With yet another reboot upon us, Batman movies are starting to feel like Kevin Hart and the Rock – you probably can’t remember when you went a week without seeing one in some form or fashion. The Batman is WB/DC’s latest attempt to set up the iconic character for another series of movies.
This time, they went younger and cast Robert Pattinson to play the Defender of Gotham to reverse course (and fortunes) from the older Ben Affleck Batman. Is The Batman the film that finally gets Gotham’s hero right or is it a stepping stone towards another reboot?
Not only is it the top DCEU movie ever (honestly not too high a bar), but The Batman is also by far the greatest Batman film ever made, even besting The Dark Knight. A bold claim? Sure, and here’s another one to piggyback on that one – the guy in the Batsuit isn’t among the top 5 reasons The Batman is a major win for WB/DC and Batman fans alike.
The conversation about what outshines the Caped Crusader in his movie should focus squarely on Matt Reeves and Greig Fraser. The combination of Reeves’s script and Fraser’s cinematography shape this Batman story in a way that makes it the most grounded yet hair-raising one brought to the screen.
Rather than write a superhero movie, Reeves crafts a dizzying detective story that keeps the audience guessing even when they think they have everything figured out. It starts out lulling you into what feels like a tried and true noir formula and then hits you with several reversals that turn you and the movie upside down. It’s Se7en with the hero dressing up in a funny costume.
To further ground the film, Reeves strips down the mystique of Batman/Bruce Wayne. He removes the flamboyant billionaire playboy trope from Bruce Wayne to make him a wealthy but troubled man. Reeves also dismisses the halo effect from Batman and instead made high contempt by police and even the citizens who need his services a part of his narrative. He even allows him to injure himself, which made for one of the film's most authentic and funniest scenes.
If there’s a weakness in the script, it was the Selina Kyle-Batman dynamic. With increased grit in The Batman, the cat and mouse game that became a trademark of the characters’ history whittles down to a few interactions that didn’t allow any legit romantic chemistry to develop. Otherwise, it’s an amazing piece of work.
Fraser’s cinematography has that same grounded yet dizzying effect. To start, the way he captures Gotham is the way the city had always meant to show – a big city under a massive cloud of hopelessness.
He manipulates the stages of sunlight in what is intended to be the early parts of the day to give Gotham that cloud of nihilism that permeates throughout the story. Even as you see the sun, it doesn’t quite shine through the gloom. He does the same thing with the dark of the night and uses it for breathtaking reveals and hiding places.
His movement of the camera in the action sequences is just as spectacular. The hallmark of this is how he shot the reveal of the Batmobile and the ensuing chase. That sequence alone will have him as a potential awards season favorite for cinematography
And last but certainly not least, the acting. If you’ve seen Pattinson’s post-Twilight work, you knew the tools were there, and he rewards that faith with his turn as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Because this is a more grounded version of Batman, Pattinson doesn’t deal with the flashy to dark duality seen with other Batman portrayals. He excels in playing this more muted version due to his ability to play vulnerable and reserved, which is precisely what this rendition of Bruce Wayne/Batman needed.
Zoe Kravitz is also a hand-in-glove fit for her character. Again, she doesn’t toy with Batman the way previous Catwoman actors did, but that’s due to the script. However, she does display those sultry qualities when called upon throughout the movie and has a much better handle on the combat aspects of the Catwoman role than earlier actors.
However, the best on-camera performances belong to Collin Farrell and Paul Dano. Farrell’s Oz Cobblepot steals every scene with a filth that humors and terrifies but makes it easy to see why an HBOMax series is in the works for the character. Dano’s Riddler leans much farther into the terror category, and the performance places him in the same pantheon of Batman villains as the Ledger and Nicholson Jokers.
If you’re looking for the usual family-friendly, action-packed superhero film, you won’t find it here. With a return to Batman’s roots as the “World’s Greatest Detective,” The Batman bucks against the comic movie race and finds a way to advance the genre thanks to heavy doses of realism and fearless exploration of its source material’s darker elements. Pattinson is a more than capable Batman, but he’s overshadowed in front of the camera by Farrell and Dano and behind it by Reeves’s writing and Fraser’s camera. This darker turn of Gotham’s guiding light is without a doubt a must-see.
While it’s a glorious watch in premium formats thanks to the upgraded sound, there’s no need to watch The Batman outside the standard screens due to the IMAX version not featuring the usual expanded screening ratio.
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