The Batman (2022) — Read Along
A gothic, dirty, fetishised and stylised “sins of the father” tale that was almost very good indeed
So let’s be contrary and start with what doesn’t work. Firstly, at 4 minutes shy of 3 hours it’s too long and the last half hour lets the film down badly. Secondly, and in line with my third and final gripe, the magnificent John Turturro doesn’t get nearly enough screen time and we’re well over the hour mark before Andy Serkis utters a line of dialogue I couldn’t help but noting:
“Is Bruce Wayne actually going to make an appearance?”
When he does, cloaked in the incredibly youthful charm of Robert Pattinson, he appears almost too young and not of the more matured youth of Christian Bale in the recent Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy of films. It’s a compliment of sorts I guess, as is the transformation into the more muscular and imposing Batman, but we’ll get to that shortly.
What does work and what really impressed me on just a singular watch so far is Director Matt Reeves “vision” for the film: Dark, grimy, weather beaten, a Gotham cloaked in gothic fetishism, surrealism and a modern city akin (early on) to a shiny Blade Runner dystopia juxtaposed against the filth and decay of a dying city, and a city where it seemingly always rains. Gotham is painted with the random street violence and the rain soaked broken windows shown previously through the directorial lenses of Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan, but here the decay is both paralleled to the excess of the wealthy as well as the gothic, fetish window dressing that soaks through this film like a constant rain. “BROKE” may be painted on a Government building, but the business of Gotham continues.
What also impressed me greatly was the realism (if such a label can be attached to a superhero film) whereby Gotham doesn’t just appear fleetingly like a Tim Burton inspired surrealistic background. Batman is, whisper it, actually human, his box of tricks are of the time of the film certainly, but equally they are as rudimentary as his early Batmobile. The film’s main villain remains deliberately masked throughout the first two Acts and will remain spoiler free and masked here, but it’s a thunderous performance from a personal favourite actor of mine and the very opposite of the character as portrayed in previous Batman movies. The real villain here is a stone cold psychopath and there are no jokes or riddles to even partially cover this.
“Bruce Wayne/Batman” (Robert Pattinson). The film’s continual melancholic narrator, Pattinson describes his “2 years of nights” defending Gotham from a growing band of villains and how becoming a “nocturnal animal” has cultivated his need for “vengeance”. He works closely with the Gotham Police Department and particularly “James Gordon” (Jeffrey Wright) and he’s first seen in all his Batman glory early on and in an ultra violent take down of a gang of Joker face painted thugs picking on an innocent man. Central to this “Sins of the Father” tale, he’s still wracked by the cold blooded murder of his Mother and Father and whilst looking empathetically at a young child all alone, this brief early scene works well as a catalyst to the central theme running through the film. As Bruce Wayne he is going as broke as his home city, defying the attention sought from his butler “Alfred Pennyworth” (Andy Serkis) and only interested in the justice he can provide to the citizens of Gotham. He laments early on that the city of Gotham is “eating itself” and with little regard for his familial legacy he’s determined to rid the city of both the underground villains as well as those living in a corruption filled opulence above ground.
Aside from Robert Pattinson’s very good (but not Michael Keaton or Christian Bale good) representation of The Batman, Zoe Kravitz is spectacular whether as a nightclub hostess as “Selina Kyle” or her alter-ego “Catwoman” and Peter Sarsgaard is superb in yet another unlikeable and distasteful role as Gotham District Attorney “Gil Colson”. On the other side of the law in Gotham, and aside from the character who shall remain unspoiled, we have a transformative performance from Colin Farrell as “Oz” or “Oswald Cobblepot” and indeed an early incarnation of a future Batman villain, “Penguin”. And we have that lack of screen time for the magnificent John Turturro as seemingly Gotham’s ultra crime Boss “Carmine Falcone”.
The excellent opening 20 minutes ends with the first of 2 uses of Nirvana’s haunting and ominous track “Something in the Way” and in between you’re treated to a superb scene I can only describe as being a “Human Bomb” and a brilliant chase scene as we finally see the somewhat antiquated and rudimentary Batmobile, the unmasking of “The Riddler” and the fuller introduction to one or two more future villains for the no doubt future sequels.
I almost loved it! The dragging of the last Act though doesn’t diminish an otherwise visionary departure back to a darker Knight, a human Batman and a story that has shades of “Se7en”, “Silence of the Lambs” and “Zodiac”. This grimy, dirty telling of The Batman story was exactly what I expected from the DC Universe, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so well shot and packaged into an almost very good film.
You can also find “The Batman” within over two hundred similarly spoiler free film appraisals inside my 7 volumes of “Essential Film Reviews Collection” on Amazon, with every volume free to read should you have a Kindle “Unlimited” package. As are each and every one of the nine self-published books I’m about to shamelessly promote below as I’m rather proud of them too.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
