Mark Reviews Movies: THE BATMAN

The Batman, Warner Bros. Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 2, 2022

Co-writer/director Matt Reeves' approach to the Caped Crusader cuts to the core of the character, his foes and allies, and the world he inhabits. This film feels different from other iterations of Batman (as well as other superhero movies in general), not only because it's grounded in an admirable and sometimes discomforting sense of reality, but also because The Batman understands the allure, the meaning, and the deeper questions of this masked vigilante on a foundational level.

Reeves and co-screenwriter Peter Craig take a simple but somewhat ambitious approach to their storytelling here. They strip the character of anything unessential, redundant, or gimmicky.

In this telling, Batman (Robert Pattinson), who's known publicly and almost as famously as reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne, is two years into a sort of sociological experiment to determine if fighting crime has any benefits for Gotham City. In other words, there's no need for the usual stuff of the character's origin story. We don't have to watch Bruce's parents be murdered in an alleyway again, for example, because the filmmakers are smart enough to know that this telling, while not directly connected to any previous versions of the character or the bigger comic universe of which he's a part, exists in the cultural memory of all those preceding variations.

Here, Batman exists in the shadows, narrating his methods and limitations from a journal of his experiment. A montage of various crimes being committed across the city eventually becomes scenes of those criminals staring into the darkness, awaiting punishment from the masked vigilante who has been making headlines over the past couple years.

There's an element of horror to the cross-cutting sequence, just as there's a horror-story vibe to the film's opening scene, which takes the perspective of a night stalker, observing the target of his anger from a higher place. At first, we might actually think this is the viewpoint of Batman, and on a deeper level, that's not an erroneous connection to make. This Batman might inspire fear in certain criminals, but he inspires a sense of self-righteous vengeance in others, too.

The major villain in this story is the Riddler (a very creepy Paul Dano), re-imagined as a serial killer with Zodiac-like cyphers and elaborate traps and a leather mask that definitely makes us think of the hero's own disguise. There's also room here, though, for the Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell, channeling a 1930s gangster), the right-hand man to local mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and master cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), who is searching for her missing lover and is an ally-by-necessity for Batman—except that she disagrees with how the corrupt figures of Gotham should be punished for the death, pain, and poverty they have caused.

The Riddler, by the way, is targeting politicians and public servants, beginning by murdering the mayor and working his way through a chain of liars and crooks in positions of power. The Batman, aided by upright police detective James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and his butler Alfred (Andy Serkis), is determined to stop him, but the killing vigilante's schemes eventually find targets with Bruce, the Wayne legacy, and the family's secret connections to Falcone.

Those are the basics, and they're pretty much standard-issue for Batman or any of his superhero ilk. The key to the film's success, as well as why it stands out from the crowd of superhero tales that have overwhelmed media as of late, is that Reeves approaches that formula with a sense of dread but wholly sincere severity. First and foremost, the filmmaker has made a smart, atmospheric thriller of conspiracy, corruption, and murder, and naturally, the Caped Crusader, who has always been the most credible of the famous superheroes, fits into this mold perfectly.

The narrative is straightforward but expansive. It runs almost three hours, which sometimes feels a bit too much when our amateur crime-fighting detective is solving the Riddler's assorted and deadly puzzles. On the other hand, the length and relaxed pacing definitely allow us to take in the grimy, metropolitan realism of Gotham (Cinematographer Greig Fraser gives the place the look of a gloomy, rainy nightmare that still feels like an actual location, not some stylized comic fantasy), as well as the atmosphere of encroaching doom enclosing the city and the characters from all sides.

The action sequences here, punctuated by a few cleverly realized fights (Batman takes on gangs of thugs on a subway platform, in a nightclub, and, sporadically illuminated by muzzle flashes, down a long hallway), are serviceable and secondary. That's not a complaint. It's nice to see a superhero film care more about mood, characters, and plot than special effects—although a car chase on a crowded, rain-drenched stretch of interstate is stunning in its claustrophobia and restricted-view spectacle. That grounded realism, by the way, even extends to Batman's vehicle of choice, which is a jet-engine-rigged muscle car, but then again, all of the hero's tools and gadgets are familiar and/or believable.

Pattinson is a great choice for Batman (the gravelly voice and that chin), and as a Bruce who is secluded and brooding and uncaring about his fortune or public image, he remains the right actor for the job (One imagines any forthcoming sequels, which this film certainly sets up, might give him a chance to grow with the character). Meanwhile, Kravitz is just as glum but with an anarchic twinkle. If the story cuts all of the potentially extraneous stuff, there's occasional potency to how these two characters, as well as others (Serkis' regretful Alfred, Wright's married-to-the-job Gordon, and even Dano's always-online villain, who eventually recruits a similarly disaffected army from social media), are simply wounded and broken people, connecting by trying to make something of—or do something to—the world that broke them.

That idea is the core of it, really, and The Batman understands and communicates it with some subtlety. More to the point, the film understands the tone and intentions of its realistic, stripped-down vision of this character and communicates them with considerable skill.

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