Movie Review : The Batman (2022)
Every time I finish a superhero movie, I tell myself: "never again. It’s the last two hours I spent with this bland, bloated and formulaic bullshit. I am done being a pawn for fat, arrogant Disney and WB execs who don’t know anything about anything." But I never am. The superhero industrial complex has become so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to exist around it. If you’re with friends and you refuse to watch a superhero movie, you’re going to (semi-fairly) be called a dipshit and a pretentious schmuck.
Because why wouldn’t you enjoy something easy and democratic like a popcorn movie? You can argue and give counterexamples all you want, your level of culture will actually play AGAINST you. The great majority of superhero movies plainly suck at being movies, but Matt Reeves’ The Batman doesn’t. It is my new unlikely ally in this battle for our collective consciousness.
The Batman isn’t exactly your typical Batman reboot. Set earlier in Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson)’s life, it tells the semi-familiar story of a criminal dropping bodies over Gotham City in spectacular fashion and leaving cryptic, whimsical clues for the caped crusader to decipher. This mysterious Riddler (the always excellent Paul Dano) is not operating from a psychotic place like the Joker. No, his victims and his riddles slowly start unmasking the true face of Gotham and it’s not pretty at all.
Grunge Emo Screenwriting 101
Twelve minutes or so into my screening of The Batman, I started realizing I was watching an actually good movie. A thriller I could legitimately enjoy without having any mention of Batman stapled on it. Where this movie succeeds and all the other superhero movies (or almost) fail is something simple. Something so simple, it’s the first thing you read in screenwriting manuals: give your characters personal stakes in the fucking story. A movie doesn’t feel dangerous unless the protagonists have something to lose.
I mean, The Batman is very much a let’s-protect-Gotham-against-complete-annihilation movie, but it’s one where the characters can and WILL lose their soul doing it. It is perhaps best represented though the absolute best Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) interpretation I’ve ever seen. He is ruthlessly torn between protecting his colleagues and solving the biggest corruption case of his life. Every steps he takes towards solving the case undoes everything he believes in and force him into unlikely leadership.
Bruce Wayne is threatened with the secret history of his family. The Riddler is surrendering any hope of a normal life to uncover a criminal conspiracy among the city’s elite. Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) is avenging the one stray she couldn’t save. You get my point, right? No one’s doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. They’re acting in accordance to their values and it conveniently serves the overarching purpose of saving Gotham’s soul. There’s no overpowered jock to save the day.
By saving themselves, Gotham’s people eventually end up saving Gotham’s soul. That, ladies and gentlemen, is great writing.
The Batman’s Batmaniness
A lot has been said about The Batman’s over-the-top Goth aesthetic. It’s very much a question of personal taste, whether you’ll find joy in the streets of the urban wasteland of Gotham City. But in terms of Batman lore, The Batman once again comes off above the competition. For example, it has the best justification I ever seen for Bruce Wayne not being immediately outed as Batman. By making him a recluse with funny, distracting hair, it kind of makes senses that people who just catch fleeting glimpses at him would never put 2+2 together.
Another point it has going for itself is that there’s no origin scene. You don’t actually have to sit through twenty minutes of Thomas and Martha Wayne dying all over again. It’s alluded to and skipped through very quickly. All the exposition in The Batman is done very gracefully and takes for granted that you’re familiar with the character since there’s been like four reboots already. It’s delivered through vague allusions and one liners that make the characters feel more alive and relatable than they ever did.
Sure, you’re going to find a dweeb online. who claims it contradicts whatever from the comic books. But fuck that guy. The comics contradict themselves all the time too. In some of them, Bruce Wayne isn’t even Batman. There are even multiple Batman in volumes from Scott Snyder’s run. So what if Batman is suddenly Goth and depressed and very much younger than any other Batman from before? Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is more interesting and believable than all his predecessors.
*
In spite of its ultra goth setting, The Batman is very much the most relatable and humane iteration of the character. It’s not a perfect film by any means. Certain scenes are stretching for WAAAAY too long (I’m thinking of the Penguin’s car chase scene here). Certain subplots could’ve been trimmed out. But it’s a SOLID movie. It’s confident and elegant. It’s STY-lish but not enamored with itself. It has some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in years. I’m going really high on this.
The Batman is VERY close to being the best Batman movie I’ve ever seen. It tries JUST a TI-NY bit too hard.
