Review: The Batman

I, as any sane person, love the character of Batman. Some Batmans are good. Some Batmans are bad. But when given the opportunity to see a Batman, I will jump at the chance. Ten years or however long it’s been since I found out that Robert Pattinson was going to be the Batman, after Ben Afflect decided to give up the cowl, I was excited. I knew that Heath Ledger’s Joker was far better than anyone expected from the dude from 10 Things I Hate About You, so I had the same attitude of optimism for the dude from Twilight. Then I heard that the Riddler would be the main villain.

I was hooked. The Riddler has always been my favorite villain, so I was over the nerd moon with excitement. Then COVID happened, and everything got put on hold. We got a great teaser with only 25% of the movie filmed. Then a few more trailers. I didn’t like the masked version of the Riddler, but would go in with an open mind. Before I knew it, The Batman was released. I actually went to the theater to watch this movie. I was so stoked.

In my review of Batman VERSUS Superman, I said that I really liked seeing Batman actually being a detective, since he’s “The World’s Greatest Detective”. This movie was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was a straight up detective story. It even had the voice over. “October 31st. Chaos rests in the shadows…” (I don’t remember the actual quote). But it would have been great if they did something like “This leggy dame came in. Dripping sex appeal…” when we met Selina Kyle, but whatever. It was dark. Gotham felt real. The stylistic shots. The haunting music. I was in pure joy.

For the first 2 and a half hours, at least.

There’s a specific moment in this movie, where it all falls apart. I’ll get to that later, though. This is not a Marvel movie. There’s no jokes. Well, there was one point where I laughed, but I don’t think the director intended that. This is not an epic. It’s a grounded, very serious movie. The Riddler is basically the Zodiak killer. He’s slowly and methodically killing specific people and leaving clues, riddles if you will, for The Batman to solve.

Oh. Side note. This was very distracting. Probably the only thing I didn’t like about the first 2.5 hours, was that at this point in Bruce Wayne’s vigilante career, he’s been doing this for two years. They have the bat signal. He dresses like a bat. The Riddler leaves notes for The Batman. But he calls himself “Vengeance”. Like, I’d get that if he was just starting out and hadn’t decided on the Batman as a symbol, or whatever. Does he think that bats symbolize vengeance? It was stupid. And sorry if I spoiled that Bruce Wayne was Batman.

The Batman, or The BaTMan as the Riddler stupidly writes it, and Jim Gordon are following the clues and Batman is detectiving it and it’s amazing. They go into the criminal underworld trying to detective the next piece of the puzzle, and Batman meets Selina Kyle played by Zoe Kravitz. Oh. By the way, is there some sort of law that Catwoman always has to be super horned up? Like, I swear, every time she and Batman share the screen, she looks like she is about 4 seconds from “pouncing” on his batcock. Anyway. Her friend is missing, so she agrees to help Batman. The rest of the movie is basically this. The Riddler kidnaps someone. Kills them. Leaves a riddle. Batman and company detective it. That leads to the next person being kidnapped, killed, and the next riddle.

Then it gets personal. Now Bruce Wayne is the next target. You see, Bruce Wayne’s parents died. They never show us what happened, so I guess we’ll never know. Side note, someone on the internet made a joke about how Thomas and MARTHA! died in 2001 in this movie, so they were likely killed after taking child Bruce to see Shrek. Anyway. Thomas Wayne might have been corrupt, and the Riddler is against corruption, so now Bruce has to die. Because drama. Alfred accidentally gets blowed up, but he survives. Batman gets the next clue. Something about “showing the rat into the light”.

They have to find the rat. More detectiving happens, and they go back to the seedy bar to find the rat. They arrest him, and bring him outside and a sniper takes him out. Turns out, the Riddler has been across the street the whole time.

It’s at this point that the movie falls apart, in one of the most disappointing character reveals in modern cinema. For some reason that doesn’t make any sense, the Riddler allows himself to be caught. It’s not like in The Dark Knight, where the Joker wanted to be arrested so he could get to the mob accountant. Riddler has no reason to get caught. He only wants to talk to the Batman. So Batman comes over and Riddler is reduced from menacing serial killer who is always 15 steps ahead, into a whiny incel manchild who makes these weird “Whhahhaaaahhhaaaooooooaooooaa” sounds for no apparent reason. In his mind, he and Batman have been working the case together. When Batman does the whole “we are nothing alike” thing, Riddler breaks and all of the sudden any composure he’s had is out the window as he starts crying and making weird noises. It makes no sense at all. But he does let Batman know that there’s one last thing to do.

Oh. And another thing. Riddler does this thing. “Bruuuuuuuuccccccceeeeeee Waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyynnnneeee. Brruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyynnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” For a moment, an excruciatingly long moment, you think that Riddler has figured out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. But TWIST! He is just mad at Bruce Wayne because while they were both orphans, Bruce Wayne had money, and Riddler didn’t and now he’s mad and he’s going to kill people. The fuck? That’s his motivation for all of this. The world wasn’t fair to him so he’s going to make them pay. He is now a full on school shooter type loner.

Speaking of school shooter, that’s his plan for the last bit of the movie. He has a blog with other whiny incel manchildren and they decide to all dress up like the Riddler. Riddler blows up some dams or whatever, and now Gotham is flooding, so everyone races to this shelter, where Riddler’s copy cats are waiting to kill them all. Fucking stupid. Blah blah blah Batman saves the day.

Then we cut to Arkham and Riddler is having a conversation with an “unnamed prisoner” and they become friends and laugh like losers. Seriously. That scene was so cringy. So in the end, The Batman ruined most of the goodwill it had going for it from 2.5 wonderful hours of a perfect Batman movie, simply by letting us get to know the Riddler. Don’t get me wrong. I’m going to buy this on bluray, and I’ll watch it again. Maybe it will grow on me. But what they did to the Riddler character was a travesty.

Other good notes, were that it was cool to watch Batman’s tech slowly upgrade over the course of the movie. I do wish they had never shown the batmobile in the trailers, because the first time it shows up on the screen almost made me squeal. It was such a great moment. His batcycle slowly upgrades over time. His suit has some cool tricks. The only time I laughed during the movie was when he’s flying off this sky scraper, pulls a parachute, the parachute gets caught on something and he tumbles to the ground. Yeah. I don’t think they meant for that to be as funny as it was. If you look closely, the bat logo on his suit is actually made from the gun that killed his parents, which was a badass idea. The music was great. Haunting at times. Then you can hear hints of the 1989 theme, which is the de facto Batman theme.

The acting is fine. Penguin’s dumb accent felt out of place. Like none of the other mobsters talk like that. You know that scene from the trailer where he’s all “I ga chu, I ga CHOOOO.” He talks like that the entire movie. I think Robert Pattinson was a fine Batman. For some reason he’s taller than I thought. He brought a rawness to the character that I don’t remember seeing in other Batmans. Some people have complained about his take on Bruce Wayne being broody instead of the playboy attitude. That’s fair. I just chalk it up to him not learning to play the part yet. Other than Selina Kyle’s constant damp spot for Batman, I liked her portrayal.  She’s not really catwoman yet. There’s only one scene where she’s trying to steal something, and it looks like she’s a pro, but there’s a reason for what she’s doing, so it’s not like “Ooo. I want those jewels.” I loved her fighting skills. I guess Zoe Kravitz studied how cats fight, to come up with her combat skills, and there’s this scene where she repeatedly kicks a dude. That was cool. The reveal of her father was kind of meh. Alfred is barely in this movie. Riddler was absolutely terrifying as long as he had the mask on. And I hated the mask when I first saw it in the trailers. But when he removes the mask, we’re left with the broken shell of a man, which is just painful to watch.

I’m conflicted. Most of the movie was absolutely perfect. But the end was so bad, that it really brought the score down. So I’ll give it 3 stars.