‘The Batman’ rehabilitates the Caped Crusader
Matt Reeves delivers a dark night, but includes glimmers of hope.
This post includes spoilers for The Batman.
I’ve been late getting around to The Batman.
Much of that is just due to logistics. I was unable to make a screening of the film, and it was released while my wife and I were on vacation. I wasn’t able to see it until this weekend, when some friends and I hit a Saturday matinee.
But I must admit I wasn’t initially jonesing for another Dark Knight movie, particularly one boasting its bleak bona fides. Batman is a character who has been endlessly portrayed since 1989, and the dark-and-gritty approach — which too many confuse with being adult — has become tiresome. Christopher Nolan’s first two films are fantastic, but seemed to be the final word on a grounded, serious exploration of the character. Zack Snyder cribbed liberally from Frank Miller’s work for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the result was a cynical, dour and sadistic slog. I wanted less angry, brooding Batman and more tries at recapturing some of the larger-than-life corners of Gotham City and the character’s rogues gallery.
It’s not that darkness doesn’t fit with Batman; it’s just as valid a part of the character’s mythos as colorful villains, Batman’s detective skills and his role as a father figure. I wanted filmmakers to explore those sides of Bruce Wayne instead of celebrating an angsty, violent antihero. There’s a reason why The Lego Batman Movie is the best Batman film since The Dark Knight; it understands that there’s room for other aspects of the man behind the cowl. And so when I saw trailers for Matt Reeves’ latest Bat-epic that had a heavy David Fincher vibe, I rolled my eyes. Here we go again, I thought. Another bleak slog that someone’s going to call ‘visionary.’
Well, I’m happy to eat my words. The Batman may be dark, but it’s not a slog. It may be gritty, but it’s not cynical. Reeves delivers a thoughtful and entertaining film that unpacks the character’s angsty appeal while also recognizing its limitations. While I still think The Dark Knight is the best film to include the character of Batman, this is possibly the best Batman film ever made.
Welcome back to Gotham City
There’s no getting around the fact that Reeves’ film is dark. It’s Batman via (a much less graphic) Se7en, reimagining The Riddler as a serial killer with a grudge against Gotham’s leadership, leaving Batman clues to a conspiracy that digs deep into corruption at its center, including the Wayne family. It opens with a sudden and violent home invasion and visits the seedier areas of Gotham City, including the swanky, underground nightclubs frequented by the mob and corrupt cops, and run by the marginalized people who are victims of Gotham’s legacy of greed and venality.
It’s a functional and tactile Gotham, neither the overly stylized art deco set of Burton’s films or the sleek and grounded Chicago surrogate of The Dark Knight. It feels lived in, with trash-strewn streets that also hint at former majesty. It always rains, and the city is urban enough for Batman to have to navigate a labyrinth of alleyways and corridors, but with enough old world beauty to make room for the gothic Wayne Manor and old, cathedral-inspired institutions. It feels like no real city, and instead one pulled straight from the pages of the comic book.
Reeves’ take is canny. The world is dark and grimy, but shouldn’t be mistaken for anything approaching grounded or realistic. It looks familiar but slightly exaggerated, with room for larger-than-life criminal elements like Colin Farrell’s Penguin and the sinister-yet-charming Carmine Falcone (a wonderful John Turturro). Corrupt cops and lawyers do drugs in Penguin’s cavernous night club, and it doesn’t feel out of place for characters to dress up as bats, cats and other animals. By balancing the serial killer procedural elements with the out-sized comic book tropes, Reeves manages to deliver a film that can be dark and sinister but never oppressively so. The comic book world leavens the material, pulling it back when it threatens to take itself too seriously.
The right man for the job
Since surprising audiences with the found-footage classic Cloverfield, Reeves has become one of the most consistent and intriguing blockbuster directors, showing an aptitude for anchoring his big-budget stories with intelligence and insight. Let Me In is a successful remake of a film that should never have been remade, and Reeves handles the sensitive material of children in the midst of carnage with the right balance of horror and tenderness. His Planet of the Apes sequels mixed thrills and action with a rousing political allegory tinged with biblical allusions. He’s a smart and adept filmmaker, with a great eye for visuals.
Early on, Reeves delivers a montage bringing audiences up to speed on Batman’s current status, filling us in with gravelly voice over from Robert Pattison where we learn he’s been at the job for two years, and is coming to enjoy his time as a vengeance-seeking threat from the shadows. Bolstered by Michael Giacchino’s atmospheric score and Greig Fraser’s moody cinematography, it’s a masterful five-minute piece of world-building that sets the stage, introduces elements like the Bat Signal and Batman’s use of the shadows to terrify criminals. It explodes in a visceral physical encounter that is bone-shaking without being sadistic. It might be the best stretch of world-building in a recent comic book movie, and possibly the best sustained passage in a Batman movie.
The film takes its time after that. The action is peppered in occasionally, and Reeves does a great job delivering an all-timer of a Batmobile chase and several showdowns with an innate sense of physicality and geography. But the majority of the film is given over to a wide-spanning criminal conspiracy, which allows the film to explore Gotham City and bring in a variety of characters. I particularly enjoyed the world weariness Jeffrey Wright brings to Jim Gordon, whose partnership with Batman is already well established by this point. Farrell is unrecognizable behind the latex as The Penguin, and has a blast chewing the scenery, particularly in his big chase sequence. Paul Dano is behind a mask for most of the film, and his portrayal of The Riddler is a comic book take on the Zodiac Killer, punctuated by husky breathing and sudden outbursts of rage and violence. Reeves colors even the smaller roles with great character actors; I particularly liked Peter Sargaard as a drug-addled, anxiety-plagued district attorney.
Most striking, however, is Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle. Kravitz is having a moment right now, having just hosted Saturday Night Live and starred in Steven Soderbergh’s wonderful thriller, Kimi. Her take on Catwoman feels desperate and real. Selina’s a woman who’s been ignored and mistreated her entire life; she has a grudge against her father (revealed to be Carmine Falcone), and is eager to right the wrongs done to her and her friends. Like Batman, she is striking out against injustice, and I appreciate that the film allows her to call the Caped Crusader out on his privilege. Catwoman is more complicated hero than antihero here, and Kravitz provides much of the film’s emotional anchor, particularly in the wounded chemistry she shares with Pattinson. It’s a great approach to the character, and I hope the sequels find a way to bring her back.
Getting Batman right
I said earlier that while The Dark Knight might be the best movie to feature Batman, The Batman is possibly the best Batman movie. The further I get from it, the more I think that assessment will hold.
Nolan’s film is a flat-out masterpiece, a smart and thrilling crime movie interested in the philosophical tension between Batman and Joker. But it’s no secret that Nolan was paying more homage to Michael Mann that Bob Kane, and there are moments when his ultra-grounded approach makes him seem almost embarrassed to be making a movie about a man in tights. Nolan’s intellectualized style of filmmaking also seems more like a thought experiment at times, ignoring the deep emotional wounds and unbalanced psychology that compel Bruce Wayne.
The Batman isn’t afraid of emotion. While it’s one of the rare Batman movies not to depict Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murder, their death weighs on Bruce every second. When Batman encounters a young boy who’s recently stumbled upon his father’s dead body, he lingers, recalling his own lost innocence and its emotional scars, showcasing an empathy that too many comic book films gloss over in their rush to get to the badassery.
Pattinson is a striking Batman; he’s confident in the Batsuit, a legitimate physical threat and the actor understands the power that gritted teeth have to making the character visually striking (seriously, this is the first Batman movie that seems to understand how vital Batman’s facial expressions are). As Bruce Wayne, however, he’s a whiff. He seems disinterested in maintaining any public persona or doing anything beneficial with his wealth; he’s pale and, outside of the mask, seems weighed down by having to interact with others.
That’s all by design. This Bruce Wayne is still a raw nerve, still working out his anger and trauma, and addicted to heading into the night to beat the pulp out of criminals. His Bruce Wayne fortune allows him to live this double life but, as The Riddler says late in the film, his masked face is his real life now, and Bruce Wayne is a facade. His conflict in this movie is coming to realize that neglecting his responsibility to be a steward of his wealth and use it to better the city by day has led to the rampant corruption and crime that plague Gotham. Batman has been so obsessed with becoming a figure of vengeance that he’s lost sign of being a hero.
And if that’s the big takeaway from The Batman, then I’m so thankful for it. Yes, the film does the character well in other areas. It finally lets him be a detective, for one. And the sequences in which Batman mingles with Gordon in front of other cops doubles down on the bizarre nature of being a man who dresses as a flying rodent and how that makes him seen as a freak and outcast. I may have desired a bit more to his relationship with Alfred (a fine, but wasted, Andy Serkis), but that’s a minor quibble. What I appreciate most about The Batman is that it finally rehabilitates him from what a toxic fandom has cast him to be.
The film shows its full hand in a scene late in the film where Batman confronts The Riddler in Arkham Asylum. While the entire film has portrayed what was thought to be a cat-and-mouse chase between the two, it reveals that The Riddler has seen it as a collaboration, with his murders revealing the city’s corruption and allowing Batman to bring its perpetrators into the light. He’s brought Batman to Arkham so they can be safe from his final, chilling flourish: a flood that will bring survivors to take shelter in Gotham Square Garden, where he’s assembled a gang of willing shooters to take them out.
The action centerpiece that follows might be one too many for a film that’s pushing three hours, and there’s some CGI-induced chaos that feels at odds with the close-quarters tactility of some of the film’s earlier action sequences. And ending the film with a web-organized mob of angry white guys eager to engage in a mass shooting hits a tad too close to home. But its worth it for the moment when Batman hears one of the assailants describe himself as “vengeance,” the name Batman has been using for himself (and which is used as a nickname by others). Batman realizes his mission has been too successful: in becoming a violent scourge to criminals, he’s inspired others to be violent and vengeful as well. He realizes he needs to push beyond that and be a hero, a symbol people can look up to; the moment where he takes a flare and leads a group of men, women and children to safety is quietly moving because it restores a dignity and heroism to the character that is lost in the worship of his dark, sadistic and angry side.
Bat-fans have been notorious on the internet for their anger and toxicity, and their desire that the character lean into his violent, badass tendencies. They haven’t been helped by directors like Snyder, who turn him into a gun-toting vigilante with no qualms about killing his enemies. The Batman recaptures the more aspirational aspects of the character, pointedly digging into his no guns and no killing rules. By the end of the film, it also understand the limits of a character motivated solely by revenge. Batman is a creature of the shadows and he inhabits a dark city, but he works best as a symbol that the darkness doesn’t have the final word, and a reminder to Gotham that hope isn’t lost. By the time The Batman ends, Reeves has re-established the character and rooted him in a world that still has many problems and challenges, but provides a glimmer of optimism that Bruce Wayne might be able to tackle these issues by night and day.
The Batman is proof that there’s still life in this character, and new shades to explore. I’m curious about what Reeves and Pattinson do next with this iteration, and for the first time in well over a decade, I’m anticipating some more Batman adventures.
A quick announcement!!
Real quick, I wanted to make a quick announcement. I’m now contributing reviews to CinemaNerdz.com! I’ve known Mike Tyrkus through the Detroit Film Critics Society for years, and I’ve always greatly respected his film knowledge and passion for the form. I’m thrilled to be part of his team, and you can read my first piece there now, a review for Pixar’s Turning Red.
What’s that mean for this newsletter? Not much. Most of my writing on here is either geared toward older films or spoiler-intensive work that comes out after release. That will continue, although it’s possible there might be some weeks where I get out two pieces instead of three. We’ll see how the balance shakes out. And I’ll try to make sure I include a link back to any reviews I write there, so you can stay in the loop. I’ve still got some exciting things in store here, so keep reading and subscribing. I think later this spring or early summer, we’re going to take another evolution for this site, and I’m planning those out now. But happy to have another platform for those new releases.
Bats aren't rodents, Mr. Williams. (I couldn't help myself 😝. Did anyone get that reference?)