The Batman reenters our cultural moment as crime is rampant in our cities and politicians are backpedaling from COVID-19 control policies. But instead of moving to Florida, the good people of Gotham are sticking it out in hopes the caped crusader can clean up the city.
Batman has all the dark knight fundamentals: the Batsuit, the Batcave, and the loyal family butler (Andy Serkis). Oh, and a souped-up Batmobile, this time a Chevy Camaro. Batman comes with all the usual emotional struggles. He maintains the “I don’t kill people” mantra even though Batman has inflicted so much blunt-force head trauma that it’s entirely foreseeable several bad guys died from his jiujitsu. But sure, morality. We also get the same hapless love entanglement, this time with Cat Woman (Zoe Kravitz). Audiences know the inevitability by now, so the masquerade smooches give you a chance to check your watch.
With this iteration, we avoid the Batman origin story. However, there is some disconnect without a conversation between young Bruce or daylight Bruce and Batman. We only see moody, brooding Batman without any sort of connection to what the ultimate aim of his vigilantism is. In fact, without such character development, the difference between what the Riddler and Batman are doing, respectively, isn’t dissimilar enough until the third act.
The writing is my main complaint. This version of Batman felt particularly lazy from a storytelling perspective and lesser in terms of scale, just with a select few cinematic tricks and techniques to seem artsy and fresh. And that might just be because the talent is underutilized. Robert Pattison’s Batman beneath layers of eye shadow has good moments, but the script is weighty and botches otherwise good design.
Bruce Wayne journals (and narrates) his nightly escapades. But the way it’s written is less Mark Twain and more of a misunderstood teenager. The film really leans into the emo brand when in the first scene we meet Alfred, Bruce yells, “You’re not my father!” I thought I might have heard “Welcome to the Black Parade” begin to play in the background but can’t be sure.
The supporting cast is similarly wasted. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) is written as a dopey Watson to Batman’s Sherlock Holmes rather than as a critical mind. Frankly, the number of times Gordon and the police blunder around failing to solve even the most basic riddles made me almost a “defund the police” believer. The Penguin, one of the biggest baddies of the Batman world, is fashioned as a hefty mob henchman rather than a leading man with no real plot value other than to give the make-up artists for Colin Ferrell an Oscar nod. The biggest tragedy of the movie is the Riddler, played by the always fantastic Paul Dano, is allotted roughly 10 minutes of screen time without a mask in a three-hour movie.
And finally, without giving away any spoilers, the twist in this movie isn’t so much of a twist as an unsatisfying conclusion that seemed obvious given the source material, high school-level Spanish, and realizing at 2 hours 20 minutes all the main players had been introduced.
While maybe a frustrating start for director Matt Reeves, you should still see it. Perhaps emo Batman will inspire you to reopen your high school journals and translate those crazy feelings from way back when — maybe that’s the real riddle.
Tyler Grant (@TyGregoryGrant) is a Washington Examiner contributor and a lawyer in New York. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Washington and Lee University.
