Movie review: The Batman (2022)

Yo. My corroded, zombified body has been dragged back to my computer today to talk to you about the newest entry in the Batman universe, The Batman. This latest iteration is a stand alone film, and has nothing to do with the previous films released such as the Nolan Trilogy, or the dumpster orgy of homeless people that was the Snyder films featuring Batman (Though, the Snyder cut JL movie was actually pretty decent). The film is Directed by Matt Reeves, known for his work on the Planet of the Apes reboots, as well as other random films such as Cloverfield and Let Me In (The American remake of Let The Right One In). The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, someone that seemed like a controversial pick for a lot of people. I'm guessing based off the fact that he was in Twilight over a decade ago. Those plebeians must have never watched The Lighthouse, or The Rover or Good Time where you can actually see the dude is a genuinely great actor. But, anyways. Lets just get into talking about the actual movie.

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The setting of the film is similar to the Batman Year one/Two books, but not a direct adaptation or anything. This is because the film takes place during Batman's second year of crimefighting, at a point where he's still unsure of what he needs to be for Gotham city. This movie does a very good job of depicting Gotham as being an absolute crime ridden shithole, with everything having a grime covered feel to it. The city is borderline hell on earth for the citizens living there, so I'm really glad they didn't shy away from presenting the city as basically being a cesspit of doom of nothing but hopelessness. A big thing of the movie is Batman trying his best to have some sort of positive effect on the city, but struggling all the way and feeling like what he's doing is a lost cause. And, you do stick with Batman throughout the majority of the film and get to see the different things he's doing to try and make a difference. And, while he is having an effect on criminals themselves, things are only getting worse.

One thing I really liked about the movie is that they do a fairly good job of showing how scary the Batman can be for criminals. There are some scenes towards the beginning of the film where various crimes are happening, where a robber hears some weird noises in an alleyway after the bat signal is up and gets very skittish, or hooligans are spray painting a building and their can rolls into a dark corridor and see the bat signal and say fuck this lets bail. A group of gang members are getting ready to fuck up an innocent man for basically no reason other than they like to fuck shit up, and then they hear a loud clinking footstep noise coming towards them from the darkness. And, low and behold Batman comes out and absolutely blasts their assholes. They definitely give Batman the boogeyman treatment for the underworld at times, and it's done well, in my opinion.

Batman himself as a character is pretty great in this movie, he comes as as very broody and angst filled. But, there is an issue with how they did things, and that issue is Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne and batman are the same exact character throughout the entire film. Instead of Batman being his true face with Bruce Wayne being the façade for his cover, Bruce Wayne is just still Batman. He is also broody, and angst ridden and just literally the same exact personality as Batman. Even when the dude is out in the public eye interacting with the public and paparazzi's, he's still just acting like a nihilistic goth. This is definitely one of my bigger issues with the movie, and I just think they could have done a much, much better job writing Bruce Wayne to be disconnected and separate from Batman. They should be night and day levels of different. He shouldn't just be an elder emo sitting in his dark, dingy lair listening to My Chemical Romance at all times throughout his life. Maybe you could attribute some of this to the fact that he's still so new to this path he has chosen, but, even then he should be smart enough to realize he needs a good cover.

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Besides the Bruce Wayne character being weak, the rest of the movie absolutely did a fantastic job with our other characters. Selena Kyle, Alfred, Gordon, etc. Colin Farrell as the Penguin was absolutely fucking great, something I wasn't expecting at all. They all did a pretty solid job overall with their supporting characters, I can't think of any specific performance in the movie that wasn't entertaining. Besides Batman, the other big stand out in the movie is The Riddler, who in this movie is basically this universes version of the Jigsaw Killer from Saw. This is probably the only iteration of The Riddler, that actually has an intimidating presence. I haven't dived into the comics so I can't say much there, but, usually the character has been much more goofy and not really much of a scary threat in my exposure. Which would be the Batman games, previous movies, and animated series. Here though, the dude is a criminal mastermind that comes off very unhinged and brutal.

Though, a lot of stuff in the movie is very brutal in its nature, especially with the Riddler parts. The tone of the movie is very reminiscent of something like S7ven with the noir detective stuff happening and also just the general tone of film, but, just in the Batman universe. While the movie is PG-13, it is really close to being on the border of R in my opinion, as it genuinely does feel like you're watching an R rated flick for the majority of the movie. Just without a ton of cursing, gore or tits flying around. I'm sure stuff like that was dialed back in editing and post production to achieve a PG-13 rating, since that's the best way to sell tickets for movies these days. But, yeah. The movie has some really intense scenes that you normally wouldn't think you'd see in a PG-13 movie, so I found that to be really nice and kind of refreshing to see.

Outside of the Jigsaw serial killings, uh, I mean, Riddler, there's still quite a few active moving parts going on in the background of the city. Most of it works just fine, but, some of it doesn't. I don't wanna spoil a lot of stuff for this movie since it's still relatively new, and I'm sure a lot of people were like me and wanted to wait for it to hit VOD before they watched it. So, I'll try not to spew out too much. But, this is probably going to be a minor spoiler. I need to mention this, because it's one thing that really bugged me a bit in the movie. It's when Batman just totally disregards the lives of the innocent civilians around him when trying to solve a mystery. Just as an example from something that was shown in the trailer, there's a big chase scene involving the Penguin with the batmobile. There is a part in here where two semi trailers explode in a fiery inferno, taking out the cars around them as well. And, Batman just ramps his fucking car over their crispy remains like he's from the Dukes of Hazard, and continues on with his chase to get the Penguin. He stops him like, literally 7 seconds later. It's just odd how he disregards their lives entirely, as he already knew so much about the guy where he could have apprehended him elsewhere probably. It's also even more ridiculous when you consider the fact that he ends up just letting him go afterwards. Just really out of character for Batman, and detracts a bit from his "IF YOU CROSS THAT LINE THEN YOU'RE JUST LIKE THEMMM" philosophy.

I guess I'll just air out my last issue with the movie as well, which was that some plot points seemed really rushed. There's a romantic subplot in the movie, with Batman and another character (I'm sure you can guess who it is if you know anything about Batman), and they're on screen together for maybe 15-20 minutes total before hand, and then all of a sudden they're balls deep in their feelings for one another and kissing. It's just sort of odd and felt very badly rushed. There's also a story plot point that really should have been stretched out a bit more and explored, but, instead it's basically just instantly debunked and changed pretty much within 10 minutes. And, it really kind of lost it's meaning/impact to the story when I feel like it could have been more. It doesn't ruin anything or detract from the movie exactly, but, I think it could have made the movie a little bit better if these things weren't so rushed feeling.

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Overall, I loved the movie for the most part. There were some small things that bothered me for sure, but nothing too bad that really detracted hugely from the rest of the movie. The detective, noir elements were handled very well, and the action is absolutely fucking rock solid. Robert Pattinson did an awesome job with Batman, and I'm looking forward to seeing him try his hand again in the future with the character. It's a great movie, and well worth a watch. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

So, yeah. That'll do it. Until next time, slutterbutts.

Later!