Film Review: The Batman (SPOILER FREE)
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Publicity.
Despite the modern deluge of superhero cinema, in the same way as James Bond or Hannibal Lecter, the character of Batman has become something of an emblem for The Movies all on its own. The live-action Batman films now span 56 years and 7 different actors – each is a product of its time, and each builds on growing familiarity with the character gained by the mass audience. What Matt Reeves, director of Thursday’s new The Batman, has been able to do with that history is take advantage of it, and iterate. The results are very exciting.
The Batman sees Bruce Wayne in media res, in his second year of dressing up and fighting crime at night. There is much to recognise: a sufficiently grimy and metropolitan Gotham City (shooting in Liverpool really lent the production a genuine gothic look). A Batmobile and a Batcave (of sorts). A no-killing code. Alfred. But what Reeves constructs with all of these elements is as focused and consummate a Batman film as there has ever been. You almost want to say that it’s committed - in an age where comic book films can be a Frankenstein’s-monster of competing responsibilities (setting up a sequel, continuing a side-character’s arc, appealing to all popular sensibilities) this is a superhero film that goes for a tone and sticks to it.
As has been stated ad nauseam in the development and promotion of this film, The Batman is a detective story. The experience of watching the (176-minute!) film isn’t like watching Avengers Endgame, or even Batman Begins – it’s more akin to a mass-audience HBO drama series, or a moody mystery pic like Zodiac or Prisoners. It’s dour, action-light, and takes place almost entirely under night sky. Batman stories always skew toward the grim side of things, certainly, but what sets this apart from the other films is how that tone drives everything you see.
This iteration of Batman narrates much of the first act of the film, recalling the voiceover from Taxi Driver as he broods over the streets being filled with crime: “…but I’m there too”, comes Robert Pattinson’s growl. We see the fear this Batman instils in the city’s criminals. Likewise, though – and crucially – we see his shortcomings. Batman takes plenty of hits in his fights, hesitates fearfully before jumping from a building, and is blindsided on multiple occasions by information he didn’t know. The film is grounded in this way – it’s not a world where superpowers feel like they could exist. That’s to say, Bruce Wayne is highly trained, highly intelligent and highly wealthy, but he’s just a man. Thought is paid to the logistics of a man doing something like this – how he gets around, how close he comes to disaster, and most of all – the psychology behind such a life.
The film is genuinely interested in the question of what Bruce Wayne is trying to accomplish as Batman, and what kind of person he would have to be to think that way. Unlike past Batman films, this one is less interested by its antagonists – it’s much more about him. Never before has the “Batman is who he is, Bruce Wayne is the mask” cliché been so unmistakably apt. There’s something legitimately disturbing about Matt Reeves’ vision of this character, something unnerving about his obsessive, haunted determination.
But that all comes back to the lead performance. It’s hard to understate just how unconventional it is, what Pattinson is doing. It’s not just the hilariously heavy eye-shadow: every choice he is making here is just a bit weirder, a bit less palatable than superhero movie audiences might be used to. He scowls constantly, alienates everyone around him, and comes off as properly untethered from normal, well-adjusted emotional balance. This Batman is decidedly not as in control as he thinks he is, and it’s a testament to Pattinson’s clear-eyed understanding of the character; as he has joked time and again in interviews about what an unhinged dude Bruce Wayne would have to be to, in lieu of pouring his money into social programs and direct action, spend it on high-tech bat-themed armour and weaponry and go around beating up criminals at night.
Despite all this, one of the shortcomings of Reeve’s vision is its tendency to occasionally succumb to indulgence: to hand over the wheel to the 10-year-old kid inside that wants to see Batman do Cool Stuff. I get it! I’m a sucker for that myself, and there’s a really thrilling moment with the Batmobile that made me grin from ear to ear. But – it undermines the groundedness of the film a bit when many of your scenes of violence and trauma seem to be saying “look how awesome Batman is”.
The cast and crew of the film put in some absolutely incredible work. Standouts are John Turturro’s sleazy, drawling Carmine Falcone, and the extremely entertaining Colin Farrell, in heavy makeup (and a heavy Noo Yawk accent) as The Penguin. Zoe Kravitz’s femme fatale-y Catwoman pushes the film further into film noir territory, and her slick chemistry with Pattinson injects the film with welcome fun. Jeffrey Wright (who, between this, No Time to Die, and his cracking part in The French Dispatch, is having a hell of a 12 months) delivers a Jim Gordon that made me giggle with glee. It’s absolutely elite: his version of Gotham’s Only Good Cop is a character you can internalise from his distinctive walk alone: he’s so hard-boiled and cynical that it edges on caricature. Him and Pattinson have this wonderful partner-detectives energy – it’s all pitter-patter murmured back-and-forth dialogue about which crime boss might be exposed by which development in the case, and which politician is implicated – they routinely get on a roll together, finishing each other’s sentences. In interviews Reeves has compared the two to Woodward and Bernstein, and though this isn’t All The President’s Men, he’s captured that dynamic pretty well.
The production value here is unreal, from the incredibly engrossing sets and costumes (that Wayne tower interior!), to the wonderful score and cinematography. Australian D.O.P. Greig Fraser conjures memorable image after memorable image, with tons of anamorphic lenses and real optical distortion. Composer Michael Giacchino’s work (reliably full of cues with pun titles like “Escaped Crusader” and “An Im-purr-fect Murder”) is some of the best he’s ever done, and the score incorporates key motifs that draw from the amusingly disparate combination of Nirvana and Franz Schubert.
In all, The Batman is a spectacle for its ambition alone. This is a superhero film that is so hell-bent on being a bleak detective procedural that it’s genuinely exciting. I would forgive anyone who watches this movie and bemoans that a film like this, for this kind of money, isn’t being made about something original, instead of superhero IP. But for anyone who can get their head around that – and god, especially for those who are exhilarated by that – this is an absolute treat.
The Batman is screening in cinemas internationally from Thursday, 3rd of March.