It seems like only yesterday that Twilight heart-throb turned indie darling Robert Pattinson’s casting as the Caped Crusader broke the internet, inciting Batfleck fans into riots while others rallied around the man. A few years later and we’re finally seeing what all the fuss was about with director Matt Reeve’s gritty, sprawling crime noir: The Batman. And while Pattinson certainly proves the haters wrong with his physically imposing, chill-inducing take on Batman, Reeves’ film struggles under the weight of all the ideas it tries to juggle. Majority of what is here is solid, if not utterly fantastic at times – the stunningly dark visuals of Gotham city, the investigative aspect of the story and Michael Giacchino’s enthralling score – but the epic run-time grinds to a standstill all too often and Paul Dano’s unhinged Riddler performance is wasted on a story that leaves much to be desired in a film that too often prioritises style over substance.
Picking up two years into his crime-fighting campaign as the Batman, we find a tortured and angry Bruce Wayne (Pattinson) relying on fear to quell the rising tide of crime in Gotham City. When a deranged psychopath calling himself the Riddler (Paul Dano) starts picking off important political figures within Gotham, police lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) reaches out to his vigilante ally to help prevent the next murder. As their investigation leads them through Gotham’s criminal underbelly, Bruce finds himself besotted with young thief Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) – herself on a personal revenge mission – and the two team up to determine how mob boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and his right-hand man Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell) fit into this murderous web of deception. As the body count begins to rise, Bruce begins to discover just how important Batman is to the Riddler’s plan for the total destruction of Gotham, setting him on a path from which he cannot escape unchanged.
Setting themselves in the same vein as Christopher Nolan’s grounded trilogy of films, Reeves is similarly fascinated with exploring the idea of Batman as a symbol and the impact of that symbol on Gotham. A thrilling opening sequence sets up the idea that this iteration of Batman is one that operates through fear, and in his rampant obsession with being this symbol, Bruce has sacrificed the Wayne legacy and the people around him. Where Nolan’s film’s succeeded in exploring this concept is where Reeves’ largely falls short. Michael Caine’s Alfred and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel were fully realised, emotionally impactful characters that had a very obvious and meaningful impact on Bruce’s life. The torturous choice between the call to justice and the promise of a happy, fulfilling life of normalcy was the driving force of that trilogy. Here we find a Bruce very much committed to his mission and Reeves does a fine job of beating us over the head with this fact, but never fleshes out Andy Serkis’ Alfred (Bruce’s closest companion) in a way that evokes much emotional response from the audience. When he attempts to pull on that thread, it rings hollow; drawing the same cold, detached response from us that this Batman reserves for his enemies.
For their part Zoe Kravitz’ Catwoman and Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon are constantly along for the ride with Bruce, but they rarely coalesce into more than side characters using each other to achieve their own ends. That fits in with the dark, twisted tale of shifting morals and betrayal that Reeves is telling but fails to convey just how their interactions have changed him in any meaningful way. Sure there are the obligatory Batman voiceovers – with Pattinson’s eerily low register working wonders in these moments – but the moral shift isn’t anything that hasn’t been seen before, and is a shockingly small amount of growth in the titular character for a film so massive.
This interpretation of the caped crusader falls somewhere in the middle of Christian Bale and Ben Affleck – an angsty, brooding Batman driven by vengeance that is physically imposing without the need for Affleck’s hulking mass of muscle. Pattinson’s Batman is brilliant; you completely buy into the idea of this young man barrelling his way through criminals, stumbling as he learns the ropes. The fight choreography is tight and minimal – a train station fight early on is never topped – and Reeves does a great job of conveying how new Bruce is to all this, never feeling like he makes it out of a fight without taking a beating. It adds tremendous weight to these early bouts, before the third act stumbles into the usual overblown comic-book action finale that unfortunately overshadows these smaller, much more engaging fight sequences.
Where Pattinson’s portrayal falls short is in his decidedly different take on Bruce Wayne; foregoing the traditionally suave billionaire playboy for a moody recluse so deeply entrenched in his mission that he has shut himself off from society. Credit goes to the man for making a choice but it never feels particularly interesting, coming off as brattish and privileged rather than deep. Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig also make a rather strange choice to limit Bruce’s dialogue, barely saying anything that isn’t brushing off people’s attempts to connect or immediately arriving at the answer to one of the Riddler’s supposedly impossible clues. The dichotomy of Bruce Wayne against Batman – arguably one of the franchise’s most defining traits – just isn’t here in the same way as other instalments and that makes the character a lot less engaging. It’s a step backwards for Pattinson, who has carved himself a niche for playing strange, morally ambiguous characters in the years since Twilight. Batman certainly fits into that mould, but here lacks the depth of characters Pattinson has played in films like The Lighthouse and Good Time.
A lot has been made of the decision to ground this Batman adventure as a serial-killer chasing detective film. Reeves has cited Zodiac as an influence multiple times and at times the appearance and overall tone certainly manage to capture that unsettling atmosphere, but the constant shift between the Riddler’s killing spree and the tale of mob supremacy make for a tonally jarring, inconsistent film, especially in regards to how Reeves and Craig attempt to stitch it all together. On the detective side of things, Batman too often feels like a passive participant in the investigation; a chess piece moved around key locations to witness important events instead of exercising any actual agency over how things unfold. Sure you could argue that this is all part of the Riddler’s grand scheme but for the supposed “World’s Greatest Detective” he doesn’t do an awful lot of detecting, getting by with a lot of help from the police. The mob-focused story is where Reeves is able to have the most fun, leaning into Batman’s cheesy comic-inspired history with an absolutely riveting car-chase scene, but there is such a constant battle between the two types of story that it never truly coalesces. The third hour is the result: a messy attempt to unite all these threads that culminates in a boring, lifeless battle against goons – the usual modern comic-book finale – that betrays the film’s previously grounded approach to this story.
Where The Batman truly excels above all other films in the series is in its portrayal of Gotham City. From the dreary, rain-soaked streets to the grimy underground, criminal-populated drug dens, Gotham truly feels like the scummy hive of crime and chaos that every Batman film has tried to present, and a living, breathing character in its own right. The production design is truly awe-inspiring; a fusion of New York and Nolan’s Chicago-filmed streets combined with a gothic architecture that brilliantly illustrates the city’s struggle between its crime-filled past and the promise of a brighter future. What makes it truly special is just how brilliantly the production design coalesces with the thematics of Batman’s journey; ruthless criminal gangs stalk the streets, trash is piled high on street corners and even Batman himself claims that he is only one man – and must systemically change the city from the ground up in order to affect real change. Let’s not forget Michael Giacchino’s fantastic score. Fearsome and delicate at once, it is truly impressive how much power he is able to extract from four notes, crafting a theme (alongside an amazing overall score) that will stand the test of time as one of Batman’s most iconic.
The Batman isn’t the defining cinematic Batman story that it could have been – that honour still firmly belongs to Nolan’s trilogy – but it does show promise of an intriguingly dark new take that has potential to expand into (hopefully) weirder territory. In trying to tell such an epic, defining story, Reeves ends up with two warring tales of a deranged serial killer and shadowy mob betrayals that culminate in a disappointingly clichéd final act. Still, Robert Pattinson proves himself as the worthy follow-up to Christian Bale (sorry Batfleck fans) and when the story does manage to align with its excellent production design and score it is truly something special. Reeves’ first step into the world of Gotham might not be the definitive Batman film but it is a damn good one when it wants to be.
The Batman stars Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, Jayme Lawson & Colin Farrell – In cinemas now.