Review: The Batman
The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves, tells the tale of Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson), an orphan billionaire who has fairly recently taken up a new identity as Gotham’s “vengeance,” sworn to protect the helpless from the city’s seedy underbelly. But things turn sour when a masked serial killer known as The Riddler (Paul Dano) starts killing Gotham’s elites in the hopes of revealing the city’s dark and corrupt past to the world. With the help of police lieutenant Jim Gordon (Jeffery Wright) and a small time thief named Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), it’s up to the Batman to stop the killer and bring order to Gotham’s denizens.
Much like everyone else I’ve been looking forward to this Batman film for a while. I really dug the inspired casting choices they’ve picked for the film, I was impressed with the tone and direction they decided to go with for this film, and the film’s trailers were all super hype. Now the film is finally out and as I expected the film delivered on everything it promised.
So riddle me this: why is it that despite getting a lot right, I still came out of The Batman somewhat unimpressed?
I mean the cast all did spectacular in my opinion. Pattinson oddly enough was the weakest performance in the film but he still does a great job as Batman; he’s appropriately brooding and he looks great in the suit. Jeffery Wright was great as Gordon, Zoe Kravitz makes a great Catwoman, Colin Farrell was completely unrecognizable as the Penguin, and Paul Dano as the Riddler gives one of my favorite performances in a comic book movie so far.
The overall tone of the film was also fantastic. The film was dark, gritty, and felt more like a mystery crime drama that we haven’t seen from Batman since 2008’s The Dark Knight. The score from Michael Giacchino was appropriately filled with dread, some of the cinematography was well composed and professional, for the first half of the film I was REALLY digging this movie….and then we got to the second half.
My issues with this movie got real evident by the time the third act kicks in. All of a sudden, gone is the Fincher-Se7en-esque tone and the film suddenly turns into this weird mash of Nolan’s Batman with Tim Burton’s Batman. The plot gets incredibly ridiculous once the Riddler’s grand plan is revealed and it throws off my investment for this film real quick; without spoiling anything his plan feels completely out of place once all the puzzle pieces get put together.
The action sequences looking back at it were also kinda silly. Outside of this really cool Batmobile chase sequence, a lot of the fistfights were so poorly done. It also doesn’t help when the epic score kicks in during these action sequences, making them feel more awkward. Of course I wouldn’t have mind the dumb plot and silly fight scenes too much if it wasn’t for the film’s GARGANTUAN THREE HOUR RUNTIME. Holy crap was this film slow! It likes to take its sweet time trying to get its point across in the most drawn out way possible.
So do I recommend The Batman? Ultimately, and it really breaks my heart saying this, no. The stuff this film gets right is really good, but it’s held back by the film’s deeply rooted flaws a little too much. I want to see it again, but I don’t think my heart can take another three hours of a mediocre superhero film disguised as a crime drama. People clearly love this movie a lot (once again I’m in the minority) so if you’re still curious about this movie don’t let me spoil the fun for you. Me personally I just couldn’t get into the hype.
Final Verdict: 5/10