Film Review: The Batman

Director: Matt Reeves
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano
Running time: 176 minutes

Can you believe it’s been nearly a decade since the last standalone live-action Batman film? You’d be forgiven for thinking it hasn’t – within the past decade, Ben Affleck has appeared as Bruce Wayne in three team-up movies (four if you count Zack Snyder’s Justice League), and spin-offs Joker and Birds of Prey have kept Gotham on the big screen in his absence. Affleck was set to direct and star in his own solo outing for the character at one point, until plans for the film drastically changed and The Batman instead became a complete reboot that found itself in the very capable hands of War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves.

Reeves’s take on Batman – starring Robert Pattinson in the lead role – is a long-overdue return to the superhero’s roots as a super sleuth, putting mystery-solving before action to make for a compelling detective tale. This time, the antagonist is the Riddler (Paul Dano), who’s been bumping off powerful figures around Gotham and leaving a trail of clues addressed “TO THE BATMAN” who, while not a complete newbie like in Batman Begins, is still in his early years as a costumed crime-fighter.

The various twists are a lot to take in, and some are more effective than others, but the three-hour running time gives the audience a chance to process the developments so they don't get left behind. Not-yet-commissioner Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) – helping Batman crack the case, to the rest of the police department’s disapproval – also has a tendency to state the obvious like he’s Burt Ward’s Robin, in case you still can’t keep up. The screenplay is generally very pulpy, with Bruce throwing around phrases like “I am vengeance” without any MCU-style comedic self-awareness, and it's bookended by a hard-boiled inner monologue that helps to emulate the feel of a Frank Miller comic. The tone certainly won’t be for everyone, but it’s a welcome diversion from the mainstream trend of superhero movies trying to distance themselves from their more melodramatic predecessors.

Visually, this version of Gotham is similar to the grimy interpretations of the city featured in Joker and the DC Extended Universe films, but the opening scenes of The Batman establish it as an even more hostile setting than we’ve come to expect, where violence and greed have infected every corner of the city. Reeves has borrowed Richmond Lewis’s colour palette from Batman: Year One – one of the film’s most noticeable influences both narratively and aesthetically – with browns, reds and yellows dominating the screen, further contributing to the noirish feel. Michael Giacchino's booming score adds to the suffocating atmosphere, swelling whenever a new clue is discovered to amp up Bruce and Jim's feelings of desperation. Like 2021’s Dune, the film veers into more radical territory than blockbusters are often permitted to – it’s not an arthouse film by any means, but scenes like an over-shoulder view of Bruce zipping through Gotham on a motorbike set against Nirvana’s Something in the Way feel refreshingly out-of-place for a superhero flick.

Of course, the most heated Batman discussions always revolve around the lead performance, and Pattinson’s casting has proved particularly controversial among fans since its announcement. That said, the Twilight-star-turned-indie-darling makes a stellar Dark Knight that ticks all of the boxes while still putting his own unique spin on the role. He’s suitably intimidating in the cape 'n' cowl, and more brooding and angsty than any other actor has been when the mask is off. This version of Bruce leans into his status as an outcast and a recluse, with Pattinson portraying him as being noticeably uncomfortable out of the costume. He does a great job at conveying the physical and mental strain of being Batman, as well as the perennial theme that the masks we hide behind reveal our true nature. Pattinson’s Bruce lacks the gruffness and physicality that made Ben Affleck as foreboding as his comic book counterpart – and still the best live-action Batman to date – but he works well as a younger, more inexperienced take. His emotions are easily discernible through the mask due to Pattinson’s expressive yet believable facial acting, and Reeves isn’t afraid to highlight that even Batman is capable of experiencing terror when exposed to the dark underbelly of the world.

The Zodiac Killer-inspired take on the Riddler gives the film an excellent cat-and-mouse dynamic, and Dano is genuinely unsettling in most of the scenes he appears in – there’s a theatricality that hearkens back to Frank Gorshin and Jim Carrey’s goofier iterations, but with a sinister and volatile edge that cements him as a plausible threat. However, this direction for the Riddler makes the same mistake as Christopher Nolan’s trilogy – that in the 21st Century, Batman’s foes must be realistic for them to be interesting. It works, but at the expense of the eccentricity and psychedelia that has made these pop culture staples endure for so long.

Colin Farrell is highly entertaining as the Penguin, delivering his best Joe Pesci impression beneath some seriously convincing prosthetics, and Zoë Kravitz is arguably the most comic-accurate of the lot as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, skillfully conveying the antiheroine’s moxie and unpredictability. She’s a worthy foil to Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, and the two have strong on-screen chemistry that perhaps deserves further exploration – if this was permitted to be a more violent Batman movie than its predecessors, then it should ideally have received a greater injection of romance and sensuality, too.

However, like the Riddler, these rogues – and Gotham as a whole, to some extent – are missing something that has been absent from the Batman films since the nineties: they’re not quite weird enough. Farrell and Kravitz pale in comparison to Danny Devito and Michelle Pfeiffer’s larger-than-life performances as the same characters in 1992’s Batman Returns because Tim Burton’s take on the Batman mythos revelled in just how bizarre the whole concept is. Striking a balance between the tangibility of realism and the endless possibilities of the surreal is no easy feat, but the best Batman stories have always embraced both sides of the coin. 

Overall, what The Batman primarily succeeds at is creating the most visceral and overtly frightening take on Gotham and its inhabitants yet. Pattinson is one of the best actors to ever wear the cowl, and it's great to finally see a live-action Batman film that puts a sprawling murder mystery at the centre of its narrative rather than just writing Bruce Wayne as a grittier James Bond. There's room for improvement – mainly to step further out of the long shadow cast by the ultra-realism of the Dark Knight trilogy – but this is a huge move in the right direction that ranks among the franchise's finest.

Did you know? Zoë Kravitz previously attempted to audition to play Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, but was told she was too “urban” for the role. She would later voice Catwoman in The LEGO Batman Movie in 2017.

The Batman is in cinemas now