The Batman (2022)
A huge lesson I learned from my theatrical experience of The Batman is not to watch a movie when you’re tired. I came out of the show not too enamoured by the film, even though I did acknowledge that it had many good scenes and performances. Somehow, they didn’t coalesce into a good movie in my fatigued eyes. Many weeks later, I managed to re-watch it on a 4K Blu-Ray, and I finally realized I couldn’t be more wrong.
★★★★★
Mild spoilers
A huge lesson I learned from my theatrical experience of “The Batman” is not to watch a movie when you’re tired. I came out of the show not too enamored by the film, even though I did acknowledge that it had many good scenes and performances. Somehow, they didn’t coalesce into a good movie in my fatigued eyes. Many weeks later, I managed to re-watch it on a 4K Blu-Ray, and I finally realized I couldn’t be more wrong. It went from “meh” to one of my top films of the year!
As a reboot of the Batman film franchise, “The Batman” had to do something to differentiate itself from past reiterations. Roughly there had been four: goofy (West), Burtonesque, campy (Schumacher), and realistic (Nolan). They decided to give what fans have been clamoring for all these years and made this one a detective story. More precisely, a horror-tinged, serial killer detective story. It references Seven a lot; from the glisteningly grimy, rotting aesthetics of its rain-soaked world, to its crime-fighting pairing of an angsty white young man and a cool-headed older black detective with a divine voice. Said older detective even has a scene where he reads a disturbing passage from a serial killer’s journal. There’s even a scene with a head in a box. The pair are in pursuit of a serial killer known only as The Riddler, who leaves cryptic clues in each crime scene that allude to a grander purpose. Yep, it’s practically a remake of Seven!
The cast ranges from interesting to great. Colin Farrell’s Penguin was the biggest worry for me because he had to perform under a lot of latex and fat suit, but he turned out the best, most charismatic performance in the entire movie, and is easily the best onscreen Penguin by far. Zoë Kravitz had the enormous pressure of several preceding iconic Catwoman performances, but she successfully made the role her own. I also liked Jeffrey Wright’s pre-Commish Lieutenant Gordon reacting to everything like a blue-collar cop would. I didn’t think Andy Serkis’ Alfred worked on first viewing, but on subsequent re-watches I finally appreciated his nuanced take, which felt jarring because I got too used to the larger-than-life roles he usually does. And then we have Robert Pattinson. I thought his Batman/Bruce Wayne worked and I kind of liked it. Amusingly, no one seemed to notice that he was still doing his Edward Sullen man-of-few-slow-spoken-words thing. He was almost as pale-looking, and there’s even a moment where he cringes away from sunlight. Batman as an almost literal vampire is actually rather clever, but forgive me if this was already done a hundred times in the comic books. I thought John Turturro’s Carmine Falcone was an unusual casting choice but he was effectively creepy. Peter Sarsgaard was great but he has a pretty small role. Paul Dano as The Riddler was reliably great to a point, but I’ll get back to this later.
Great direction and creative choices from Matt Reeves, who I shouldn’t have doubted after really liking his Cloverfield and the “of the Apes” films. I think he only managed an ok mystery-detective story here, but as serial killer thrillers go, it’s pretty good. His visual sense? Even better! Handling of the actor’s performances? Exquisite. I was shocked at how short his filmography was when I Googled for all of his films. Hope he gets a lot more work moving forward.
My apologies to Michael Giacchino too, whom I once chastised in the comments sections for ripping off Star Wars’ The Imperial March for Batman’s theme (which funnily the IMDb trivia section for The Batman actually acknowledges) but there were other wonderful themes throughout the film too. The wailing violins gave them a pretty obvious horror vibe. They also reminded me of the brilliant Bram Stoker’s Dracula score by Wojciech Kilar. My favorite is definitely Catwoman’s theme, which first appears in the “Don’t be Voyeur With Me” track.
Now, the quibbles. Let’s come back to Dano, who always puts out fine work, until he went a little too Jim Carrey. I know the character has been telegraphed very early on as an unabashed exhibitionist, but what he did in one pivotal scene was borderline comical, and he was supposed to be frightening. Another one: “savior” Batman is a nice idea, because he certainly needed to do more than just beat up criminals, but the Gotham Reeves and his team created was so utterly nihilistic that this optimistic development in Batman’s character felt a little out of place. Lastly, I need to mention that special cameo at the end. Though tastefully done, it still reeked of interference by studio heads too eager to mimic Marvel’s M.O. of planting sequel baits, which wasn’t needed here at all. Why make a superhero movie entirely in your own style, then throw in stuff to remind your audiences about your biggest competitor?
Overall, for one of the most oft-rebooted superhero franchises, I’m glad to say that they managed to pull it off yet again. It’s a visual feast with great performances that I have been enjoyably re-watching with no signs of fatigue yet. For that, I think it’s only right that I give it a 5-star rating, even though it’s not a perfect film. I acknowledge that I was incorrect with my negative assessments in past comments, but one that I’m more than happy to be very wrong about.