The Batman movie review: A brooding Robert Pattinson sets a dark tone for his legacy as Gotham's new saviour in an immersive crime thriller
The Batman
A younger Bruce Wayne sets out to keep the criminals off the Gotham streets as the masked vigilante The Batman. He finds himself at the center of a criminal conspiracy as the Riddler doles out some vigilante justice of his own making Bruce question his own legacy.
The world has waited with bated breath to see Gotham City’s vigilante hero come out of the shadows in a standalone film long enough. While Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight films set the bar high enough, the challenge for Matt Reeves and his new Batman movie was not just to meet these set expectations but to give Gotham’s protector a new shade.
Reeves’ dark, grim and gritty film is not just ambitious but has proven that there is room for more than one excellent Batman franchise to exist. The film simply strips off the billionaire playboy image of Batman and re-introduces this vigilante superhero as someone utterly broken and consumed by his need for vengeance.
While there’s everything to love about Matt Reeves’ film, the strongest suit of the film is perhaps how it goes back to the basics and builds a new identity for The Batman in keeping with the character’s comic book image. From the word go, the film shows the Dark Knight to be someone who uses fear as an asset with his nearly mythical aura that makes criminals quake every time the bat signal lights up the sky.
Behind the mask is his brooding orphan alter ego Bruce Wayne who cares little about his wealth and all that comes with it. He is driven by his sheer determination to keep Gotham City safe following a stringent moral code to ensure that justice prevails.
Set two years into his vigilante journey, the film taps into Batman’s excellent detective skills and combat abilities setting side CGI laden fight sequences typical to superhero films these days and uses a trail of breadcrumbs laid out throughout its three-hour-long narrative to keep you engrossed. The plot peels away layer by layer to reveal how Batman is linked to it all.
The Batman here is not the mysteriously disappearing superhero we have gotten used to. Reeves gives this younger vigilante no easy escape routes and high-tech gadgets but rather makes him work his way out of tough situations making him more human than ever.
Matt Reeves’ The Batman effectively burns to ashes whatever remains of Robert Pattinson’s image as the glittering vampire of the Twilight saga (if you are still hung up on it) as he bravely goes head to head with greats like Michael Keaton and Christian Bale, the iconic Batman figures before him, to be the new grunge face of the character. The man may not be the master of the famous Batman voice but he definitely soaked in the deep brooding persona of the character and made it his own with more actions and fewer words.
The Riddler is the perfect villain here who draws Batman out with his bloody trail that threatens to consume Gotham City. He matches the Gotham Knight’s sense of vigilante justice with his own in which corrupt government officials are the targets unlike the criminals on Batman’s black list. Paul Dano should take a bow for his near maniacal portrayal easily chalking him up to one of the best Batman movie villains with his performance.
A plethora of iconic Batman characters, all perfectly cast, are seamlessly rolled in as Reeves’ Batman sets out to beat the Riddler at his games and put an end to the trail of dead bodies he is leaving behind. The Dark Knight faces off the Catwoman, The Penguin, Carmine Falcone and even the Gotham Police at one point as he tries to get ahead of riddles that will bring him face to face with the real perpetrator of the crimes.
While each of these encounters is thrilling in its own right, none come close to the car chase sequence featuring the hardly recognizable Colin Farrell as the Penguin and Batman at near the halfway point in the film. It is one sequence that will go down right in the history of epic Batman scenes with its Batmobile roar and leap to the inverted image of the Batman walking out of a fire which has been teased in the promos of the film.
Zoe Kravitz playing the Catwoman, Selina Kyle, and Jeffrey Wright’s James Gordon are the accomplices Pattinson’s Batman has in his odd encounters and while they shoulder the burden of solving Riddler’s games, they also steer the Bat in different directions.
The Batman refrains from a brazen display of Bruce Wayne’s wealth but the film is not devoid of the classic Batman tropes like a new version of the Batmobile, a rather regular looking Bat bike, his famous gadgets like his taser, bat bombs, Batarang, grapple and flamethrower all make an appearance.
Matt Reeves’ Gotham which looks like a flashier version of New York City, serves as the perfect contemporary setting for this noir version of The Batman to unfold. The intense background music lends seamlessly to heighten the sense of gloom, foreboding and simmering tension. Reeves’ has clearly taken his time fleshing out the details of this world and it is immersive.
The Batman is a long film which takes its time setting the scene but there’s not a minute of it that you’d regret. What it has ushered in is a new era for the character and leaves ample room for sequels to follow.
Matt Reeves has set up a whole new universe for Batman fans to dive into giving each of its iconic characters a new shade and with the film he ensures you’d lap up whatever it throws up next.