Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 55 minutes
Director: Matt Reeves
Quick Impressions:
If you like going to the movies, you’ll like The Batman. Who doesn’t enjoy kicking back on the couch and streaming away? If you’re hungry for content, seeking stimulation or escapism, staying in and flipping on the TV is great. But if you’re like me, you sometimes crave popcorn and a dark auditorium. The experience of going to the movies is a different thing from simply watching a film at home, no matter how good that film is. Sure, you can watch just about anything at home, but if you’re craving the movie theater experience, only some movies are worth the effort and the price of the popcorn. For months, I’ve been feeling a little sad that while potential Oscar nominees have lured me to the theater, most popular popcorn flicks haven’t seemed worth the effort. The experience of the movie theater is ruined if the movie is bad.
This one’s good.
I kind of have Marvel fatigue, but if this is the new direction for D.C., I am on board.
This movie is three hours long and does not feel it. It’s well paced and a pleasure to watch. The night before this, I watched another three-hour film, Drive My Car. That movie feels like it takes four hours to watch (though it is excellent)! The Batman doesn’t feel long until the very end (when we discover it’s not the very end, after all. There’s still more! I kept expecting each line to be the last, and there was still like thirty minutes left at least!) But most of this goes by very quickly, and even though it does feel long by the very end, you remain excited to see what happens next.
Another very exciting thing happened before the movie. I had convinced myself, “I don’t even care about the trailers anymore. They don’t excite me like they used to.” Then I saw the trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. I thought, “If there are going to be movies starring Nicholas Cage as himself having the kinds of crazy adventures he would have in a movie, then it may be a sign that we’re living in the end times, but it’s also a sign that movies are coming back.” (I liked the trailer for Nope, too. I always like Jordan Peele’s movies.) Suddenly I’m realizing, “Maybe the problem isn’t that things are never going back to normal. Maybe it’s that it used to be January and February, and now it’s March, and things already are mostly back to normal.” Let’s hope.
The Good:
If you like The Riddler, you’ll love The Batman. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long time (and bracing myself for massive disappointment, just in case). I had heard that The Batman would involve multiple iconic villains and focus on Batman’s skills as a detective, and that’s exactly what the movie delivers.
To someone who as a young child once received a Batman birthday card that said For the Birthday Boy Girl and then listed a bunch of Batman riddles, this movie was satisfying to an unexpected degree. (I did not anticipate feeling such gleeful pleasure as Batman encountered each successive riddle. Granted, these are darker than the ones in that child’s birthday card, but riddles are fun! (And guess who’s helping Batman solve them? Andy Serkis, down in the bat cave. (He’s played Riddles in the Dark before!) (That’s my mother’s favorite chapter of The Hobbit.) The first riddle I had heard before, but it’s a good one. The second one is grotesque, but both my husband and I loved the pun. It’s fun to wait for the next riddle and follow the Batman as he tries to use these clues to see the bigger picture.
After the movie, my husband commented, “That was very good at parceling out information at an even pace.” He’s right. The movie gives us a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, always at strategic intervals so that the story never seems to lag, and we have some time to gnaw on the riddles ourselves before learning the true solution. That makes it fun.
Despite the fact that the characters are all familiar, we get a pretty fresh take on them. (There’s something we learn about one character’s family tree that I had never ever known before. I’m dying to know if it’s in the comics—there so many different Batman comics!—or if it’s been invented for the movie. Either way, I love it! I mean, it makes so much sense and seems to open up a lot of intriguing story options for sequels.) (Maybe it’s in the video games. I used to watch my older son play them but not enough to learn every plot point.)
The performances are great, and the characters have good parts (even Batman, which is rare in a Batman movie). Going in, I was most skeptical about Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman. I don’t know why. I have nothing against her. I just really like Michelle Pfeiffer in that role. I liked her so much in Batman Returns that I’ve judged all future incarnations of the character pretty harshly. (I usually end up liking them in the end because I love the character, but I always start out skeptical.) Not only does Kravitz make a good Selina Kyle, but she gets a fantastic part that actually has substance, makes sense, does justice to the character, and allows for a romance that doesn’t feel forced. I feel I owe Kravitz an apology (although I never actually said I was skeptical of her until right now). She more than proves herself in this movie. She has some great fight choreography, too. Normally I don’t notice things like that. (I’m not sure if Kravitz is the one doing the fighting, or if it’s a stunt double.)
I was a little bit skeptical of Robert Pattinson’s casting, too, at the very beginning of the process (like when I’d first heard he was in talks for the role). But then I watched The Lighthouse and realized, “Oh yes, he will make an excellent Batman,” and he does. What a gorgeous face he has! We get so many shots of him staring broodingly, often in profile. Sometimes these fill the entire screen. He’s a gorgeous Batman. His looks like he was born to brood in a mask and cowl. He looks so tortured, yet so stoic. And people who find Christian Bale’s Batman voice ridiculous should be pleased that Pattinson sounds much more normal.
Colin Farrell I like a lot, and he is almost completely unrecognizable as the Penguin (usually called Oz in The Batman). Farrell’s a good actor (although the real reason I started liking him so much is because of an interview at some premiere I saw like twenty years ago. In response to the interviewer’s questions, he just kept cheerfully saying four-letter words. And then he would be like, “Oh sorry,” and substitute a different four-letter word. The person interviewing him kept getting flustered, saying, “We also can’t say that on TV in America,” and Colin Farrell seemed so confused about why not and just kept using more and more explicit profanity as if he had no idea whatever could be wrong. I can’t explain why, but I like him just as much for that as for any of his performances.) I do he’s a very good actor in general, and this is something really different for him.
John Turturro is another actor I like a lot. His cadence as Carmine Falcone sometimes reminded me of Al Pacino in The Godfather and sometimes of John Huston in Chinatown. (It’s weird that I loved the character so much because I hate Chinatown, just because it always leaves me with such a gross, bleak feeling. I find The Godfather movies kind of depressing, too.) But for whatever reason, I love listening to Turturro’s Carmine Falcone. Every time he would talk, I would hang on his every word.
You know what? I like this whole cast. Jeffrey Wright (who recently impressed me—and put my husband to sleep—with his sonorous storytelling in The French Dispatch) makes a great Jim Gordon. It’s kind of cool that Peter Sarsgaard shows up since Maggie Gyllenhaal is in The Dark Knight. And I love Paul Dano. I always get thrilled when he’s cast in things, but he’s type who needs the right sort of part. This is a really good fit for him. He’s probably the best Batman villain since Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Another huge star of this movie is the score. At first I thought, “This is cool music.” Then I thought, “It’s a little repetitive.” But then I realized, “It’s so cool, though.” After a while, I couldn’t help noticing, “I like this main theme as much as any of the characters!” (And I like the characters!) “I’m always happy when this theme shows up.” Later, I mused, “You know, if anybody finds this music overdramatic, they’ll be so annoyed with it by the end because it keeps coming back and coming back.” Finally, I decided, “Okay, I love this score! I can’t wait to see who wrote the score because I’m always excited to hear new composers.” For whatever reason, I thought I was going to be discovering some catchy-score-writing talent. Then we got to the end credits, and I exclaimed in disappointment, “Oh it’s Michael Giacchino!”
My husband was really confused by my reaction and said, “I loved that main theme.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I said, “but we already know Michael Giacchino writes catchy scores.” (He didn’t think he knew any, but when I hummed some, of course, he did!)
Sometimes I just find myself wishing there were a new composer out there because I feel like only ten people write all the movie scores. Nevertheless, Giacchino’s score in this movie is great, incredibly catchy.
Best Action Sequence:
I’m rather partial to the interruption at the funeral. (“That kid is going to be so traumatized,” my husband wisely noted.)
Here’s what I love about that big, fiery Batmobile chase sequence, though. (I had seen a large part of it before watching the film, so I assume many others have, too.) At a certain point, this scene becomes almost over the top. It’s a lot of flames and Penguin panic and intense music for me. Sometimes I zone out during action sequences that go on for a long time.
But this one looks so beloved! Watching it, I thought, “Matt Reeves is so into this!” Whoever else worked on it with him probably feels the same way. Nobody puts a scene like this into a movie who isn’t gleefully thinking, “Our Batmobile scene is the best scene ever! It is so awesome!” This may sound weird, but watching it, I got the strong sense that writer/director Matt Reeves was thrilled beyond words to be including this show-stopping, fiery Batmobile chase in his movie. I felt a weird, vicarious excitement that I wasn’t expecting. You just don’t put a scene like that in there if you’re not thinking of it as “the awesomest scene ever,” or some otherwise worded variation on that idea. (I remember how excited J.J. Abrams would always say he was about having the Millennium Falcon in his movie.) I just kind of thought that was nice.
Best Scene Visually:
The scene in which Selina wears special eyepieces to explore the secret club seems overwhelmingly like something pulled right out of a video game. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie sequence that seemed so much like a video game sequence before.
But, aside from the twelve million captivating shots of Robert Pattinson brooding in his mask, probably my favorite visual moment in the movie comes when Selina kicks someone and leaves, causing Batman to take immediate action. That whole sequence just looks really cool.
Best Scene:
Both Bruce and Selina and Bruce and Alfred have some poignant heart-to-heart talks, but I think best I like the moment when Batman finally comes face to face with the Riddler and has an actual conversation with him. (This part of the film is also good because we see that Batman probably wouldn’t have missed something obvious were he not so self-focused and blinded by his own issues.)
The Negatives:
One thing I love about this movie is also something that puzzled me. It’s very fun to watch Batman and Jim Gordon be such BFFs throughout the film. Their working relationship in this particular story is great (especially because it seems to confuse every one else so much). If I’m being one-hundred percent honest, though, it confuses me, too. Why in the world does Jim Gordon trust Batman so much? (“There’s obviously some history between them we don’t know,” my husband speculated. Yes there must be. At one point, Gordon tells the Batman, “The only person I trust is you,” or, “I don’t trust anyone but you.” And I remember thinking, “Really?” I mean I know Gotham City is notorious for being a cesspool of corruption, but he knows so little about Batman! (What’s really funny is that in most Batman adaptations, you watch and think, “He’ll have a bit more credibility when someone discovers he’s actually Bruce Wayne.” Batman movies often contain a scene in which a very trusted person is let in on the secret. But as I watched this film, I realized, “You know, being outed as Bruce Wayne might actually make him less credible.”)
As my husband says, there must be a history between Batman and Gordon explaining the absolute trust in their relationship. I wish we knew what it was. Maybe we’ll find out in a future film, though.
Also the movie could use a little more Andy Serkis. (I realize we’re probably only getting any live-action Andy Serkis because Matt Reeves directed the recent Planet of the Apes films.) Still, the movie is forty thousand years long. Surely there’s time for a few more scenes featuring Alfred! (Granted, Alfred has a good part, as well as a terribly significant function in the story, but I just like Serkis. I’m always thrilled when he gets a live action role. And who doesn’t love Alfred?)
The other odd thing that noticed is that in Gotham City, the word judgment is spelled the English way (judgement) not just once but twice (once in TV captioning, and once on a picket sign). That jumped out at me. It doesn’t matter, but apparently the movie did film mainly in the U.K. (I always notice the spelling of the word judgment ever since being complimented for spelling it correctly once back in college. Ironically, at the time I was quoting Julius Caesar on someone’s white board. I appreciated the compliment, but thought, “I am quoting Shakespeare, though. Maybe I should have spelled it the British way!” This was quite a conundrum, and I finally resolved to stop writing random quotes from Julius Caesar on friends’ whiteboards in the middle of the night.)
One more tiny thing. As often happens in D.C. super hero movies, Bruce Wayne looks and sounds exactly like Batman. How in the world do people not realize they are the same person? The growl Bale did may have been over the top, but at least it disguised his voice! To be fair, though, many of us were originally asking, “How in the world could Robert Pattinson possibly be Batman?” Maybe they can’t believe it in Gotham City either!
Overall:
The Batman is a good movie. Watching it was fun even though we bought tickets uncharacteristically late and had to sit in the front row. (I prefer to buy early and sit in the very back where there’s no one behind us to cough or breathe, but at least this way, we didn’t have to climb forty-five flights of stairs.) I do have slight crick in my neck after three hours of slouching and twisting, but it was all worth it. If you like Batman at all, you should see The Batman for sure. It’s worth a trip to the theater.