The Batman

Ten Second Review: A nice change of pace for superhero films of recent, The Batman takes lots of ideas from lots of places and the result is certainly good enough to wow people whose film diet is mainly just the standard fare of current superhero films. 

Batman will forever sit in the pantheon of iconic pop culture figures. You never have to have picked up a comic, watched a film or played with an action figure to know who Batman is and what his backstory is. The character has had so many iterations that they have transcended any one version of the caped crusader. 

I certainly have favourites, but I could not honestly say that any one Batman is the best. There are iconic storylines, portrayals and depictions, but I have such a love for the character that picking one is just too difficult. Could I honestly say that The Killing Joke is better than Heart of Ice, or that Kevin Conroy’s classic voice is better than Christian Bale’s sultry Bruce Wayne? How could you accurately compare them? Would I really be able to let go of George Clooney’s iconic nipples? Would I want to?

As I have said in previous reviews, one of my favourite things about the world of comic books, superheroes and retellings in general is that you get to have favourites. You get the ones you like, others get the ones they like, sometimes you agree with people and sometimes you don’t, but that doesn’t change that you get to keep yours. When someone says Robert Pattinson’s Batman is the best Batman, that’s fine! Sure, maybe you think that Michael Keaton is or Kevin Conroy (maybe your the last Adam West guy), but their opinion isn’t actually an attack on you. I’m much more concerned with whether or not I liked it and what it adds to the character than with whether it’s the best.

Gotham has new foe; The Riddler. Hell bent on uncovering and revealing corruption within Gotham’s police force and political elite, his public murder spree is laced with questions and clues that Lieutenant Gordon and Batman will have to unpick if they are going stop him and save lives.

I want to say upfront that I enjoyed this film and it will get a high rating, but I will focus this review on what I didn’t love. For balance I will quickly front load with what I thought was great. 

The anticipation for Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of a pasty page to screen pop culture icon with bat affiliations has been palpable to the point you might have thought that many of these people weren’t also the ones mocking teen girls for something amusingly similar only a few years back. To be fair, and again to make this clear from the outset, this is a nice take on the Bruce Wayne vs Batman character. It has never made huge amounts of sense that Bruce Wayne, the emotionally scarred, isolated, recluse, billionaire orphan who spends his nights beating up and getting beaten up by thugs would be a suave and charismatic hunk. It does make sense that when it’s daytime he would wear sunglasses because his eyes are used to it.

I’m also glad to see that they treated Wayne’s parents as you would in a comic book, they are referenced but we didn’t have to get another drawn out depiction of a back alley shooting. As I said at the beginning, we all know the story; we don’t need to see Batman’s parents get shot, we don’t need to see Spiderman get bitten and we don’t need to see Superman leave Krypton. We get it, and so does director Matt Reeves.

So yes, I enjoyed the film! It looked cool, the acting was great throughout and with its own rogues gallery and villain interplay, it gelt like reading a comic series. It’s tangents tied up, the connections felt organic and it was a cool take on Batman.

…however, there is a bit too much smoke being blown up the caped crusader’s cowl. I remember once hearing someone go off on Harry Potter fans as a unique population among readers that only read one series. They are not fiction fans, or fantasy fans, they are Harry Potter fans. This was levelled as an argument for the disservice Rowling has done to her readers in a very interesting wider discussion, but I wonder if there’s something of that discussion here. 

I don’t think you could call The Batman original in any way, but if your entire film diet was just superhero films, or you hadn’t actually picked up a Batman comic, I could see how you might think this was incredible. To be blunt, this is Batman through a David Fincher lens, and that’s fine, it makes for a good film. It just isn’t revolutionary. It also doesn’t help that this villain is a clear hybrid of Se7en’s John Doe and the Zodiac Killer, both Fincher films (yes, I know the Zodiac Killer is a real person).

I’m also going to poke at the sound design a bit. Sound effects aside, because I think I could stray into fair but nitpicking territory, that theme is excellent for a trailer but quickly looses its gravitas when you realise it doesn’t go anywhere or develop. It sounds like someone wanted to make Hans Zimmer’s version of the Imperial March.

Again, I liked it, it got a good rating form me. I just won’t give ground to those claiming its revolutionary because they’ve never watched anything that didn’t feature caped protagonists.