Review: The Batman (2022)

The Batman

Rating

Director

Matt Reeves

Screenplay

Matt Reeves, Peter Craig

Length

2h 56m

Starring

Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard

MPAA Rating

PG-13

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Review

In the pursuit of making comic book adaptations fun and engaging pulp entertainment, some of the nuance of the source material and character are lost. Sure, there are enigmas to be unraveled in the course of those films, but they feel perfunctory rather than essential. Matt Reeves’ The Batman brings us closest to the essence of the Batman character than any film adapted from the DC comics have since Tim Burton’s inaugural Batman in 1989.

DC stands for Detective Comics and was abbreviated long after the character of Batman was introduced. Batman, with all his fancy gadgets and gizmos, is an investigator, a detective who follows the trail of perfidy and malfeasance to its source in order to attempt to thwart the villain. The Batman distills that mystery thriller down to its essential parts and crafts an involving and often riveting adventure narrative pitting Bruce Wayne’s vigilante alter ego against one of his most challenging and clever foes: The Riddler.

The story revolves around a series of high profile killings that expose corruption at the heart of Gotham City’s power structures, including the offices of the mayor and district attorney all the way into the heart of the police department. It’s a venal, corrupt landscape into which Batman has been reticent to inject himself, focusing on petty and hardcore street-level crime. The Riddler has other ideas and believes he and Batman are simpatico in wanting to cure the disease that has tendrils reaching into the upper echelons of the city. Their ideals aren’t far removed from one another with the chosen method of execution the clear distinction. However, once drawn to the similarities, Batman can’t help but see them and it’s his struggle to avoid them that keeps him in pursuit of answers, which may well include painful truths about his family’s legacy.

Robert Pattinson brings the brooding he’s often made famous in other works to bear on a character who is weary of his role as defender of a city in constant peril. He fears that his attempts to rid the streets of crime are all for naught. Paul Dano is far superior as the incomparably brilliant Riddler who wants to bring down the institutions that allowed him to become stuck within the bureaucratic nightmare of orphanhood. Colin Farrell, given too little to do, is unrecognizable, both in terms of makeup and performance. He’s learned a great deal about creating subtlety in his work. Thankfully, Reeves is capable of allowing that to run through the character rather than curbing his efforts.

This same freedom allows the likes of Jeffrey Wright and Zoë Kravitz to give their own twists on familiar characters. The same cannot be said for John Turturro, Andy Serkis, and Peter Sarsgaard. Sarsgaard has a relatively unfamiliar character to play, so his isn’t a performance comparable to others, but Turturro and Serkis are the weakest links in the film, delivering uncharacteristically mediocre work.

At almost three hours, Reeves’ film is a bit long in the tooth, yet manages to keep the momentum going even through its more laborious moments. Unraveling the various plots running beneath the surface of the film is part of what engages the audience in Reeves’ and Peter Craig’s complex and multi-layered screenplay.

The Batman might be a tough sell to newer generations of filmgoers who are used to the constant drip of popular, but soulless comic adaptations, especially coming from Zack Snyder, who has too much control over the DCEU. This is a film that stands successfully apart from that franchise and does so on its own terms, terms we’re very happy to accept.