The Batman
I went to the theater yesterday to see this fuckin’ BEAST. Let me give a little context before I continue with the review.
Before the trailers, the reviews, the absolutely bonkers marketing, I was immediately drawn in by the reveal of Paul Dano as the riddler, my favorite actor ever, I started to get excited. Then Robert Pattinson got involved. That’s two of my favorite actors working today! In one movie! Then the runtime, and more of the cast got revealed, and the press run. Needless to say this was the most excited I’ve been for a movie in a VERY long time…
and it did not disappoint.
Not only do I want this to open more comic book films to the idea of mature themes and more intelligent writing, but I hope this shakes the industry as a whole.
Let’s start off with the pacing and tone, this film nails it on the head without feeling like TOO much. It escalates at such a natural speed that the three hour runtime felt like a breeze. The mystery was genuinely engaging and I could not take my eyes off the screen for a microsecond.
It feels so cliche to call a dark superhero movie “refreshing” but this really did feel like something I haven’t seen before. I think it feels refreshing because it isn’t using a mature tone to deconstruct anything about superhero films, we’ve gotten that before, to the point where it’s almost expected. This is dark in service of the story.
Back to the cast, everyone here is a killer, especially Paul Dano, who walks the fine line between a geek with too much time on his hands and a destructive, brutal, electrically terrifying serial killer. Colin Farrell was unrecognizable as the penguin, Jeffery Wright played Gordan with an understated grizzle that fits perfectly snug into the rest of the film.
The plot was constantly moving in ways that seemed to reinvent the context of everything leading up to that point, which is insanity, even at three hours long it still feels so tight.
The cinematography is the best I’ve seen in not only a comic book movie, but consistently had me impressed. I love how it uses focus to almost cover up the really intense/rated R content, not only can I imagine it helping this film get a PG-13 rating, but felt way more effective then just showing what’s happening, the imagination is a scary place, and this film understands that to a TEE.
Speaking of which, I am honestly surprised at how scary some of this was, lot of the stuff involving the Riddler felt so numbingly brutal, I am still shocked with how much they got away with.
The sound design is crisp, the score amplified every emotion, I just wanted to scream in the middle of the theater I was so excited.
One of the ~many~ problems I have with the Dark Knight Trilogy is the lack of emotion, I would rarely feel that these characters could really feel what they were supposed to be feeling, you can chalk that up to Christopher Nolan’s directing. To me, those films are emotionally barren. That’s not the case with this interpretation. Batman messes up, he misses hints, he gets beaten mercilessly, he feels imperfect, and that is one of the many reasons Robert Pattinson’s performance works so well, he plays a disturbed, young loner, even when he’s Bruce Wayne.
I can forgive the lack of duality between Bruce Wayne and Batman, only because it takes place way before he’s perfected the craft of “billionaire by day vigilante by night”, in fact, that makes his character MORE interesting, it shows that the Batman persona came before the smug, arrogant billionaire that is Bruce Wayne.
I applaude this film for making it really feel like Batman is in the early stages of crime fighting.
Vote with your wallets people! Go see The Batman! Definitely my new favorite of the franchise, and is shaping up to be my favorite comic book movie ever.