We’ve seen a lot of incarnations of Batman over the past decade or so, including but not limited to Will Arnett’s Lego Batman, Christian Bale’s Dark Knight, and Ben Affleck’s Caped Crusader. Yet here we are with another new Batman in the form of Robert Pattinson as the World’s Greatest Detective. The question is do we need another Batman story on the big screen? The answer is yes and no.
The superhero genre at the moment feels like it is close to reaching a saturation point, with so many films and television shows based on comic books you can start to see an over-crowded marketplace with people and aliens wearing capes. The thing that keeps the genre moving forward however is reinvention which is what The Batman does really well. It reinvents the genre yet again. Instead of a superhero team-up or a cameo-filled action blockbuster, we get a character-driven detective thriller. Something that hasn’t been done with Batman before. Filmmaker Matt Reeves does an excellent job at creating a very “film noire” world for Gotham. Characters are murky and selfish and Gotham feels much more gothic than previous iterations.
The Batman does a lot of things very well. For example, we’ve always heard that the Batman is a symbol of fear for low-life criminals and at the start of the film we see robbers and others cower in fear when the Bat-Symbol lights up the skies. The shadowy imagery that graces the screen tells us that this is clearly a different version of the dark hero. Bruce Wayne has been moonlighting as Batman for over a year, so the story kicks off without any need of exposition which is great because at this point I think everyone knows the story of why Bruce Wayne became the Batman.
The focus is more on the villains with each one getting their own time to shine. Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell and Paul Dano all perfectly inhabit their roles as Catwoman, the Penguin and the Riddler respectively. Almost like how Heath Ledger gave us the definitive Joker portrayal, these three talented actors all shine in their respective characters too. Each performance is as good as the next. The only problem is that the story feels a tad too over-long and almost serialised. After a menacing introduction to the Riddler, the focus soon shifts to Kravitz’s Selina Kyle before moving on to the Penguin and back around again to the Riddler. The story interweaves meticulously, balancing the character arcs and story very carefully without feeling like it’s padded down but by the time the credits roll you start to forget what had happened at the start of the film.
These are just some minor faults in what is otherwise a great film. The tone of the film is spot-on fitting in and out of film noire tropes, and the visuals are strong with some of the shots from the film already feeling extremely memorable such as the end of the car chase scene. Robert Pattinson was a great casting decision for the Caped Crusader and I would very much like to see more stories with him as the Batman, and it’s refreshing to see less visual effects and more practical effects in the climatic battle at the end of the film. The Batman is one of the better versions of the comic-book character within the past decade or so.
★★★☆☆
3/5
Unfortunately, every Batman film will forever be compared to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, in terms of cinematic appeal at least. Saying that, The Batman manages to standalone above the rest of the superhero’s legacy by feeling distinctive enough to separate it from the endless other appearances of him in other media. It’s rare to see a film such as The Batman to take so many risks in terms of re-inventing itself, but it works and I’m sure this won’t be the last Batman film to grace the big screen either.
Thanks for reading today’s blog!
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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