Revisiting The Batman

The Batman, Matt Reeves's rich and thrilling take on the classic character, is the shortest three-hour movie I have ever seen. It successfully bridges the gap between popcorn movies and arthouse sensibilities, turning an escapist flick into a meaningful meditation on fear, how we inflict it on others, and the ways in which we feel it for ourselves. Reeves's vision of Gotham is just as astonishing, a grounded yet somehow mythical version of the city seated right between Nolan's realism and Burton's fantasy; so impressive is this movie's world-building that I caught myself wondering how it doesn't lose sight of Batman. Reeves is known for making emotionally intimate blockbusters probing the deepest fears, hopes, and insecurities of his characters, and at its best, this imperfect but intimate insight into this young, broken Caped Crusader is his greatest work yet. Even as an interpretation of an already thoroughly-explored fictional character, it is some of the most purely realized fantasy I've ever seen. It is a technical marvel of filmmaking, with one very important element it executes better than any Batman movie has before: this is the first Batman movie that is actually about who Batman really is.

As both the writer and director, Reeves' single-minded vision is preserved and translated into a movie that feels like a modern myth, one perpetuated by top-tier acting, Grieg Fraser's brilliant cinematography, and a booming yet intimate score from Michael Giacchino. This isn't a superhero movie. Not really. It draws on a lot of different influences and ends up being much slower and more contemplative than any other Marvel or DC offering ever, more akin to Taxi Driver than Multiverse of Madness. So many superhero movies rush all over the globe, accomplishing as much as they can in two or three hours, but this one slows down to smell the rotting yet beautiful roses. 

It's Halloween night, and the Mayor of Gotham City has been struck down by a serial killer calling himself The Riddler. The murderer wants the attention of Batman, a masked vigilante who, after only two short years, has made the city's criminal element think twice about walking down a dark alleyway. This isn't the Batman you remember. He fights crime not as a well-meaning billionaire who wants to, but as a traumatized and obsessive boy who needs to. Speaking of crime, Gotham is absolutely overrun by it, and as Batman investigates the Riddler's murders, he finds that the corruption is more systemic than he could have ever imagined. For the last couple of years, his modus operandi has been punishing every criminal he can get his hands on for the deaths of his parents at the hands of one, but maybe punishment isn't enough. Batman's view of the world, though not entirely unjustified, is incredibly narrow, and he is about to have it widened by both necessity and bitter truths, whether he likes it or not. 

Again, The Batman is the first Batman movie to explore the character and his detective work on this level. Robert Pattinson's narration of the Caped Crusader's diary, a staple of this movie, does a spectacular job of filtering everything through the lens of his perspective. As good as The Dark Knight trilogy was, it was most interested in villains and higher-thinking philosophies that almost made Batman a side character in his own movies. The Batman forces you to see the world through Bruce's broken, shattered lens, and because this is just his second year as Batman, he's not there yet, per se. He's still angry and unhealed from what happened to his parents - Bruce and Batman are virtually the same person, and you could even say that Batman is the real man, while Bruce is the disguise. 

It's a subtle thing, but one of the most striking aspects of this movie is the difference between how Bruce interacts with people when he's in the suit and when he's out of it. When the mask conceals his identity, he's confident and even terrifying to potential foes and wary allies. When it doesn't, he can't even bring himself to look those same people in the eye. The psyche of this Bruce is incredibly fractured, and this is one of the best examples of how Pattinson captures that brokenness. It's to be expected from a Matt Reeves movie, but this is the most vulnerable Batman has ever been, and I love it. 

For all of the Twilight jokes that followed him everywhere he went in preparation for this movie, Pattinson embodies Bruce's youthful rage and lingering trauma with amazing subtlety. As far as execution is concerned, he is the best iteration of the character, and though his face is often covered by a mask, Pattinson's eye acting captures an unbelievable range of emotions with nothing more than his gaze. Zoe Kravitz's Catwoman is his brilliant foil, easily the most vulnerable version of her character. Both are more broken than ever, and their fears and insecurities complement each other perfectly. Their chemistry is subtle and volatile, and I would argue the best male-female actor pairing in this franchise, at least as far as its live-action outings go. 

The Riddler is the main villain of this movie, and he's chillingly portrayed by Paul Dano in such a way that he becomes more comparable to the Zodiac Killer or John Doe from Se7en than Jim Carrey's campy interpretation of the character. His influences are obvious, some have argued too obvious, but Dano's performance puts poisonous ice in the character's veins. He is electrifying. His inflection is volatile yet controlled, in a way only a veteran actor like Dano could manage. His performance here is that of a likely autistic and obsessive psychopath, and one part Eli from There Will Be Blood.

All of these characters are set on collision courses with each other and their respective bad memories, but as is expected for a Batman movie, they're going to have plenty of violent encounters before they get there. The fight scenes in The Batman are extremely grounded, more like a gang clash in the dark corners of an airport parking garage than the otherworldly struggles between gods that superhero movies like The Avengers have trained us to expect. So many of the lasers and spells in the MCU have become weightless the further they've gotten from reality as we know it here on Earth, and that's because computer graphics are just that: weightless. This movie's practical approach to its violence makes it land in a way that can sometimes set your teeth on edge. Batman isn't invincible here, and we see him take hits in a way that other superheroes don't. We see his obvious rage take the reins in fight scenes more visceral than those in any other superhero movie I can think of. There's also a car chase in this movie that is easily the best in a Batman film, one that's like Fast and the Furious if the drivers were nocturnal and plagued by a dangerous strain of OCD.

The worldbuilding and atmosphere of The Batman contain a dense attention to detail unreplicated by any other superhero movie, and it’s not close. The blend of Gothic architecture that wouldn't be out of place in European cities and grimy slums reminiscent of New York City's poorer areas looks like a pastiche of influences pasted on top of each other, in a good way. This is Gotham, both as you've never seen it before and how it's always been. This movie's influences are vast, and most are relatively recognizable. However, Reeves mixes them into something mythically new while also honoring the rich legacies they couldn't exist without. You'll see Se7en, Escape From New York, and even a little Mad Max in that charged car chase I was talking about. There is a timeless element to this movie that looks modern one minute and Victorian the next. What's amazing is that Reeves turns them all into a big machine in the service of his singular vision.

The cinematography and sound design in The Batman are brilliant, and not just for a comic book movie. This movie bridges the gap between arthouse films and popcorn cinema, with DP Grieg Fraser using a special anamorphic lens to make the camerawork look more like what an actual eye would see, an eye that looks gracefully and critically upon the mess that Gotham has become. The sound design is harsh and grating in all the right ways. In one scene, Batman removes a pair of shears poked into a car tire by the Riddler, and the popping hiss when he pulls it out is clinically disgusting. In another, Bruce Wayne attends a funeral and hears someone in the audience breathing raggedly, as the Riddler does in his videos. Could it be him? The breath ends in an innocent cough and a level of disappointment. 

Michael Giacchino's soundtrack draws on many influences, horror movies being the most immediately recognizable. One scene features a murder investigation in the wake of the Riddler's sick work, one where a paper bag has been placed over the hand of his victim. The dissonant strings we hear when Lieutenant Gordon pulls the bag off his hand make for a stomach-turning and easy comparison to The Shining. Giacchino's inclusion of Nirvana's Something in the Way as both a needle drop and a melody line for the score might be the most memorable use of an existing song I've heard in a movie - his use of Schubert's Ave Maria could be a close second. All of the primary characters in this movie, Batman, Catwoman, and Riddler, are also given their own distinct and memorable melody lines, further solidifying their admirable addition to a long legacy.

However, as I said, The Batman isn't perfect, and its biggest flaw is its exploration of the corruption of Gotham's leadership and gangsters, such as the infamous Carmine Falcone, head of one of the city's leading crime syndicates. We already know Falcone is corrupt. He's been corrupt for the almost-forty years since his character was invented. Many of the big reveals in this movie about Falcone and the broader corruption in Gotham are very predictable, not necessarily because the movie plays them poorly, but because it tries to play them as if we haven't known the truth for decades. The last act of the movie is an impressive spectacle, and I would argue necessary to bring Batman's character arc full circle, but the way this movie builds towards its own finale - or not - is flimsy at best, and this is its second biggest flaw. Riddler has a master plan, and it shares little to no connection to the rest of the movie. While I wouldn't call it thematically inconsistent, this movie would have benefited from clues about and allusions to this plan throughout the two hours leading up to it. The final act feels nailed onto the movie for the sake of selling tickets, though how it ultimately shapes Batman himself is touching. 

This movie is the darkest Batman outing yet, except for maybe Joker, but its gloominess eventually gives way to a vulnerability that is nearly a trademark of Reeves' movies. It's a vulnerability that was largely absent from the Dark Knight trilogy, for as good as those movies were. This is a PG-13 drama with the sensibilities of an R-rated one, but it eventually uncovers a strange sweetness that sneaks into the story despite the nearly overwhelming darkness trying to stamp it out. As dark as it gets, this movie is ultimately about the small yet persistent flame in Batman's heart, a flame that cares about something deeper than vengeance. He starts off seeing those around him as either opponents to or accessories for his own investigation, but slowly begins to realize that he's not the only one with deep-seated pain in his heart. No matter who it belongs to, the pain in The Batman feels genuine. This is not a college paper on generational trauma by someone who's never experienced it. It is an exploration of this pain by a man who both understands it and understands that we don't need to be defined by it.

As I'm sitting here writing this and listening to the movie's soundtrack, I think I forgot how much The Batman meant to me. I once went through a heavy bout of depression, and this movie's themes of redemption from the darkest and most bitter pits of despair really spoke to me. I'm legitimately tearing up as I write this. I love this movie more than I know how to say, perhaps more than it deserves to be. I love how it refuses to leave Batman as he is, yet allows him to be the broken shell of a man still haunted by his past, even if those around him won't, don't know how, or don't even know to at all. It is a slowly growing glimmer of light in the darkest of shadows, a shift from the understandable desire to punish a broken world towards the hope that it can get better. It's not a perfect movie, but one might call it the perfect Batman movie. It finds Reeves in complete control of his vision, and as news about its sequel has begun to circulate online, I'm excited to see where he directs that intimate, artistic gaze of his next.

The Batman - 8/10

Psalm 34:17-18