The Batman

Outside of the raimi trilogy, this is as good as superhero movies get. Not coincidentally, this is also as good as a superhero movie has ever looked, and it is by far the best Batman movie. I know, people love the dark knight, but it just doesn’t work for me anymore outside of ledger and some cool shots. I think the obsession with grounding that movie in reality kind of hurt it. We get scenes explaining how armor works, where he gets his gadgets, and we never see Batman fight in a cool way cause that would be unrealistic. Gotham is just Chicago there. This movie, though , is more gritty than grounded. I’ve heard people say it’s also very grounded like the Nolan movies, but this is a movie where Batman just had magic armor and can get shot with a shotgun and machine guns and just tank them. He does super kung fu and acrobatics. Gotham feels gothic and it’s always grimey and raining. The lighting and use of color in this film is fantastic. The visual language is so strong. When Batman has the flare, and is helping people, that’s pure Cinema. The journey to get there is excellent as well. Largely because this movie is a critique of the darker takes on Batman, and the general ideology of lone wolf masculinity. The whole movie is Batman failing over and over. He does not save a single person for over 2 hours despite his efforts. He never solves a clue in time or completely. He talks down to Selina and has to learn empathy. Even the villain of the movie loves him, because he thinks they share the same ideology because this Batman has done nothing but inspire fear and act on vengeance. But this makes the climax all the more powerful when he learns to bring people hope. We see him throughout the movie seeing a child who has watched his parents die, just like him, and he clearly sees himself in the kid. He wants to do something. But he doesn’t , because that’s not who is , until finally at the end of the movie he helps a scared child out of the darkness and into the light and Jesus that is what the whole journey was about. The writing for Alfred sucks, but other than that, a near perfect, thoughtful, Batman movie. It is a national tragedy that matt reeves is taking so long with the sequel.