Miss Flicks

The Batman: Film Review

While the hype for The Batman has been riding high for months, I strangely didn’t get caught up in it or feel excited about Matt Reeves‘ reboot. I went in with average expectations and I thought it was a good – but not perfect – movie.

The film is set during Bruce Wayne’s second year of fighting crime in Gotham City as the masked vigilante Batman (Robert Pattinson). The story follows him and GCPD Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) as they pursue the Riddler (Paul Dano), a serial killer who targets Gotham’s top officials and leaves clues for Batman at each crime scene. This case sends Batman down a path to expose the deeply embedded corruption in the city.

Fans expecting a straightforward superhero movie will be sorely disappointed. This is a neo-noir tale starring Batman in detective mode. It made me think of Se7en a lot. I personally liked this angle and thought it was a refreshing way to view the Batman story but people who are hoping for a light, campy action flick might not. It is a self-contained crime thriller that has no connections to the wider DCEU (but is likely to be the basis for sequels) and the focus is on character and story instead of action for action’s sake.

The neo-noir vibe is established from the outset with Pattinson’s voiceover about the state of Gotham City and his role as Batman soundtracked to Something in the Way by Nirvana (a device that bookends the film). The tone is dark and serious – think what Christopher Nolan achieved with The Dark Knight trilogy and make it grittier – and the rain-soaked Gotham looks gloomy, grey and totally depressing.

I must admit it took me ages to get into it. There is a lot of world-building to do as this Batman story and the characters within it are different to what we’ve seen before. Bruce is younger and more inexperienced than we usually see him and he’s a moody recluse instead of the wealthy, polished billionaire who loves a public event. The Penguin (Colin Farrell) isn’t The Penguin yet; he is a mid-level gangster known as Oz, and we get to spend more time with Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) as Selina Kyle than usual. My particular favourite was The Riddler, who finally gets the limelight for once and is a legit psychopath instead of a campy villain. I liked all of these character decisions as they felt refreshing.

The film is technically perfect – Michael Giacchino‘s score is excellent, cinematographer Greig Fraser (who is Oscar-nominated for Dune) filmed some absolutely gorgeous shots, and the action scenes are effective, even if they don’t occupy much space in the grand scheme of the movie. However, the screenplay isn’t the strongest, some scenes are poorly lit, and there is no need for it to be almost three hours long. In the first two hours, I found certain scenes a bit slow and dull but it builds to a terrific, exciting finale that is relatively grounded in reality and not bogged down with CGI.

When Pattinson was first announced as Batman, I couldn’t figure out how that would work but he makes perfect sense for this awkward emo version of Bruce (which was inspired by Kurt Cobain). Kravitz was also the right choice for Catwoman, the gorgeous femme fatale who is physically very capable. I wanted to see them both kicking butt more (although I’m glad Batman is back to not deliberately killing people).

As fantastic as the leads are, my favourite was actually Dano. He was brilliantly unhinged as the serial killer/terrorist who will stop at nothing to expose the corruption in the city. Farrell was great fun as Oz and the only one who brought any sort of levity. But I didn’t really see the point of him being cast to then wear layers of prosthetics. The work is remarkable and he looks truly transformed but why didn’t they just cast someone else?

There is a lot I loved about The Batman and I will happily watch this cast in more instalments but I really struggled with the length and pace.

In cinemas from Friday 4th March