THE BATMAN (2022) Review (Spoilers)

Introduction

Roger Ebert once said, “Never make a movie about a character you can’t stand.“ The movie he was referring to was The Cat in the Hat (2003), starring Mike Myers. However, this statement certainly applies to the new Warner Brothers comic book movie The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves. The latest Batman adventure seems intent on outdoing the Christopher Nolan Batman movies in the realism department. Yet, Reeve’s film ends up being an overly long, boring, slog of a movie.

The Villains

In The Batman, no character fits the bill of Ebert’s pseudo-profound statement more than The Riddler (Paul Dano). In Reeve’s film, this character is reimagined as a spectacle-wearing Hefty Bag. No longer a thief, but a serial killer, The Riddler does leave clues. However, said clues are related to trying to fill the Caped Crusader in on a corruption-filled conspiracy theory about Bruce Wayne’s parents.

While wearing his ridiculous costume, Dano’s performance consists primarily of screaming. Near the end of The Batman, he ditches his costume for regular street clothes. Essentially, Dano’s performance ranges from making faces at the camera to yelling. The Riddler is the only real misstep in the villain department, excluding a shadow-covered cameo of The Joker. He looks like a live-action version of Beavis from Beavis and Butthead).

The other villains, especially The Penguin (Colin Farrell), do a great job. Reeves appears to be embarrassed by the comic book look of The Penguin. As a result, he makes some unnecessary changes to make it more “realistic.” Examples of this are trading in the character’s elongated nose and monocle. This is replaced with a bunch of facial scars and it barely works. In fact, if Farrell’s performance wasn’t as good as it is, the character wouldn’t work at all.

Relationships

There are strong aspects with regards to The Batman. They primarily revolve around the dynamic story and relationship between Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) aka Catwoman, and her father, mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). This is the best stuff in the movie. In fact, Kravitz basically steals the show. Kyle is more of a vigilante hero in this incarnation, and it works. This is because in this film her character is given an actual personality, unlike the titular character portrayed by Robert Pattinson.

Pattinson’s Batman and Bruce Wayne are essentially the same characters in this latest film. Both personas possess a boring, charisma-less, black hole of a personality. Also, both alter-egos speak in a monotone flat voice. Still, there is some good done with the Batman character as he performs a lot of detective work, whilst working alongside Detective Jim Gordon (Jeffery Wright).

This sleuthing ends up being completely pointless however because the duo doesn’t spend any time trying to figure out the Riddler’s identity. Also, they don’t try to actually stop him from committing his next crime. Rather, they just try to solve the conspiracy theory via the breadcrumbs the villain leaves behind. This allows The Riddler to basically get everything he wants, including the destruction of the city via flood.

Motivations

The only reason The Riddler is caught at the end of the movie is that he is purposely letting himself get caught. In fact, basically, everything that happens would happen regardless of whether Batman was in this movie or not. When the titular character of your movie is incidental and unneeded for the plot to work, that’s an issue.

The Riddler’s motivation is that he was an orphan that didn’t benefit from any of Thomas Wayne’s charitable work. This is because Wayne is killed before he can give money to the orphanage The Riddler grew up in. As a result, he resents Bruce Wayne for being in the newspapers after the murder of his parents. Subsequently, the orphanage is totally forgotten in the process.

Additionally, The Riddler knows Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same people. However, how The Riddler comes upon this information is never really explained. As the film progresses, The Riddler sets out to show Bruce Wayne that his father was as corrupt as the rest of the Gotham City power structure.

The Design

The Batman leans into realism with regards to the design of the titular character’s costume and equipment. For the most part, everything looks like it is being made in a garage in Flint, Michigan. This is opposed to the high-tech lab-like look in director Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films.

The equipment Batman uses looks like grimy junk for the most part. Although he does have contact lenses that work as microchip-covered CCTV cameras. This seems out of place with the rest of the aesthetic. Batman even uses a random motorcycle that looks like something you could buy on Facebook Marketplace. He uses it as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Perhaps, how The Riddler figured out his secret identity.

The Batmobile eventually makes an appearance during the film’s worst action sequence. A car chase. This scene tries and almost succeeds in being worse than the opening car chase in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008). It’s the equivalent of the climax of Ang Lee’s Hulk (2003) which featured an underwater fistfight at night during a rainstorm. There’s also some incoherent editing tossed in for good measure.

Conclusion

Overall The Batman tries too hard to “out Nolan” Christopher Nolan. The film gets tangled up all over itself in the process as a result. Nevertheless, it’s good to see Batman perform some detective work. However pointless this work may be. The Batman is an overly long and dour film. Not even great performances by Zoe Kravitz and Colin Farrell can lift Matt Reeve’s entry out of the doldrums of mediocrity.

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