[Rating: Swiss Fist]
Only in theaters March 4.
Since the character reemerged from the Adam West shadow in 1989, no less than 6 different actors in 5 separate live-action film franchises have taken a run at the Caped Crusader, largely coming at the character and universe from different directions. For example, Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan examined the pathos of Bruce Wayne as a son and citizen while Zack Snyder and Ben Affleck explored Batman’s place within a larger superhero universe. With this week’s The Batman, director Matt Reeves is leaning into the “World’s Greatest Detective” angle, showcasing the character’s brain over his brawn via an especially brooding portrayal. Yet all the time the newest film saves by (mercifully) short-handing the backstory and world-building is squandered by a script and character mechanics that too often forget what makes this superhero so interesting in the first place.
There’s plenty to admire about the film, though, including its trust that the audience doesn’t need a detailed introduction to Gotham City or its most famous vigilante. When the audience meets Batman (Robert Pattinson), his voiceover narration explains that he’s already been tromping around the city in disguise for two years, and as his casual stroll through an active crime scene indicates, the cops have kinda gotten used to him. Working directly with local police detective James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), Batman is flexing his brain rather than his Kevlar-covered muscles to help solve the clues deliberately left behind by a Zodiac-reminiscent murderer, The Riddler (Paul Dano).
As the killings continue, Batman tracks clues that bring him into the orbit of local crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), his underboss/club owner Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), and club bartender/thief Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), who all take turns helping and stymying the investigation at different points. As he gets closer to the truth about The Riddler and the messaging surrounding the villain’s crime spree, Batman threatens to upend the foundation of not just the city, but his own life as well.
First: the good. It’s obvious that Reeves has seen other versions of this story and has defiantly made this one its own in every respect, and in the broader sense, it’s a breath of fresh air for a franchise that desperately needs one. The film’s focus on Batman as more detective than MMA vigilante opens the character up as a different, more dynamic threat to his enemies. Visually, cinematographer Greig Fraser should be commended for shooting the picture in a way that doesn’t bleed all the color out of it, crafting several shots that are show-stoppers. Kravitz is the standout amongst the cast in a role that is by far the most interesting of the lot, and for the first half of the film, the central mystery surrounding The Riddler’s murder spree keeps the audience engaged.
Which brings us to the bad. There’s about 5 pounds of mystery shoved loosely into a 15-pound bag, and a half-assed finale that tries in vain to make up for the fact that very little of the movie up to that point has Batman doing Batman shit. Aside from some code breaking and guilt-tripping (something of a character requisite), Alfred (Andy Serkis) is barely in this movie, and while that leaves room for it to bypass all the character backstory audiences are so familiar with by now, it removes most of the humanity from the eponymous character.
Indeed, the movie is very aptly titled The Batman because Bruce Wayne is pretty much nowhere to be found in this one. When Pattinson does appear out of costume, his voice, posture, attitude, and overall bearing are pretty much identical to his masked counterpart, robbing the story of the fun afforded to the character’s duality. And as for Pattinson in the title role: he’s just okay. The script’s insistence that he narrate different portions, along with his particularly morose take on the role, give the character an unshakable Rorschach vibe, which is interesting for a time but increasingly feels like a person wearing someone else’s clothes. A smarter person than me will likely write about the almost laughable irony of Batman taking on a Rorschach posture when Alan Moore created that character as an explicit critique/deconstruction of the classic superhero archetype, yet that’s for a different discussion.
For now, it should suffice to say that The Batman as presented by Pattinson and Reeves is something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it should be commended for trusting its audience enough to jump right into this world and its drama in media res, bypassing all the origin story business folks have seen a dozen times before. It’s also interesting to see a movie explore the tragic paradox behind Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, which costs just as much money (or more) to maintain than what might be spent donating to initiatives supporting education, homelessness, and urban renewal. Though never really explored, this movie at least encroaches on the concept via the Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson) character, mixing it in with several other novel franchise maneuvers that are often interesting yet rarely fun.
And that’s the central problem, really.
Batman as a character is enticing because he plays into the loftiest fantasies of his fans, who would love to be a good-timin’ son-of-a-bitch billionaire by day, and a gadget-wielding dispenser of justice by night. If Batman working brutal homicide cases with stoic resiliency and a plucky sidekick was a winning formula, he’d have a CSI: Gotham spin-off. And at nearly 3 hours long, that’s what this one feels like (albeit via a 3-episode binge). Good enough for network television, maybe, but an exciting and entertaining installment within a larger cinematic enterprise this is not.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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