of a film that otherwise has no real lows. The action scenes that are present are all pretty good without ever hitting truly great. So despite its runtime, I never grew tired of the film. And while I never want more sequels, I know that I’ll be there when the inevitable follow-up eventually comes out. And I’ll be confident that it’ll be pretty good too.

79/100

If you liked this, you might like Se7en, Zodiac, or Oldboy (Korean version, not American). And of course, there’s the best comic book film ever made, Batman Begins.