Okay, so... it's good.
It's not great, but it's good.
There you go, there's your review. Come back later, maybe I'll have something better for you.
...
...you're not leaving, are you?
...fine.
The Batman is film that started out as part of the gigantic dumpster fire known as the DC Extended Universe. Originally, Ben Affleck was going to write and direct as well as star, working on the screenplay alongside Geoff Johns and was looking to draw inspiration from Batman storylines like Knightfall and video game adaptations like Arkham Asylum. It was to be a post Batman vs. Superman and Justice League story and would have involved Deathstroke (who, for some reason, people believe is a Batman villain) causing hijinks at Arkham Asylum. Pretty alright stuff, all told. Likely would have made for a passable film.
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| "This is the skin of vengeance, Bella!" |
Then Ben Affleck hated the production of Justice League (as did we all), got divorced from Jennifer Garner, and went to rehab for his alcoholism. He stepped down, but the film was still getting off the ground under the pen of Matt Reeves, a writer/director/producer who was known for Cloverfield, Let Me In, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War of the Planet of the Apes before that point. DC apparently wanted an "auteur" to helm the new Batman film... and they got him, so long as he got full creative control, which they agreed to.
Through the writing process, Reeves dropped the DCEU connections and jettisoned pretty much all of the script that Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns worked on in order to focus on a Batman further back in his career. Sure, this Batman technically could be the Batman of the later DCEU... but it's unlikely for a number of reasons. While Reeves did not adapt a storyline from the comics, he admitted that he drew a great deal of inspiration from The Long Halloween, in which Batman hunts down a Zodiac Killer-esque... well, serial killer. We'll be getting back to this.
Enter Robert Pattinson. Insert Twilight joke here. In all seriousness, I do think he's a legitimately good actor and deserves to be known as more than 'that dork from Twilight'. He actually does really well, although some of the lines he has to deliver just are not suited to him at all. Luckily, when he's in the cowl, he tends to be quiet in most scenes and just lets his presence and his physicality as Batman work for him and give a pretty good performance overall. He also has the best intro as the Batman since Michael Keaton... barring one specific line reading that made me giggle as I mentioned before.
His Bruce Wayne is... okay. Honestly, in live action, Michael Keaton remains the only actor who has successfully sold both sides of the coin for me.
Anyway, let's get into the actual movie. On Halloween in Gotham City, the Riddler (Paul Dano) kills off the Mayor. Not in a spectacular over the top fashion in front of thousands of people or anything, but in the man's own home. Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and the GCPD are investigating alongside the Batman (Robert Pattinson) and soon find a message that the Riddler left for Batman. The Riddler here isn't trying to prove himself to be Batman's intellectual superior, you see. No, the Riddler this time seems to see himself as some kind of crusader bringing to light the hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of Gotham.
...so why is this guy not Anarky?
I mean, it isn't a 1:1 fit, but this really seems more his MO than it does the Riddler's.
However, the entire plot is centered around the lies that the Riddler is trying to bring to the forefront, so we're kind of stuck with this. It's not bad, honestly - a "Gotham Renewal Fund" that was set up by several big wig Gothamites (including Bruce's parents) being used by several prominent Gotham officials for their own purposes in a textbook case of corruption. Luckily, Bruce's parents aren't involved in that particular misuse of funding, but they (or, rather, Thomas) are guilty of other things as well... including a death that would eventually lead to their own by the bullet of a criminal.
As in all things with Batman, however, nothing is so black and white.
The truth of much of this is told to us by Bruce's butler and trusted confidant Alfred, played by Andy Serkis. To allow me to segue here for a moment, casting Andy Serkis was an absolute masterstroke. The man plays a fantastic Alfred and is able to very well straddle that line between being both a masterful helper and a father figure for Bruce in lieu of his own. Indeed, Alfred's conflict with that paradigm is something that gets outright stated in the film in one scene that actually manages to very well pull on the heartstrings.
Like with Jeremy Irons being one of the only good things about Batman vs. Superman, Andy Serkis absolutely shines in this and I hope we get to see him again.
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| "Are we love interests?" "I have no idea." "Me neither." |
And finally, we come to our fourth main player - Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz). She does a pretty good job with the role, being an employee at Penguin's (Colin Farrell, no really) Iceberg Lounge and attempting to help one of her friends who was victimized and abused by one of the members of the conspiracy. Tiny problem, however, is that all of her scenes could have been cut and nothing of value would have really been lost and that's honestly a shame. They sort of kind of do the love interest thing between her and Batman... but it never really goes anywhere and the ending kind of makes it moot unless she shows up in sequels, which would make her the first Catwoman to pull that off in live action if I'm not mistaken.
Even if we were to cut those scenes, however, there is one problem that I have with this movie that would remain: it's too long. Clocking in at 176 minutes, almost three hours, the plot ends up resolving itself with about an hour to go... and so something is contrived to keep things going when there's really no rhyme or reason to it. For the record, once the Riddler is caught... that pretty much should be the end, but they throw in the fact that he and his internet followers (because commentary, I guess?) are going to bomb the Gotham sea wall and flood the city... which really doesn't fit the Riddler's plan, either.
Even discounting that the plan wasn't really the Riddler's MO, the guy was targeting specific individuals - the mayor, the DA, Bruce Wayne - and then just decides to punish everyone in Gotham? I'm aware that it's part of the theme so that Bruce can learn that Batman can be a symbol of hope for the people of Gotham just as much as it can be a symbol of fear to the criminals of Gotham, but that makes sense from a thematic perspective, not a narrative one.
In a narrative sense, the movie should have ended with the Riddler's capture and the assassination attempt on the Mayor-Elect. Everything neatly done right there, boom!
That said, when a film's only real weak point is that it drags on too long... okay, that's still pretty damning. However, I did actually enjoy The Batman very much. I think with time, Pattinson will fit more comfortably into the role (although he does more or less okay here) and as I said before Alfred is excellent and so it'll be great to see their dynamic in the future. The ending scene with Riddler sets up Joker, who hopefully looks much better than the deleted scene showed him to be, and there are enough cross-references from within Batman history that they could springboard a few ideas for sequels such as adapting Hush.
I also love how Gotham itself feels like a character, something that hasn't been really done since the Tim Burton films. Gotham City is a worn down hellhole and you can feel the deep, deep scars that run through the city. It's gritty, it's worn, and it's old and it feels just great, honestly. Surprisingly, it doesn't fall into the trap of leaning too much on the 'dark' in 'dark and gritty' and we do actually get to see a fair bit of it, and the tone and design of it are masterfully done. Kudos to the production team on that one, since that is a hard tightrope to walk, especially in the modern era of films.
So, yes, The Batman is pretty good. I went in having no real expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. Despite my minor complaints about it, I'd definitely like to see more of this universe and hopefully we will as time goes on.
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| The Riddler... will return? |
And yeah... DC actually made a good movie that had nothing to do with Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, or Aquaman. I'm shocked, too.
The Batman is brought to us by Warner Brothers Pictures and DC Films.
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