This review may contain spoilers.
It’s hard to unpack it all, but I really loved this movie. Maybe it’s just the lingering high of having just seen it, but The Batman is right up there with The Dark Knight, and it is hard for me to decide which I like more. Reeves has finally put together a movie that actually feels like it was inspired by The Long Halloween. Many Batman directors reference this comic story arc as an influence, but this one feels like it both in mood and story. I also loved that we are just thrown into this world with no origin or explaining. We know who Batman is, and it’s admirable that Reeves trusts the audience in that.
First, I’ll touch on some film-making aspects. The acting was really enjoyable. Pattinson might be my favorite Batman now. He plays the part very quietly and precisely without much nuance between his Batman and Bruce personas. He truly has just the right amount of angst and suppressed rage to pull off this version of the Dark Knight. Kravitz put up a Catwoman performance that is up there. Andy Serkis (without much screen time at all) gives us a very lovable, admirable Alfred, even a bit flawed himself. Jefferey Wright as Gordon is great (he’s not working with a ton script-wise but really nails what he’s working with). Turturro is great as Falcone. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as Penguin, but is one of my favorite performances in the movie. And Paul Dano knocks this Riddler out of the park. Like Pattinson’s Batman, Dano’s Riddler is pretty disturbed and angry yet suppressed (with the occasional outburst of course). At the end of the day, this Riddler is disturbing, and Dano pulls it off.
This is a character that I really love, and I was so happy to see something new with it. Is it a perfect and pristinely constructed movie like The Dark Knight? No. But it’s new and exciting and still masterfully done in other areas. A couple of things I didn’t love were (1) throwing in the Joker in Arkham which we didn’t really need that and didn’t add anything to the movie (we don’t need future movie teasers inside of movies!!) and (2) just the fact that there wasn’t enough mystery in the mystery. There was a lot of fun detective work, but we also weren’t really on the edge of our seats wondering where he was gonna strike next and why. This is a script problem, because that’s an element that The Long Halloween pulls off superbly. If it weren’t for these and maybe a few other tiny things, this might be a 5-star review. One other random thing I loved was that the action was used to accent parts of the movie, not to move things along or be the focal point like other Batman films. That’s why they feel so big and amazing when they happen. Two standouts: the car chase with Penguin and especially the dark hall where the only light comes from the guns flaring as they go off. Amazingly cool.
The darkness, grunginess, and disturbing Gotham is on full display here. This place is a hell-hole, and Reeves alongside director of photography Greig Fraser really makes Gotham have an aesthetic comparable to (but not quite on par with) Scorsese’s NYC in Taxi Driver. These aesthetic elements come together to match the darkness of this Batman so well. Even his journal narration that goes on throughout is reminiscent of Travis Bickle. You can’t help but think of the slimy worlds we’ve seen from David Fincher in his neo-noir takes as well. All this is accented by Michael Giacchino’s amazing score!! Is this the best Batman score now? (Also…I know I’m not the only one that kept hearing The Imperial March in The Batman Theme).
And that leads to one reason I loved this Batman film. It is very much a detective movie, a neo-noir, a serial killer thriller. Which is very The Long Halloween, and it even has some serious plot links to that comic arc with the Thomas Wayne – Falcone connection. And on top of all that, this Batman is seriously ANGRY. Like he’s livid. And it’s all bubbling just beneath the surface. Pattinson is just amazing at making this work.
Another thing that is an interesting through line are the eyes of Pattinson, of Batman. He does a ton of eye-acting (is that a thing?) in this, and I think there’s purpose behind it. (Side note: love the fact that he has all that eye shadow behind the mask. Why have we never had it explained how his face is so dark in those eye holes before?!) Pattinson carries a ton of emotion in his eyes in this film. His stone cold statuesque face gives you nothing, but he hasn’t quite mastered his eyes in the same way. Sometimes they show you his intense anger. Sometimes his longing. And yes, even his sadness. I think this is the most vulnerable Batman we have ever had. The Alfred hospital scene killed me! But there’s even more going on with those eyes. They see things. Things that other people should see but don’t (Gordon for example just doesn’t seem to see how corrupted the police are). And they record it all. They see the deep seated corruption that others look away from. Eventually, they even see the flaw in the Batman experiment, as I believe he calls it one point. They see their own reflection in the glasses of the Riddler and even in the faces of the corrupt elite he has built up hate for. He has taken vengeance into his own hands just like the Riddler, but he has also turned a blind privileged eye to the fact that his father wasn’t a saint after all.
This all leads to one more thing I had thoughts on. The deep anger and sadness of this Batman is all encompassing. Riddler is right. He is Batman. We’ve talked about this anti-suave Bruce. The Batman persona is who he really is. It overflows into his whole life. And when his main motivation is stripped from him as he finds out that his family name, too, is part of the problem, it truly feels like he has nothing left to live for. When he tells Gordon that this could be the end of The Batman, it really feels like it could. So much so that his last big stunt as he leaps to cut the electrical wire feels like it is going to be a self-sacrificial suicide, like he is going to save the people below knowing that he’s going to die and actually wanting too. On first thought, I thought that the story would have been even bolder and braver for taking that route, for doing something so shocking and new. But thinking further, I think that what Reeves did instead was new in a different way. Sure he Superhero saves the day, nothing exactly new there. But it’s what happens in that moment that is new and refreshing. I think Reeves might have had in mind Travis Bickle’s moment of ‘heroism’ in Taxi Driver that sort of feels like what I was describing I thought might happen to this Batman. Bickle essentially suicidally saves the day. But you’re still left with the broken NYC. He doesn’t really change anything. But Batman seems to have a moment of clarity here. And that’s what makes this different. It seems as though Batman has a fundamental change to his philosophy. Instead of his leap into the water being a sacrificial suicide, it turns into a sort of baptism. He enters the water as vengeance and comes out as a new man. What is the last superhero movie where the hero ends by basically saying that he really needs to step back and reconfigure his whole heroic endeavor. Batman saying fear is not the answer? That’s wildly bold! It will be interesting to see if Reeves continues to make more of these because to me, that sounds more like the death of Batman than even him literally dying. But at the same time, it feels more hopeful than any other Batman has ever been.
