the batman movie review guardian

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Matt Reeves ’ “The Batman” isn’t a superhero movie. Not really. All the trappings are there: the Batmobile, the rugged suit, the gadgets courtesy of trusty butler Alfred. And of course, at the center, is the Caped Crusader himself: brooding, tormented, seeking his own brand of nighttime justice in a Gotham City that’s spiraling into squalor and decay.

But in Reeves’ confident hands, everything is breathtakingly alive and new. As director and co-writer, he’s taken what might seem like a familiar tale and made it epic, even operatic. His “ Batman ” is more akin to a gritty, ‘70s crime drama than a soaring and transporting blockbuster. With its kinetic, unpredictable action, it calls to mind films like “ The Warriors ” as well as one of the greatest of them all in the genre, “ The French Connection .” And with a series of high-profile murders driving the plot, it sometimes feels as if the Zodiac killer is terrorizing the citizens of Gotham.

And yet, despite these touchstones, this is unmistakably a Matt Reeves film. He accomplishes here what he did with his gripping entries in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise: created an electrifying, entertaining spectacle, but one that’s grounded in real, emotional stakes. This is a Batman movie that’s aware of its own place within pop culture, but not in winking, meta fashion; rather, it acknowledges the comic book character’s lore, only to examine it and reinvent it in a way that’s both substantial and daring. The script from Reeves and Peter Craig forces this hero to question his history as well as confront his purpose, and in doing so, creates an opening for us as viewers to challenge the narratives we cling to in our own lives.

And with Robert Pattinson taking over the role of Bruce Wayne, we have an actor who’s not just prepared but hungry to explore this figure’s weird, dark instincts. This is not the dashing heir to a fortune prowling about, kicking ass in a cool costume. This is Travis Bickle in the Batsuit, detached and disillusioned. He’s two years into his tenure as Batman, tracking criminals from on high in Wayne Tower—an inspired switch from the usual sprawl of Wayne Manor, suggesting an even greater isolation from society. “They think I’m hiding in the shadows,” he intones in an opening voiceover. “But I am the shadows.” In the harsh light of day, Pattinson gives us hungover indie rock star vibes. But at night, you can see the rush he gets from swooping in and executing his version of vengeance, even beneath the tactical gear and eye black.

As he’s shown in pretty much every role he's taken since “Twilight” made him a global superstar in 2008, working with singular auteurs from David Cronenberg to Claire Denis to the Safdie brothers, Pattinson is at his best when he’s playing characters who make you uncomfortable. Even more than Christian Bale in the role, Pattinson is so skilled at making his beautiful, angular features seem unsettling. So when he first spies on the impossibly sexy Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, slinking into her leather motorcycle gear and shimmying down the fire escape in her own pursuit of nocturnal justice, there’s an unmistakable flicker of a charge in his eyes: Ooh. She’s a freak like me.

Pattinson and Kravitz have insane chemistry with each other. She is his match, physically and emotionally, every step of the way. This is no flirty, purring Catwoman: She’s a fighter and a survivor with a loyal heart and a strong sense of what’s right. Following her lead role in Steven Soderbergh ’s high-tech thriller “Kimi,” Kravitz continues to reveal a fierce charisma and quiet strength.

She’s part of a murderer’s row of supporting performers, all of whom get meaty roles to play. Jeffrey Wright is the rare voice of idealism and decency as the eventual Commissioner Gordon. John Turturro is low-key chilling as crime boss Carmine Falcone. Andy Serkis —Caesar in Reeves’ “Apes” movies—brings a paternal wisdom and warmth as Alfred. Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable as the sleazy, villainous Oswald Cobblepot, better known as The Penguin. And Paul Dano is flat-out terrifying as The Riddler, whose own drive for vengeance provides the story’s spine. He goes to extremes here in a way that’s reminiscent of his startling work in “ There Will Be Blood .” His derangement is so intense, you may find yourself unexpectedly laughing just to break the tension he creates. But there’s nothing amusing about his portrayal; Dano makes you feel as if you’re watching a man who’s truly, deeply disturbed.

This is not to say that “The Batman” is a downer; far from it. Despite the overlong running time of nearly three hours, this is a film that’s consistently viscerally gripping. The coolest Batmobile yet—a muscular vehicle that’s straight out of “ Mad Max: Fury Road ”—figures prominently in one of the movie’s most heart-pounding sequences. It’s an elaborate car chase and chain-reaction crash ending with an upside-down shot of fiery fury that literally had me applauding during my screening. During a fight at a thumping night club, punctuated by pulsating red lights, you can feel every punch and kick. (That’s one of the more compelling elements of seeing this superhero in his early days: He isn’t invincible.) And a shootout in a pitch-black hallway, illuminated only by the blasts of shotgun fire, is both harrowing and dazzling. Greatly magnifying the power of scenes like these is the score from veteran composer Michael Giacchino . Best known for his Pixar movie music, he does something totally different with “The Batman”: percussive and horn-heavy, it is massive and demanding, and you will feel it deep in your core.

Working with artists and craftspeople operating at the top of their game, Reeves has made a movie that manages to be ethereal yet weighty at the same time, substantial yet impressionistic. Cinematographer Greig Fraser pulls off the same sort of stunning magic trick he did with his Oscar-nominated work in Denis Villeneuve ’s “Dune”: Through pouring rain and neon lights, there’s both a gauziness and a heft to his imagery. His use of shadow and silhouette is masterful, and does so much to convey a sense of foreboding and tension. I could write an entire, separate essay on the film’s many uses of the color red to suggest energy, danger, even hope. And the costume design from the great Jacqueline Durran —with Dave Crossman and Glyn Dillon designing Pattinson’s rough-and-tumble Batsuit—put just the right finishing touch on the film’s cool, edgy vibe.

This is the most beautiful Batman movie you’ve ever seen—even if it’s not really a Batman movie at all.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Io Capitano

Love Lies Bleeding

Brian tallerico.

God Save Texas

Matt zoller seitz.

Outlaw Posse

Peter sobczynski.

Golden Years

Clint worthington.

Dad & Step-Dad

Carlos aguilar, film credits.

The Batman (2022)

Rated PG-13 for strong violent and disturbing content, drug content, strong language, and some suggestive material.

176 minutes

Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne / Batman

Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle

Paul Dano as The Riddler

Jeffrey Wright as Lt. James Gordon

John Turturro as Carmine Falcone

Peter Sarsgaard as District Attorney Gil Colson

Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth

Colin Farrell as Oz / The Penguin

• Matt Reeves

Writer (Batman created by)

• Bill Finger
• Peter Craig

Cinematographer

• Greig Fraser

Costume Designer

• Jacqueline Durran
• William Hoy
• Tyler Nelson
• Michael Giacchino

Latest blog posts

Beyoncé and My Daughter Love Country Music

A Poet of an Actor: Louis Gossett, Jr. (1936-2024)

Why I Love Ebertfest: A Movie Lover's Dream

Adam Wingard Focuses on the Monsters

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Pop Culture Happy Hour

• Performing Arts
• Pop Culture

In back-to-basics 'The Batman,' Robert Pattinson shines in the darkness

Glen Weldon

Even in a cowl that blocks his peripheral vision, The Batman (Robert Pattinson) can still serve side-eye. Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros. hide caption

Even in a cowl that blocks his peripheral vision, The Batman (Robert Pattinson) can still serve side-eye.

Let's get this out of the way at the top.

No, you don't see Thomas and Martha Wayne die.

You heard that right: Mercifully, in Hollywood's latest effort to begin Batman yet again, director and co-writer Matt Reeves skips the venerable, too-oft-told origin story.

No pearls. No popcorn. No alley. No mugger. I come before you today to make it known: Our long bational nightmare is over.

Be honest: If I hadn't told you this, you'd have spent the entirety of The Batman 's two-hours-and-fifty-five-minute running-time (!) crouched defensively in your theater seat, hovering in a constant state of low-level dread, waiting for those damn pearls to start hitting the pavement yet again. Well, I'm here to tell you: They don't.

(There's a part of me convinced that we wouldn't have arrived at this welcome, long-overdue cultural milestone if it weren't for one very dumb, very dark, and very good blink-and-you-miss-it joke in the underrated gem of film called Teen Titans Go! To the Movies back in 2018. The part of me in question is my inflated ego, because I predicted the joke would have that effect , back then.)

We love the Oscars – but we need to talk about those awards ceremony changes

Setting the scene (in gotham).

Smartly, The Batman begins in media-property res, as it were, establishing that wealthy scion-of-the-city Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has been strapping on a bulky bulletproof batsuit for two years, spending his nights clomping around rooftops and delivering beatdowns to street gangs and robbers and their ilk. (The film's Foley artists really earn their keep; the Caped Crusader's every footfall resounds like thunder, and every time he turns his head we hear the squeak of worn leather.) He's already found an ally in not-yet-Commissioner Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), and his butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) has more or less gotten used to Bruce's Chiroptera -themed war on crime.

Even so, he's carrying a lot on his shoulders, over and above all that Kevlar. There's a serial killer (Paul Dano's Riddler) targeting some of Gotham's most prominent citizens and leaving clues for Batman at his crime scenes. There's a cocktail waitress who's gone missing and her friend Selina (Zoe Kravitz) is prepared to slap on a cat-eared beanie and deal with the mobsters who took her. Selina's boss, the Penguin (Colin Farrell, buried under mounds of prosthetics) may or may not be mixed up with all that, and is definitely mixed up with Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).

Reeves and his co-writer Peter Craig have settled upon a back-to-basics approach to Batman and his world. Where Tim Burton went goth, Joel Schumacher went swoonily over-the-top, and Christopher Nolan strove for a kind of stoic, masc, gunmetal-gray realism, Reeves' The Batman seems less hung up on stylistic flourishes that betoken his particular directorial perspective and more concerned with combining disparate, pre-existing elements of Batman lore in novel ways.

In the thriller 'Severance,' Adam Scott's humanity hangs in the (work-life) balance

That, of course, is the job, with respect to a franchise like Batman. He's been around for 83 years, and spent most of that time cycling through the same rogues gallery. Over the years, some creators have found success adding the occasional new villain to the mix, but it remains a rare occurrence.

That might have something to do with how simply and effectively Batman's extant, O.G. foes manage to highlight the different facets of his character. Historically, a given story's villain pulls Batman into a distinct and recognizable genre. A Joker story? Psychological thriller. Catwoman? Noir. Penguin? Mob story. Scarecrow? Horror. Riddler? Mystery.

Nerds like me, who value the semiotic tidiness of all this, may quibble with the film's Riddler, whose methods and motivations Reeves seems determined to simultaneously Jokerize, and Baneify, and Ra's al Ghulicate.

Let me be clear: Most moviegoers won't care about keeping Batman's villains true to their historical essences — to them, it'll sound like I'm whining about having my peas touching my mashed potatoes. But the fact remains that it's tough to get a bead on Dano's interpretation of the character, even after his mask comes off. That may be intentional, but it's not particularly satisfying.

This Batman is back-to-basics

Reeves doesn't seem interested in offering us a singular, discrete and distinctly Reevesian cinematic Batman. Instead, what he's accomplished is something that looks and feels more akin to the kind of Batman story you could pick up in a comic book shop today than any previous Batman film has managed to achieve.

Or, more specifically, a multi-issue Batman story arc, because that nearly three-hour running time lends the film a distinctly unhurried, deconstructed sense of storytelling. So many characters gets introduced in the first hour that when the film's various plotlines begin to complicate, they don't so much deftly intersect as slam headlong into each other. The story's big reveals aren't permitted to stick around very long before getting summarily reversed or minimized, so they tend to land without much much of an impact. Connections between characters grow muddier just when they're meant to become clear.

Along the way, the fans get duly serviced: Wright's Jim Gordon does his narrative duty as Officer Exposition, reading Riddler's clues aloud to Batman like a kindergarten teacher at Story Time. Kravitz's Catwoman flirts and fights and must be dissuaded from choosing violence. Farrell's Penguin is ... is basically Robert De Niro's Al Capone, really.

Production designer James Chinlund's Gotham is filled with capital-G Gothic elements, but though the city's architecture sends plenty of buttresses flying hither and yon, it feels lived-in and functional, unlike the Gothams of Burton and Schumacher, which never stopped looking like the painstakingly designed movie sets they were.

'The Worst Person In The World' is an achingly precise portrait of young adulthood

Robert pattinson's batman puts the emo in emote.

But it's Pattinson who makes the film what it is. It's not surprising that he can brood — he made his bones in the Twilight franchise, where he spent much of his screentime glittering and sulking. But since then, he's made a series of bold choices in idiosyncratic films; on paper, his taking up the Bat-cowl might seem like a step backwards.

But Pattinson's Bruce/Batman is a searching, wounded, haunted soul with a My Chemical Romance haircut. The black makeup he smudges across his eyelids before donning the mask feels less like a costume choice and more like an extension of his truest, most emo self. Pattinson's jawline is sharp enough to slice Manchego, and this iteration of the Batman costume has been designed to highlight that fact — in close-up, he looks like a lovingly rendered illustration.

As the tenth actor to wear the Batman costume in movies (yes, I'm counting the two dudes who did the '40s movie serials), he tackles the role's signature limitation — the way it strips its performer of access to facial expressions — with aplomb. There's a scene later in the film that calls for Batman to seem impassive to the person he's speaking to, but it's necessary for all of us in the audience to register that in truth he's freaking the hell out. In close-up, Pattinson's eyes glisten, his taciturn mouth ever-so-slightly tightens. He sells that moment, and others like it.

As a result of this expressive vulnerability, Pattinson's Batman is unique in following a clear narrative and emotional arc over the course of the film. Whereas Christian Bale's Batman, for example, was bellowing "SWEAR TO ME" from the jump, Pattinson's starts the film whispering his every utterance: The ASMR Crusader. But as he's confronted by a series of revelations about Gotham and his family's connections to it, his anger waxes and wanes; he begins to question himself and his methods. By the time the credits roll, he's not the same Batman he was when the film began — his motivation has changed, and Pattinson ensures that we can see that change, in every frame. He holds himself differently. He's more centered, more assured. He's grown up.

Could it all have taken place in less time? Does every one of the film's 175 minutes justify its existence? If it were just 20 minutes shorter, might some of those needlessly complicated plotline pile-ups have been avoided? These are legitimate questions that I started grappling with the moment the lights came up.

But while Matt Reeves' The Batman was unspooling before me, I didn't check my phone, didn't think about the passing of time. No, the film isn't a Nolanesque game-changer, nor does it manage to step out of the long shadow of previous Bat-films to do anything so grand as define Batman for a new generation. And that's fine; it doesn't seem much interested in doing so.

What it does do, quite effectively, is tell a solid Batman story, with the most soulful and vulnerable Batman to ever grace the big screen. And that much, at least, is new.

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Betting Sites
• Online Casinos
• Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

The Batman review: Robert Pattinson goes emo in Matt Reeves’ detective noir

Matt reeves’s take on the caped crusader may not be a genre-defining miracle, but it delivers a tapered-down, intimate portrait, while zoe kravitz’s catwoman brings an almost-extinct sensuality to the role, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

Dir: Matt Reeves. Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell. 15, 176 minutes

In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and Batman. The Caped Crusader has been a cultural constant since his inception in 1939, acclimatising himself to the days of Sixties kitsch or post-9/11 cynicism, and now reintroducing himself through Robert Pattinson before his current iteration has even taken a final bow (Ben Affleck’s final appearance in the role is set for this year’s The Flash ).

Joel Schumacher gave Val Kilmer and George Clooney nippled batsuits in the Nineties, Christopher Nolan’s trilogy gave him a philosophy, Zack Snyder gave him the urge to kill in 2016’s Batman v Superman . We’ve had platter after platter of Batmen served up with the promise that this, now this, will be the only Batman we ever need.

And here we are again, on another spin around DC Comics’s chiropteran merry-go-round. Matt Reeves is now in the driver’s seat, having successfully transformed the Planet of the Apes franchise into the stuff of modern epic. He’s spent much of The Batman ’s press tour spouting comparisons to the American new wave of the Seventies and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver – exactly as Todd Phillips did while promoting the now double Oscar winner Joker . But is this not just a little bit exhausting? Is it not perilous, too, for the hype machine to constantly insist that every new comic-book film is a radical, genre-defining miracle?

The Batman is a very good Batman film. To think of it as anything more only leads to delusion or disappointment. It also undermines the more subtle work at play in Reeves’s film, which remains faithful to the character’s core iconography – bat ears, elaborate gadgets, encroaching darkness – while simultaneously interrogating its usefulness. Comparatively, it’s pitched somewhere between Christopher Nolan and Tim Burton – with one foot in our reality, and the other planted in a Gothic noir aesthetic derived partially from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One comics.

Perhaps that’s where you’d place our new Batman, Pattinson, too – though his performance hasn’t been this tapered down since his Twilight days, stripped of the exhilarating chaos that infects his acting in Good Time or The Lighthouse . I can’t blame him. Anything outside the register of growly and monotone would be considered mutiny by fans, so it’s to be expected that he sounds almost exactly like Christian Bale did in Nolan’s widely admired Dark Knight trilogy of the early Noughties.

The curtain fringe Pattinson sports as Bruce Wayne, the man behind the cowl, at least allows us to differentiate his Batman as the “emo Batman”. And it swings magnificently when Bruce snaps at his butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) and tells him: “You’re not my father.”

• Jeffrey Wright: ‘Acting? It’s just silliness’
• Amnesia, pet grooming, and Sarah Michelle Gellar: Unearthing the gonzo Catwoman movies that never were
• ‘The duel of the freaks’: What today’s superhero movies could learn from Tim Burton’s Batman

But Reeves isn’t here to bore us with another origin story of dead parents and pearls scattered across a Gotham back alley. Finally, we’ve been delivered “the world’s greatest detective”, as the comics like to call him, in flesh and blood. Reeves hasn’t been shy about the fact that Paul Dano’s Riddler, one of Batman’s closest adversaries, is modelled directly on the real-life Zodiac Killer, who terrorised California in the Sixties and became the subject of one of David Fincher’s best films.

This Riddler slaughters the city’s officials while taunting the police with ciphers, badly lit videos shot in portrait mode, and, to justify the name, riddles. Reeves clearly saw Dano’s performance as a suspected child abductor in Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (2013) and said, “Yes, thank you, more of that.” No offence to Dano, but he does make an excellent serial killer, all twitchy and meek with a dark desperation.

Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

Reeves’s script, co-written with Peter Craig, delves into homage in a way that’s both broader and more effective than Joker ’s Scorsese fest. The streets of Gotham are slicked with the same kind of acid rain that pounded down on Blade Runner ’s futuristic LA; John Turturro, as crime boss Carmine Falcone, seems barely cognisant that he’s in a comic-book movie. Colin Farrell is so unrecognisable as the Penguin, hidden under layers of latex and a glutinous mob accent, that you do start to wonder why they didn’t just hire a guy who… looks like that. There are a hundred character actors who can do the mob thing in their sleep, after all.

Zoe Kravitz and Robert Pattinson in ‘The Batman’

Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman, meanwhile, is both reduced to the trope of film noir broad and elevated by it. She has a tendency to overstate the fact that she can “take care of herself” while also conveniently becoming quite helpless whenever Batman’s around – but Kravitz delivers the role with slinky, milk-sipping elegance, her every entrance telegraphed by the meow of Michael Giacchino’s strings. She brings a sensuality that feels otherwise extinct from the comic-book genre.

This is a Batman that, in many ways, feels more intimate than what we’re used to. Reeves’s version of a car chase is captured, not with cranes and helicopters, but with a claustrophobic POV pinned to the front wheels or the driver’s face, exquisitely and provocatively framed by cinematographer Greig Fraser. We see a Batman of the shadows, whose entrances are signalled only by the ominous tolling of the score or the clomp of his boots, but who also falls hard and will limp away, defeated.

Nolan’s trilogy, at times, seemed uncertain about how its rebuke of authoritarianism could sit side by side with a Batman heralded as the benevolent capitalist. Reeves’s Batman makes more sense: he’s a reclusive, traumatised man treated as a freak by the rest of society. And there’s a startling twist hidden within the folds of this noir narrative, one that rightfully probes the individualist politics of the vigilante figure.

The Batman didn’t need nearly three hours to tell what is, at heart, the relatively simple story of its hero’s moral awakening, but it’s a feat in itself that the film has its own voice and perspective, instead of coming across like the Frankensteined creation of every Bruce Wayne that came before. Should it follow through on its final-reel promise of a sequel? The Batman has risen – but it might be pushing its luck if it decides to return.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

The Batman: Here's what the critics are saying

The Dark Knight rides again...

The Batman hits theaters on Friday (March 4), but the embargo for critics to hold their reviews has lifted and the reactions are in. 

The film sees Robert Pattinson make his debut in the cowl of Batman, with Zoë Kravitz playing Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman, Colin Farrell portraying The Penguin, and Paul Dano playing The Riddler. 

As well as this, Andy Serkis has the role of Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright is Commissioner Gordon, John Turturro plays crime boss Carmine Falcone, and Peter Sarsgaard is Gil Colson, Gotham's district attorney. 

Matt Reeves, best known for his work on Planet Of The Apes trilogy, is in the director's chair, working from a script he co-wrote with Bad Boys For Life writer Peter Craig. 

In Reeves' new take, we meet Pattinson's Bruce Wayne in his second year of fighting crime as Batman and uncovering systemic corruption in Gotham City, all the while on the hunt for the Riddler, a serial killer who's targeting Gotham's elite.

Batman has suffered mixed fortunes with critics in recent years. While Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy found itself topping many of end-of-year lists, the more recent efforts, especially 2016's Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, got an absolute pasting. 

So how does Pattinson's effort measure up? Well, it's certainly an improvement on Dawn Of Justice...

Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox

Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more from the TechRadar team.

What are critics saying about The Batman?

Mostly, they're pretty happy, but not exclusively. We're certainly not in Nolan territory here. 

The Hollywood Reporter' s David Rooney enjoyed it, though he had some reservations about the film's length and unrelenting darkness. Still, he praised the star, in particular, writing that "Pattinson is riveting throughout."

Empire's John Nugent liked it too, dishing out four stars, though he again was a little down on the running time, writing: "the knottiness of the plotting will leave you feeling that near-three-hour runtime, but it is never boring, the narrative propelled by a series of grisly conundrums through Gotham’s seedy underbelly."

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw was more sanguine, awarding the film three stars. He also praised Pattinson, but called the film's ending "tiresome and shark -jumping in the extreme,"

IndieWire liked it , with David Ehrling praising the film's daring and writing that it had succeeded in "...transforming the Bat-Signal into a beacon of hope rather than something to fear."

‘The Batman’ Review: The Future of Superhero Movies Is Finally Here, for Better or Worse https://t.co/ePk24XATqq pic.twitter.com/kVCNIEd7Ra February 28, 2022

Collider's Ross Bonaime was even happier, awarding the movie a B+ and writing that "Reeves has made the best Batman film since The Dark Knight".

The New York Post was less happy, their critic Johnny Oleksinski called the film "perfunctory", and dismissed it as "...the first caped crusader adventure in a while to come off as completely purposeless."

The Times also didn't like it, with Kevin Maher awarding just two stars and criticizing its overtly serious tone.

TechRadar's own Tom Power was a fan. He gave the film four-and-a-half stars and you can read his review here.

You'll all be able to judge for yourselves when the film is released into theaters on Friday (March 4).

Tom Goodwyn was formerly TechRadar's Senior Entertainment Editor. He's now a freelancer writing about TV shows, documentaries and movies across streaming services, theaters and beyond. Based in East London, he loves nothing more than spending all day in a movie theater, well, he did before he had two small children… 

Marvel's Thunderbolts movie rides out its creative storm as MCU film finally starts shooting

3 Body Problem's headset is not the VR we want – it's our worst nightmare

Huge backdoor discovered that could compromise SSH logins on Linux

Most Popular

By Alex Whitelock March 30, 2024

By David Nield March 30, 2024

By Wayne Williams March 30, 2024

By Rowan Davies March 30, 2024

By Hamish Hector March 30, 2024

By Marc McLaren March 30, 2024

By Cesar Cadenas March 29, 2024

By Sead Fadilpašić March 29, 2024

By Al Griffin March 29, 2024

• 2 256TB SSDs could land before 2026 with a surprisingly low price — but will most likely use a controversial and popular trick borrowed from tape technology
• 3 PC gaming handhelds should "feel like an Xbox" says Microsoft's Phil Spencer, but he's wrong – they could be something even better
• 4 I lived with Samsung’s S95D QD-OLED TV for a week, and it’s a game changer
• 5 Samsung can't blame Apple's iPhone monopoly for a lifetime of terrible software
• 2 iOS 18 might break the iPhone's iconic app grid, and it's a change no one asked for
• 3 The big Apple lawsuit explained: why Apple's getting sued and what it means for the iPhone
• 4 macOS isn’t perfect – but every day with Windows 11 makes me want to use my MacBook full-time
• 5 Microsoft has a potentially genius idea to make ray tracing work better even with lower-end GPUs

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Love Lies Bleeding Link to Love Lies Bleeding
• Problemista Link to Problemista
• Late Night with the Devil Link to Late Night with the Devil

New TV Tonight

• Mary & George: Season 1
• Star Trek: Discovery: Season 5
• Sugar: Season 1
• American Horror Story: Season 12
• Parish: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• Loot: Season 2
• Lopez vs Lopez: Season 2
• The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• Palm Royale: Season 1
• Invincible: Season 2
• Quiet on Set:The Dark Side of Kids TV: Season 1
• American Rust: Season 2
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Steve! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces Link to Steve! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Box Office 2024: Top 10 Movies of the Year

MonsterVerse Movies and Series Ranked: Godzilla, Kong, Monarch by Tomatometer

Women’s History

Awards Tour

The Rotten Tomatoes Channel: Watch on Samsung, Roku, And More

The Visibility Dilemma

• Trending on RT
• Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
• 3 Body Problem
• Play Movie Trivia

2022, Action/Adventure, 2h 56m

What to know

Critics Consensus

A grim, gritty, and gripping super-noir, The Batman ranks among the Dark Knight's bleakest -- and most thrillingly ambitious -- live-action outings. Read critic reviews

Audience Says

It's long, but The Batman looks and sounds great, and its grounded take on Gotham is a solid fit for this Caped Crusader. Read audience reviews

You might also like

Where to watch the batman.

Watch The Batman with a subscription on Max, Netflix, rent on Prime Video, or buy on Prime Video.

Rate And Review

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

The batman videos, the batman   photos.

Batman ventures into Gotham City's underworld when a sadistic killer leaves behind a trail of cryptic clues. As the evidence begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator's plans become clear, he must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued the metropolis.

Rating: PG-13 (Some Suggestive Material|Drug Content|Strong Disturbing Content|Strong Language|Strong Violent Content)

Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Matt Reeves

Producer: Dylan Clark , Matt Reeves

Writer: Matt Reeves , Peter Craig

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 4, 2022  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Apr 19, 2022

Box Office (Gross USA): $369.3M

Runtime: 2h 56m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Dylan Clark Productions, Warner Bros., 6th & Idaho Productions, DC Entertainment

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, SDDS

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

View the collection: Batman

Cast & Crew

Robert Pattinson

Bruce Wayne, The Batman

Zoë Kravitz

Selina Kyle

Jeffrey Wright

Lt. James Gordon

Colin Farrell

Oz, The Penguin

The Riddler

John Turturro

Carmine Falcone

Andy Serkis

Peter Sarsgaard

District Attorney Gil Colson

Barry Keoghan

Unseen Arkham Prisoner

Jayme Lawson

Gil Perez-Abraham

Officer Martinez

Peter McDonald

Con O'Neill

Chief Mackenzie Bock

Commissioner Pete Savage

Rupert Penry-Jones

Mayor Don Mitchell Jr.

Angela Yeoh

Forensic Photographer

Matt Reeves

Screenwriter

Peter Craig

Dylan Clark

Michael E. Uslan

Executive Producer

Walter Hamada

Chantal Nong

Simon Emanuel

Greig Fraser

Cinematographer

William Hoy

Film Editing

Tyler Nelson

Michael Giacchino

Original Music

James Chinlund

Production Design

Grant Armstrong

Art Director

Lee Sandales

Set Decoration

Jacqueline Durran

Costume Design

Cindy Tolan

News & Interviews for The Batman

The Best Superhero Movie of Each Year Since 1998

Your Full List of All Upcoming DC Movies – With Key Details

Oscar Winners 2023: Full List of the 95th Academy Awards Winners

Critic Reviews for The Batman

Audience reviews for the batman.

From the opening number introduction of it's titular character, with that booming bass and the dark shadows, I knew this film understood the Dark Knight on a level no other film before has and I was 100% on board. It starts out incredibly strong, and for the most part it holds that strength and tension throughout. And that's just it, it's a remarkably tense Batman film with more in common with something like Se7evn than any other Batman films, even down to the nitty gritty detective work and very dirty crime scenes. It's more a crime film than an action film, though the action is still sublime. It starts to wear out it's welcome just a smidge in the final act, but for a nearly 3 hour movie to only do that just a smidge is quite the achievement still. Even saying that, there's really nothing I'd take out. I loved it.

Batman has been a character that has received many, many big-screen adaptations. I've always loved the character and the story of Bruce Wayne, so I'll always flock out to see these stories. With that said, I still wasn't over the moon excited about this one, simply because of the current abundance of Batman right now; however, I was very happy to hear that it would be a story on its own, without a single connection to other franchises. Going in with that mindset felt like a breath of fresh air to me. I'm also happy to say that it's easily one of the best iterations of the character yet, even though there are aspects that kept me from completely loving it. Here's why The Batman should be seen in theatres.  Picking up two years after he has dawned the cape and cowl, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) is on the move with Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). Discovering that a serial killer by the name of The Riddler (Paul Dano) has been killing politicians around the city, all they have to go on is the clues and riddles he so elegantly leaves behind. It's like he wants to be caught but also wants to do everything to outsmart everyone. From family ties to surprising love interests, this three-hour epic superhero film has a lot happening.  Nearly always in the Batman costume for the entire runtime, this is the most on-screen Batman we've probably gotten in a film ever. With the solid addition of Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, the comradery/romance that sparks between Kravitz and Pattinson was incredibly electric. This wasn't a surprise to me though, because director Matt Reeves has proven that he's a real actors director. His work in the past has always impressed me and even though I don't think The Batman is quite as good as his Planet of the Apes films, it's damn close.  This may seem like a giant nitpick, but it's hard not to ignore. Nearly every character and storyline have been pursued in one way or another in other versions of Batman on-screen. I felt that that aspect actually made the film feel slower than it actually was. At three hours, I never found myself bored, but the slow pacing, on top of knowing a lot that was going to happen already made the film feel slightly off. Other than that though, this film is impeccably made. If you can get past the fact that this character has been told this way many times now, it really is a fantastic piece of filmmaking.  Overall, The Batman isn't the type of film that I will gush out of my mind about, because there are other great Batman movies out there that I believe are better. With that said, for what this film was trying to be, a detective noir story that just happens to be about the pantheon of Batman characters, it's great. Robert Pattinson was an absolute highlight as the character of Bruce Wayne. The character hasn't really been on-screen this way (visibly) before and I admired that the most. It was also far more realistic than any Batman film that has come before it. I can't wait for the subsequent films to come, because much like The Dark Knight was to Batman Begins, I believe Reeves can make a far superior sequel to this. The Batman is now playing in theatres and I think it's more than worth your time.

GRADE: A Finally it's here, one of my most anticipated films of 2022. Since day 1 I defended Pattinson's cast as Batman, he's one of the best actors of his generation and I was completely sure that he just needed one chance to shut up the haters. And we also had Matt Reeves directing the film, I love his work in Cloverfield, Let Me In and the Planet of the Apes franchise, the dude is one of the best mainstream directors working today. Now, The Batman is not only incredible, is one of the best Batman films of all the time. Matt Reeves made something brilliant with this film, he managed to made something darker than what Snyder did, only that he handled the story much better. The Batman is an action film, yes, but it feels more like a thriller-noir film with HUGE inspiration in some David Fincher's films like Zodiac and SE7EN. The tone is absolutely on point. Let's talk about Pattinson. He's so good as Batman/Bruce Wayne, he looks incredible in the suit and when he has the action scenes it truly feels that you're watching THE Batman, he is intimidating and someone who you really should be afraid of. He gives you that mix of begin a brutal force of justice but at the same time as someone who's disturbed and battles with multiple issues. Zoë Kravitz is also great on the film, she has a lot of chemistry with Pattinson and it also looks phenomenal in the action sequences. Paul Dano in the other hand, is fucking disturbing, it's a more realistic take on The Riddler, who's more like the Zodiac Killer, an intelligent and psychopath serial killer who always has a plan. But the one who steals the show is Colin Farrell, he is fucking unrecognizable as The Penguin, he completely disappears on both, the prosthetics and in his performance. It's not The Penguin that we all know, it's a more rookie criminal who waits for the opportunity and I can't wait to see him like the lord drug criminal that we are use to. On a technical level, it's incredible, it's one of the best Batman films ever produced. On one side, we have Greig Fraser, the cinematographer behind Dune, Rogue One, Zero Dark Thirty and more incredible films. His work is amazing, the film looks beautiful to look at and it shows the dark tone that the film has. And in the other hand, we have Michael Giacchino's score, it's absolutely fantastic, we have had a lot of amazing composers on Batman films across the years like Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Junkie XL and many more. Giacchino's score is haunting, epic and brilliant, it really gives the film it's own identity. Reeves's take on Batman is just great, he gives us a look into Batman's abilities as detective and fighting against Gotham's crimes. It's also quite possibly the best representation of Gotham City that I've ever seen on DC film. It show us a city completely filled with corruption and crime. My main problems with film is how long the third act feels, I wasn't a fan of what happens after a revelation of The Riddler. I understand why they did it but I feel that it was way to long and unnecessary. Another thing that I was annoyed was the lack of Alfred in the film, Serkis is SO good but we don't see him a lot as much as we saw Michael Caine on the Nolan Trilogy or even Jeremy Irons on BvS and the Snyder Cut. I wanted more of him interacting with Bruce but he is relegated in a very supporting role that I hope Reeves fix in the sequels. I really wanted to give this an A+ but I really felt that the third act in the Gotham Square Garden was something that I wasn't a fan about and I really felt that the ending was as strong as the beginning of the film. But overall, The Batman is one of the best takes on the superhero, with a LOT of potential to be better than the Nolan Trilogy. Robert Pattinson is an absolutely incredible Batman/Bruce Wayne, the whole cast is brilliant as well. It's technically a masterclass on filmmaking and a prove that Matt Reeves only makes masterpieces. Oh and the start of film is one of the best introductions in the history of the superhero genre, I was blown away of how brutal and epic was. One of the best films of 2022 and one of my favorite Batman films. Not better than The Dark Knight but... it really is the second best Batman film.

It's a good Batman movie, I don't think it's as bold or original as Nolan's films but it definitely accentuates crucial themes of the character. If I were to be critical I'd say the first couple of acts are a bit of a slog and a wasted opportunity to not establish more of this new Batman's definable traits and origins of his methodology. Also some of the closing scenes feel forced to service the narrative or for a real "cool shot". Overall the third and final acts are great though, once the story gets rolling and personal stakes come into light it's easy to feel invested. Also of course, the noir atmosphere and cinematography is all very in line with what I imagine Batman films should look like. Pattinson does a serviceable job, I think looking solemn and grunting lines in a stone cold manner isn't very demanding. Zoe Kravitz steals the show, she does a spot on Selina Kyle that's full of range. Finally it sets up future films naturally that gives me vibes of "Batman: No Mans Land", one of my favorite events from the comics!

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

‘The Batman’ Review: A Tortured Robert Pattinson Goes Even Darker Than ‘The Dark Knight’

'Cloverfield' director Matt Reeves brings a tough new vision to DC's most easily reimagined character, channeling elements of film noir and hard-R horror movies.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

• ‘Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in Two Pieces’ Review: A Sprawling Portrait Splits the Comedian’s Career, Saving the Payoff for the Second Half 6 days ago
• ‘Riddle of Fire’ Review: Weston Razooli’s Wilderness-Set Debut Feels Like Child’s Play, in a Good Way 1 week ago
• ‘The Idea of You’ Review: Only Anne Hathaway Could Look This Confident Dating One of Her Daughter’s Pop Idols 2 weeks ago

Where do you go after “The Dark Knight”? Ben Affleck blew it, and even Christopher Nolan, who brought unprecedented levels of realism and gravitas to that franchise-best Batman saga, couldn’t improve on what he’d created in his 2012 sequel. So what is “Cloverfield” director Matt Reeves ’ strategy? Answer: Go darker than “The Dark Knight,” deadlier than “No Time to Die” and longer than “Dune” with a serious-minded Batman stand-alone of his own. Leaning in to those elements doesn’t automatically mean audiences will embrace Reeves’ vision. But this grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes.

Sure, that’s been done before — “Who watches the Watchmen?” Alan Moore memorably asked, influencing decades of spandex-clad savior stories — though Reeves does something relatively unique here, at least by comic-book-movie standards: He strips the genre of its supernatural elements (even more than the Nolan trilogy did) and introduces a more complex version of a classic pulp hero who’s only a whisker’s breadth removed from the story’s bad guy, morally speaking. Whereas these movies are typically defined by their villains, “ The Batman ” gets under your skin by asking: What if the good guys aren’t really the good guys? What if the person we were counting on to protect us might actually be making the situation worse?

While Batman — who’s played here by gloomy “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson , representing the orphaned character’s tortured psychology to an almost painful degree — focuses on punching out petty thugs in shadowed alleys and on subway platforms, the Riddler (a genuinely disturbing Paul Dano ) emerges to expose/dispose of the white-collar scoundrels embedded at the highest levels of power. Both men are vigilantes, though one is preoccupied with helping the police, while the other targets the systemic corruption that undermines our faith in such institutions — in Gotham City, for sure, but off screen as well.

In ways far more unsettling than most audiences might expect, “The Batman” channels the fears and frustrations of our current political climate, presenting a meaty, full-course crime saga that blends elements of the classic gangster film with cutting-edge commentary about challenges facing the modern world. It’s a hugely ambitious undertaking and one that’s strong enough to work even without Batman’s presence, not that it would have any reason to exist without him. But by incorporating the character and so many of the franchise’s trademarks — Catwoman (a slinky Zoë Kravitz), the Penguin (Colin Farrell, all but unrecognizable), loyal butler Alfred (Andy Serkis, fully analog) and an epic car chase involving the latest iteration of the Batmobile — Reeves electrifies the dense, ultra-dark proceedings with an added level of excitement that justifies the film’s relatively demanding running time.

From the beginning, the director breaks from the stylistic influences of the genre, establishing a tone that almost never feels derivative of other comic book movies. That said, one could certainly point to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s killer serial “The Long Halloween” as a common thematic influence between this and “The Dark Knight.” That’s where crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) comes from, though practical action sequences hew closer to Korean films (like “Old Boy”) than Nolan’s nouveau-’70s style.

“NO MORE LIES,” reads the blood-red indictment scrawled across the face of the Riddler’s first victim, no less a figure than Gotham’s unsavory mayor (Rupert Penry-Jones). That’s just one of several grisly murders perpetrated by this maniacal avenger, who’s as twisted and self-righteous as that sicko from the “Saw” movies. Edward Nashton, aka the Riddler, wears greasy Coke-bottle glasses and what looks like a leather fetish hood (it turns out to be a winter combat mask), livestreaming his mind games on a message board for conspiracy crackpots. But here’s the twist: There really is a conspiracy among Gotham’s most powerful, one that traces back to the Wayne family, and it falls to Bruce to untangle it before it tears the city apart. Why him? The Riddler has drawn Batman in, leaving handmade cards loaded with ciphers and other puzzles at each of his crime scenes.

Part of the film‘s “reality” is to avoid calling comic-book characters by their traditional names. You no doubt noticed the “the” in the title of “The Batman” and asked yourself what it’s meant to signify. In using the definite article, Reeves isn’t necessarily trying to say that he’s created “the” definitive screen incarnation of the character. If anything, that tiny extra word casts an air of existential mystery around its masked and anonymous hero, who doesn’t even know what to call himself early on. When the imposing leader of a violent street gang taunts, “The hell are you supposed to be?” the bat-clad vigilante growls back, “I’m Vengeance.”

That’s how Bruce Wayne thinks of himself when we first meet this version of the character — no origin story, but rather, in medias res — two years into defending Gotham from the brink of anarchy. Ravaged by a major narcotics epidemic, courtesy of a street drug called “drops,” the city finds itself facing a level of disorder somewhere between a pre-Giuliani Manhattan and the final minutes of Todd Phillips’ “The Joker,” though the two films exist in different dimensions of the same Gotham multiverse. Reuniting with production designer James Chinlund (with whom he worked on the “Planet of the Apes” sequels), Reeves presents the most robust version of Gotham we’ve seen since Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.”

Clearly modeled on New York City, amplified through set extensions and stunning CGI, this seedy metropolis plunges us into the Big Apple’s rotten core: The midtown equivalent of Times Square is illuminated by even more giant digital screens, a black cluster of buildings looms where lower Manhattan would be, and you don’t want to go anywhere near the Madison Square Garden-like arena where the finale takes place. At times, Batman surveys the city from an upper floor of a half-built skyscraper. Otherwise, he zooms around at street level on his Batcycle, eventually upgrading to a souped-up muscle car (the unveiling of which is one of the film’s big thrills).

Except for hidden-camera contact lenses, his technology is mostly realistic, and unless one counts a rooftop BASE jump, he can’t fly. Unlike so many DC comic book heroes, Batman is neither a god nor an alien; he has no fantastical abilities. Bruce Wayne’s superpower is his billion-dollar fortune, but the guy behind the mask breaks and bleeds just like anybody else — a point Reeves reminds us of with a shot of Pattinson’s bare back, covered in scars. Rather than leaning on a theme, Michael Giacchino’s score surprises, ranging from tense tribal drums to Nirvana to opera, while editors William Hoy and Tyler Nelson avoid obvious angles, leaving quiet spaces for audiences to process (and question) what’s happening.

As the Batman or Vengeance or whatever he’s called, Pattinson is the most sullen of the actors to have played the character, which reads as a kind of daredevil nihilism whenever he’s in costume: He doesn’t seem fearless so much as ambivalent about whether he lives or dies. Once the cowl comes off, however, Pattinson’s interpretation gets more intriguing: Brooding and withdrawn, he’s a damaged loner with unresolved daddy issues, saddled with all kinds of complicated emotional trauma. It’s tough to see a hero hurting so much, and yet, his troubled past informs every relationship, including the one with a lunatic who counts Bruce Wayne among his targets.

The Riddler’s schemes are genuinely scary, far more than seems reasonable for a PG-13-rated movie (like the remote-controlled exploding collar clamped on Peter Sarsgaard’s drugged-out district attorney, Gil Colson). The idea here is that some of Gotham’s top-ranking officials — plus cat burglar-cum-cocktail waitress Selina Kyle (Kravitz) — are somehow mixed up with Falcone, and the Riddler has taken it upon himself to purge the system of such elements. The “Chinatown”-intricate specifics of just how intertwined city government is with organized crime can make your head spin, though Reeves lays it out relatively elegantly, such that audiences can follow the many twists of Batman’s investigation.

This is first and foremost a detective story, unsentimental as they come — one half-expects Gwyneth Paltrow’s head to show up in a box at some point — and though the authorities take the Riddler into custody well before the end, the movie’s most shocking stretch is still to come, just when Gotham seems ready to celebrate its next chapter. It’s hard to imagine how Reeves (who was shooting “The Batman” during the early days of the pandemic) could have anticipated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and yet, the signs must have been there all along, for the film’s chilling climax hinges on activating susceptible citizens to conduct a mass terrorist attack. In “The Dark Knight,” Heath Ledger’s anarchist Joker felt like he’d stepped right out of your nightmares, but there’s something even more intimidating about the way the Riddler operates. He literally triggers others to become vigilantes as well — and judging by the real-world copycats previous Batman movies inspired (such as the Aurora, Colo., shooting), that could have consequences.

A movie like this will inspire countless debates: Does “The Batman” really need to be this dark? Can it hold a candle to Nolan’s trilogy? There’s room enough for both to exist, and space for sequels to build on this foundation, which assumes a certain familiarity with the character’s mythology. That’s the beauty of Batman, who transcends all the other heroes in the DC Comics stable: Like Dracula or Hamlet, this iconic antihero stands up to endless reinvention. Whether campy or pop, self-questioning or complicit, he tells us something new about ourselves every time he steps out of the shadows.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, Feb. 17, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 176 MIN.

• Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation of a 6th & Idaho, Dylan Clark Prods. production. Producers: Dylan Clark, Matt Reeves. Executive producers: Michael E. Uslan, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo, Simon Emanuel.
• Crew: Director: Matt Reeves. Screenplay: Matt Reeves & Peter Craig; Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, based on characters from DC. Camera: Greig Fraser. Editors: William Hoy, Tyler Nelson. Music: Michael Giacchino. Music supervisor: George Drakoulias.
• With: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson.

More From Our Brands

On fiji’s vomo island, warm vibes precede a slice of local life (and luxury), heesen’s most powerful superyacht yet comes with a remote-controlled rescue buoy, unequal 3-point lines mar ncaa women’s elite eight, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, parish premiere: giancarlo esposito exorcises his demons for a story he ‘needed to tell’, verify it's you, please log in.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Kapow! Our writers pick their favorite Batman movie

To celebrate the release of The Batman, Guardian writers have written about their all-time favorite Caped Crusader films from Adam West to Ben Affleck

Batman (1966)

Of all the superheroes, DC Comics’ Batman is now endowed with the most Dostoyevskian seriousness. It wasn’t always like this. And, in my heart, my favourite Batman is the first movie version, from 1966, which grew out of the wacky TV show in the era of Get Smart and I Dream Of Jeannie and Mad magazine. As kids, we watched the program religiously on TV, which is where I caught up with the film about Batman and Robin taking on Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler – never dreaming that it was anything other than deadly serious. I watched it in the same spirit as I now watch Michael Mann films. I was thrilled by the (genuinely) propulsive and exciting “dinner-dinner-dinner-dinner” theme tune (how I resented the vulgar playground joke about what Batman’s mum shouts out of the window to get him in at mealtimes) and quivered at the brilliant, psychedelically conceived title-cards for fights: BAM! I also fanatically pored over the novelisation tie-in – Batman vs The Fearsome Foursome . The show-stopper was the famous, entertainingly tense sequence where Batman can’t find anywhere to dispose of a smoking bomb, something that surely inspired the later Zucker/Abrahams comedies. Adam West played the sonorous Bruce Wayne and Batman and Burt Ward was Robin (confusingly, his alter ego Dick Grayson was often described as Wayne’s “ward”). Their costumes, with luxuriant silk capes, were gorgeous. Brilliant acting talent lined up for the villains: Latin lover Cesar Romero was the Joker; veteran Hollywood character turn Burgess Meredith was Penguin, Lee Meriwether fused glamour and comedy as Catwoman (replacing TV’s Julie Newmar) and impressionist and night-club comic Frank Gorshin was Riddler. Much is said about the campiness of this show – and yes, there is a case for retrospectively re-interpreting this Batman and Robin as a covert queer statement. (In fact, it was Cesar Romero who kept the press guessing about his sexuality.) But in a way, it was more about goofiness as part of the Sixties Zeitgeist: being silly, even at this level, was countercultural seriousness. I suspect that every single Batman director, from Joel Schumacher to Christopher Nolan, measures their work against the addictive Day-Glo potency of the ’66 Batman. Pow! Peter Bradshaw

Batman (1989)

In the flood of frowningly serious superhero films that have emerged since, the true brilliance of Tim Burton’s then-revolutionary two Batfilms has become somewhat obscured, largely because of the silly Joel Schumacher follow-ups that demonstrated that the wrath of fanship was something Hollywood had to be careful of. But it’s totally worth another look: drinking deep of the gothic/deco vibe beloved of comic-book rebooter Frank Miller, Burton adds that distinctive combination of beautiful detailing and lurid trashiness that has marked out all his best work.

When I saw it back in the day, I remember thinking Michael Keaton was bit of a waste of space, but in retrospect his straight-arrow blandness works superbly off Jack Nicholson’s gurning and Kim Basinger’s sultriness. It’s worth remembering too, that this was the first major Batman feature since the Adam West one in 1966 – hilarious, but one Burton clearly wanted to put some distance from. Tonally, the whole thing is just great, it hits that sweet spot between flippant self-parody and unironic spectacle – most superhero films since have veered too close to either. No Batman film, in this writer’s opinion, has come close since. Andrew Pulver

Batman Returns

I yearn for the day that comic book movies can be sexy again, when a new Caped Crusader and Catwoman can exude just a fraction of the pheromones fogging up the screen in Batman Returns. The moonlight tussles between those iconic characters played by Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfieffer are an alluring and thorny mix of acrobatic choreography and S&M violence that simply would not fly today.

Batman Returns belongs to Pfeiffer, whose purrr-fect take on Catwoman, AKA Selina Kyle, as a feral woman scorned is unparalleled. And it’s not just because she makes people weak in the knees with her throaty delivery of “hear me roar.” Her origin story involves being demeaned at the office and then shoved out a window by her Trump-like boss Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), a bully with sexual menace in his eyes.

Pfieffer absorbs that trauma into her performance as a Catwoman who is at once vulnerable and dangerous, seductive and afraid, craving affection but brimming with anger. That complicated push-pull is even there in a steamy and thrilling fireside canoodle with Bruce Wayne, where she’s torn between giving her all and hiding her scars before the sex is interrupted. Radheyan Simonpillai

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Even as a cartoon, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’s got it all – gangster thrills, municipal corruption and the residual anguish of long lost love. Set in the 1940s, it follows our hero’s pursuit of the Phantasm, a seemingly supernatural angel of death who appears in Gotham equipped with a voice modulator and menacing scythe. As they snuff out the city’s mob bosses one by one, they frame Batman for the murders. The Caped Crusader, meanwhile, is haunted by his own memories from a decade earlier, when his broken engagement to the wealthy and beautiful Andrea Beaumont drove him to his current life of darkness.

As a spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series, arguably the greatest iteration of the franchise there ever was, Phantasm offers the same intricate plotlines that cemented the TV show’s greatness – Bruce Wayne was not just brooding, he was emotionally complex. Plus, the film’s got style; having emerged after the Day-Glo camp of the 1960s Batman and just before Joel Schumacher’s similarly kitschy universe, Phantasm marked a pendulum swing into a darker iteration, of an art deco Gotham filled with film noir shadows, and a cinematic score with the sweeping love scenes of a second world war epic. Phantasm is one of those rare childhood favorites that holds up into adulthood. Janelle Zara

Batman Forever

Gaudy, kaleidoscopic and winkingly homoerotic, the 90s-saturated Batman Forever is a growing addiction that I can’t deny, the light on the dark side of the Batman film franchise.

Consider the blockbuster’s cast: Val Kilmer, Nicole Kidman, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey and Chris O’Donnell, all at the height of their powers, with appearances by Drew Barrymore, George Wallace and members of En Vogue. Each embodies Forever’s more-is-more ethos: an orange-haired, jumpsuit-clad Carrey air-thrusts, mimics pitching a baseball, twirls a question-mark-shaped cane, and screams “Joygasm!” all while destroying the Batmobile ; Kilmer rasps, “Chicks love the car,” as an oversexed Kidman caresses his infamous nippled Batsuit ; and just about everything about Jones’s grunting and cackling Two-Face, from his fuchsia-colored scars to his puffing of two cigarettes , one lit via flamethrower, from each side of his mouth. Not to mention the chart-topping soundtrack featuring songs by ’90s mega acts U2, Method Man, Brandy, Massive Attack, the Offspring and the Flaming Lips – and led by Seal’s unforgettable Grammy-winning karaoke classic, Kiss From a Rose.

More than 26 years later, it’s safe to say Joel Schumacher’s first foray to Gotham will never be the cinematic classic that Tim Burton’s or Christopher Nolan’s takes on the tale have become. But in dark times, Batman Forever’s light hits the gloom on the gray. Lisa Wong Macabasco

Batman & Robin

Consider, for a moment, that a film beginning with snap zooms on its main characters’ taut tushes, proud codpieces and pert nipples may be in on its own joke. Those erroneously defaming Joel Schumacher’s camp classic as “bad” most likely subscribe to the confused notion that superhero movies are serious business, a belief estranged from the color, humor and roiling homoeroticism of old-school comics revived here.

Even if the Adam West TV show hadn’t provided us with a clear precedent for a sillier Batman, there’s still too much deliberate artistry at play to write off Schumacher’s choices as invalid: the stunning soundstage sets under exploded-rainbow lighting, the magnificent costume design splitting the difference between the Met Ball and a drag ball, the Marlene Dietrich gorilla-costume striptease that explains what Uma Thurman’s doing with her voice as Poison Ivy. Schumacher seized on the oft-denied truth that there’s a fundamental absurdity to encasing one’s self in spandex and fighting crime, his direction suggesting that donning the bat-suit still counts as playing dress-up. You don’t like Mr. Freeze’s unlimited supply of cold-themed puns delivered in the blunt-force howl of Arnold Schwarzenegger ? Fine, just have the decency to admit that that’s a you-issue, a matter of tastes rather than garden-variety incompetence. Charles Bramesco

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

The surprisingly rich 2000 animated adventure Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker stands apart thanks to its dark, character-driven mystery plot. Return of the Joker should, in that sense, work just as well with Bat-fans who are unfamiliar with Batman Beyond, a sci-fi spinoff of the acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series that takes place in the Gotham City of the future (2019!) and follows angsty teenager Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle) as he takes over the role of Batman from old man Bruce Wayne (Batman: The Animated Series’s Kevin Conroy).

In Return of the Joker, Terry takes on the Joker (Mark Hamill), whose reappearance, after decades of being presumed dead, reminds Bruce of a traumatic memory involving his kid sidekick Tim “Robin” Drake (Matthew Valencia) and Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon (Tara Strong), who replaced her father as Gotham’s police commissioner.

Fan-favorite screenwriter Paul Dini focuses on Terry and Bruce’s frustrated mentor/pupil relationship, as when Bruce confesses to Terry: “I had no right to force this life on you or anyone else.” And the great character actor Dean Stockwell complements the typically sharp ensemble voice cast as an adult Tim, now retired and seemingly happier for having escaped Bruce’s influence. Simon Abrams

• Batman Begins

Joel Schumacher’s lysergic, almost enjoyably appalling Batman & Robin – the Bat-movie least likely to appear elsewhere in this article – was both a blessing and a curse for Christopher Nolan. On the one hand, when the then-hotshot writer-director of sleeper hits Memento and Insomnia signed on to resurrect the franchise, Schumacher had set the bar so low that all Nolan had to do was make a film without Bat-nipples in it and it would be an improvement. On the other, Schumacher had taken any goodwill that somehow remained after Batman Forever, said “Ice to meet you,” and then flushed it down the toilet. An origin story for a superhero no one cared about any more? Why bother?

Nolan’s pitch to Warner Bros executives only lasted 15 minutes , which is indicative of the focused, brilliantly singular film it produced. Batman Begins did the impossible: answering the question “how does a billionaire playboy become a face-pummelling, chiroptera-stanning martial-artist vigilante” in a manner that’s logical, even believable, grounding Gotham City in general and Bruce Wayne in particular like no Bat-film before, shorn of the funereally frilly, wink-wink indulgences of Tim Burton or Schumacher’s neon plasticity. Christian Bale was perfectly cast (yes, even with the silly voice), the action was robust and moody, the story twisted and yawed until the final epic showdown, and it isn’t an overstuffed, three-hour delusion of grandeur like the two films that followed it. Everything about Batman Begins just works . This, more than any other, is the film R-Patz has to beat. Luke Holland

• The Dark Knight

It’s impossible to look back on Christopher Nolan’s glum 2008 sequel without an exhausted eye-roll, it being the superhero film that unfortunately inspired an unending glut of unbearably self-serious emo imitators. But it’s also impossible not to rewatch it without seeing exactly why it became so wildly influential, a sleek but punishing upgrade of what we had come to expect from a Batman movie.

Sure, Batman Begins had already introduced Nolan’s new, straight-faced universe, a world away from the codpiece camp of Joel Schumacher’s fun and flashy fripperies, but it was a flawed introduction, hemmed in by some slightly laborious world-building, an aggressively underwhelming lead villain and … Katie Holmes. The Dark Knight was freer, if still tightly controlled, and gave us both a better bad guy (in Heath Ledger’s terrifying Joker, an unpredictable and unbridled agent of pure chaos) and love interest (Maggie Gyllenhaal adding some texture to Bruce’s doomed childhood sweetheart Rachel). It was a shocking jolt at the time, and still remains so, staggering for how far Nolan was willing and able to take a film of this scale (without seemingly being micromanaged by studio execs), an unusually nihilistic PG-13 provocation that wrestled with weighty, unresolved issues but, unlike those that came after, did it without a heavy hand. Because importantly, nestled alongside the dour grisliness, was a string of dazzling, seat-clenching action set pieces, Nolan smartly playing to all seats. The poorly calibrated murk of the Snyderverse wouldn’t exist without it but The Dark Knight proves that it’s a price worth paying. Benjamin Lee

• The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises may well be the ugly sister of Nolan’s Batman trilogy – but for all its flaws it is hard to resist the ludicrous bombast on display, all accompanied by Hans Zimmer’s honking score. In truth it shares more in common with Adam West’s iteration of the Caped Crusader than the supposed “grounded” take that Christian Bale was embodying.

From the nonsensical plot of the villain – a neutron bomb used to hold Gotham island hostage for … reasons – to the absurdity of Tom Hardy’s Bane, with his barely audible mumbling behind his mask endlessly amusing; and the Scooby Doo reveal of the real big bad, Rises ditches the realism in favour of spectacle. And isn’t that what we want from our superhero films? Sure, the treatment of Catwoman isn’t ideal (goggles that flip up to look like cat ears, really?) and the ease with which Alfred abandons his charge is entirely out of character, but for every misstep there’s something to enjoy. The Broken Bat finally translated to the silver screen; Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow sending the rich to their deathly exile on the icy river from his kangaroo court; we even got Robin (sort of). And the coup de grace, in what was surely a tribute to the first Batman big screen outing in 1966 , we have the world’s greatest detective scrabbling to dispose of a nuke over the water that surrounds Gotham – and apparently dying in the process. Indeed, some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb. Toby Moses

• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

For geeks of a certain age, the definitive Batman graphic novel will always be The Dark Knight Returns, written and drawn by Frank Miller in 1986. And the closest thing we will ever get to a big-budget Hollywood adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns is not Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, or even The Dark Knight Rises. No, that honour goes to Zack Snyder’s dystopian Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice .

Admittedly, you have to do a little mental editing. You have to imagine that Jesse Eisenberg is playing the Joker rather than Lex Luthor, and that the alien zombie has been cut out altogether. But a good proportion of the film is pinched from Miller’s tale: the hefty, short-eared Batsuit design, the vicious Bats-versus-Supes punch-up, Alfred’s waspish wit and, most importantly, the obsessive, ruthless central character. For once, Batman actually resembles the towering tough guy in the comics. Well over six feet tall, Ben Affleck looks as if a) he could beat all of the other Bat-actors to a pulp, and b) he might even enjoy it. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy may have borrowed Miller’s title, but Batman v Superman is the only film to have a properly dark Dark Knight. Nicholas Barber

The Lego Batman Movie

Which Batman movie has the coolest gadgets, the greatest villains - Sauron, King Kong and Voldemort in a single episode! - and the most epic-scale Batcave of any film made about Gotham’s dark knight? Why, it’s The Lego Batman movie, a film that even manages to be the only decent big screen take on the caped crusader to feature Robin. Chris McKay’s movie was made in 2017, at a time when Batfleck was sporting the cape and cowl in live action, so it’s no surprise he’s something of a selfish, prideful jerk. Voiced by Will Arnett (who brilliantly borrows Christian Bale’s sandpaper-thick growl) this Batman loves heavy metal and rap music, and is more obsessed with his own independent self-image than he is with taking down the bad guys. Batfans may long for Gotham’s finest son to battle his rogue’s gallery in solo mode - the last time Robin and Batgirl got involved on the big screen did not exactly go well. But The Lego Batman Movie, in keeping with its kid-friendly aesthetic, ponders whether the dark knight can ever really be happy when he’s keeping all those victories to himself and cutting out those who get close to him. It’s a premise that’s ripe for comedy, but there’s also a keen-eyed understanding of the original DC superhero that will keep hardcore fans of the character happy, especially when it comes to Batman’s enduring love-hate relationship with Zach Galifianakis’s loathsome Joker. Ben Child

• Christopher Nolan
• Zack Snyder

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

'The Batman' review: Robert Pattinson leads a dark, nihilistic crime epic

A three hour runtime is no impediment to a batman film with plenty to say and show us..

What to Watch Verdict

'The Batman' fires on all cylinders and commits to its darkest impulses without losing sight of the light at the core of its protagonist.

Pattinson is an excellent Bruce Wayne

The nihilistic tone and grimy production design sell you on a corrupt Gotham

The action hits hard

The narrative pulls some punches when it should have leaned harder into nihilism

Paul Dano's Riddler is a little exaggerated for this film's tone

One really shouldn’t doubt Matt Reeve’s capabilities as a blockbuster filmmaker. Despite The Batman ’s initially off-putting runtime of nearly three hours , the director of Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has crafted another winning franchise entry, drawing inspiration from David Fincher crime films like Seven and Zodiac , and the long form detective intrigue of Batman comics like Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween . The Batman is a dark, surprisingly nihilistic interpretation of Gotham City and its caped defender, and while not without its share of self-inflicted wounds, it offers a vision of the Dark Knight that is more holistic and human than previous film interpretations.

Framed as a detective story, Batman (Robert Pattinson) is brought in by Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) to assist in the investigation of the mayor’s violent murder. The plot gradually develops into a sweeping examination of power, greed and corruption at the heart of Gotham City, showing an urban wasteland with a festering heart kept beating by powers hidden in the shadows. 

Reeve’s vision of Gotham is appropriately grimy and bloodstained — a sickly, cancerous metropolis where crime is on the rise. It's not simply because bad people decide to do bad things though, but because the economic climate is so hostile that might makes right as much in the streets as in the halls of power.

This is the setting in which Pattinson’s Batman reveals himself, walking steadily from the shadows with footsteps that thunder out in an ominous warning of vengeance. Fight choreography seems to take heavy influence from the Arkham video games, with an emphasis on Batman’s ability to manipulate multiple attackers at once and strike fear in their hearts with merely his presence.

However, Pattinson’s interpretation of the character is also sadder than previous Batmans , tortured by the traumas of his childhood in a way that makes the batsuit feel less like a calling and more like a penance. This plays into a character arc that's a rebuttal to the assertion Batman must be defined by his pain. Though the film is rather bleak at times, it’s also incredibly attuned to the humanity that drives its characters.

Foremost among the supporting cast is Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman ), who radiates honest-to-goodness sexual chemistry with Pattinson. Her vision of Catwoman is simply a gifted burglar who’s struggling to get by, driven to help The Bat’s investigation by common goals rather than altruistic intention. She’s a fascinating foil to Batman’s attempted personification of vengeance for vengeance’s sake.

The rest of the principal cast acquits themselves just as admirably, whether it’s Andy Serkis portraying butler Alfred as a guardian who loves Bruce Wayne but could never quite be the father he needed or John Turturro delivering a properly menacing turn as crime boss Carmine Falcone. Colin Farrell is an appropriately slimy and underhanded version of The Penguin, though the heavy use of prosthetics to realize the character feels like a casting misstep, no matter how well the effect looks in practice.

The only real weak point among the cast is Paul Dano’s serial killer take on The Riddler. His actions are a perfectly adequate impetus to push the plot into motion and upon first impression the character is suitably ruthless and disturbing. However, once the layers of Riddler’s persona are peeled away, the performance comes across as too tightly wound, too heightened for the grounded reality that The Batman finds itself in. To some extent this is clearly intentional, showcasing the instability that underlies the murderous intent, but Dano dials the gesticulations and vocal ticks so high at one point that it comes across as a cartoonish attempt at a Diet Joker.

In fact, the attempt to Joker-ify The Riddler speaks to some underlying issues with the film on a narrative level. Though the film does an admirable job balancing the darkness of its material with the accessibility of a PG-13 rating, there are times when it could dive deeper into the inherent cynicism of its premise. Instead, it backs away in order to preserve preconceived notions of Batman continuity and lore, possibly to avoid alienating a specific subset of fans. 

In some instances, the choice is understandable. However, there is a rather noteworthy twist involving the Gotham Police Department that feels so unearned it comes across as all too convenient for a tale about systemic corruption. This is especially true when contrasted to how the police are portrayed earlier in the film.

Even so, The Batman is some of the most entertaining blockbuster filmmaking we’ve had in a while. Whether it’s the fiery intensity of a Batmobile car chase, the puzzle-solving theatrics of a compelling mystery or simply the reverberating theme of Michael Giacchino’s incredible score, this is a film that fires on all cylinders and commits to most of its darkest impulses without losing sight of the light at the core of its protagonist. In the hands of gifted filmmakers like Matt Reeves, three hours feels like nothing.

The Batman opens in theaters on March 4.

Leigh Monson has been a professional film critic and writer for six years, with bylines at Birth.Movies.Death., SlashFilm and Polygon. Attorney by day, cinephile by night and delicious snack by mid-afternoon, Leigh loves queer cinema and deconstructing genre tropes. If you like insights into recent films and love stupid puns, you can follow them on Twitter.

Godzilla x Kong ending explained: how did they beat the Skar King?

My top movies to stream in April: 11 movies on Netflix, Prime Video, Peacock and more

How to watch Parish: stream the new crime thriller online

Most Popular

By Michael Balderston March 06, 2024

By Jason Best February 26, 2024

By Tom Bedford February 24, 2024

By Martin Shore February 22, 2024

By Michael Balderston February 21, 2024

By Tom Bedford February 20, 2024

By Sarabeth Pollock February 14, 2024

By Michael Balderston February 13, 2024

By Michael Balderston February 08, 2024

By Martin Shore January 31, 2024

By Terrell Smith January 24, 2024

The Batman Reviews: Critics Brand New Film 'Bland And Forgettable' And 'One Of The Best Superhero Movies Ever'

Entertainment Editor

The reviews for Robert Pattinson ’s new Batman film are out – and critics can’t seem to agree on the latest adaptation of the iconic comic book series.

Media outlets began sharing their reviews of The Batman on Monday afternoon, and when we say it’s been polarising, we really mean it. While some critics have hailed the film as an “epic for our times”, holding it among “the best superhero movies ever made”, others have branded it “bland”, “forgettable” and “tiresome”.

So yes, it’s safe to say there’s a whole range of different opinions out there. Here’s just a selection of what the critics have had to say…

The Times (2/5)

“The performances are as complex as the colour palette (ie not very).

“Pattinson, who has delivered so many thrilling turns recently, struggles to elevate his antihero beyond a pouty emo brat. A latex-covered Colin Farrell, however, in the underused role of the Penguin, seems to be having a blast throughout. I’m glad that someone did.”

The New York Post (2/5)

“Bland and forgettable… In the latest perfunctory film, The Batman, Gotham is bleaker than ever. Too bleak, if you ask me.

“Director Matt Reeves’ downer movie embraces the realism of The Dark Knight, only without the payoff of excellent writing and acting. There’s an unshakable feeling here of ‘What’s the point?’.”

“Most of the action is sluggish, the twists aren’t exactly shocking, and the Riddler is nowhere near as terrifying or as ingenious as Heath Ledger’s Joker was. But, in its own way, The Batman is still impressive.

“As grim as the Burton, Nolan and Snyder films were, Reeves and his team have fashioned their own distinctive and stylish variety of grimness, and they commit to it for three whole hours. Frankly, it’s amazing that they got away with it.”

The Guardian (3/5)

“Inevitably, night falls on the latest Batman iteration with the cloudy sense that – of course – nothing has really been at stake. A classy turn from Pattinson, however, as the crime fighter with an injured soul.”

“It’s almost like Reeves forgot superhero movies should be fun. Sure, there are action sequences, big-budget and full of spectacle. There are villains, vicious and eccentric.

“Sometimes, there’s even a bit of grim humour amid the avalanche of exposition and Batman scowling... But Reeves appears more interested in creating grisly pageantry than entertainment.”

The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s a soulful nocturne of corruption and chaos, and as much as I longed for a few more glimmers of humour, at no point during the hefty three-hour run time did my attention wander.

“But this film hammers home the realisation that somewhere along the line, someone — probably Christopher Nolan — decided that Batman movies should no longer be fun.”

Entertainment Weekly (B)

“Even Batmen get the blues. Still, Robert Pattinson’s damaged young billionaire may be the Darkest Knight yet… For nearly three hours he gives great mood – and while that is not quite the same thing as a great movie, writer-director Matt Reeves nearly wills it to be in his sprawling, operatic update.”

Evening Standard

“There’s a lot of plot, but for almost the entire running time, I was amused, intoxicated and shocked. Though some punches are pulled, this ‘young Batman’ yarn is definitely not canon… Truly, this is an epic for our times.”

“Pattinson conveys a fascinating fragility behind the façade of his impenetrable armour that leads Bruce Wayne into even unhappier places than the ones he started in, and that journey marks a shift that’s pointedly different from previous incarnations of the character, if only because it actually gives him somewhere to go when they inevitably make a couple of sequels.

“For all of his psychological trappings, Batman ultimately has been a pretty one-dimensional gloomy-Gus on screen, and I don’t mean to damn the film with faint praise by celebrating the fact that here, he actually gets a character arc, one that makes you root for him as a person and not just as a hero.”

“ Pattinson’s main man holds down a revamped Gotham that feels distinctively gritty with its blueprint of madness and mayhem, a place you would never want to live in but still would love to revisit as soon as possible.”

ScreenRant (4/5)

“One of the best [Batman movies]... Reeves and his team have crafted a Batman film that offers a different side to the hero audiences have come to know and love.

“With exhilarating action scenes, a layered story, and poignant, in-depth characterisation, The Batman is a worthy addition to the live-action DC slate.”

“This grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes.”

Den Of Geek

“One of the best superhero movies ever made… Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s The Batman is a magnificent achievement: a crime epic that stands apart from previous versions of the character.”

Digital Spy (5/5)

“The level of detail and technical skill that has gone into creating this new version of Gotham City is why the [three-hour] runtime never becomes an issue. It’s a world you’re happy to luxuriate in, filled with fascinating characters that, although they’re well-known, feel different to what’s come before.

“It’s easy to get Batman wrong, but Reeves never even threatens to do so. The Batman is an enthralling, chilling and fresh new take on the iconic DC hero that’ll leave you desperate for another visit to this impeccably-crafted world.”

The Batman arrives in UK cinemas on 4 March.

More In Entertainment

The official student newspaper of the University of Glasgow, independently informing since 1932.

Review: The Batman

• April 1, 2022
• No comments

Hollie praises Matt Reeves’ impressive, gritty reimagination of the ubiquitous DC comic.

The Bat is back. After the success of Marvel’s styles of superhero movies, including the incredible success of recent Spiderman: No Way Home , Matt Reeves’ darker and grittier take of The Batman is refreshing to see, the style of which fits perfectly with the titular character of Batman. The film is a crime thriller superhero movie, it is somewhat reminiscent of David Fincher’s Se7en (1995), with the twists and turns in the plot and the overall atmosphere and tone. The music and cinematography enhance this tone; Nirvana’s Something in The Way and the main Batman theme by Michael Giacchino along with the various shots of rain and grubby streets of Gotham, all work cleverly together as reflections of the tormented and complicated character of the Caped Crusader. Audiences need to prepare themselves for a long movie, so you might want to reconsider that large combo meal. With a running time of almost three hours, the length of the film could be deemed unnecessary, but after watching it, it feels completely justified. No scene feels like filler, with each seamlessly leading into the next twist in the story; that is to say, the pacing is brilliant. The movie gives the audience time to breathe with scenes of Bruce Wayne and Alfred interacting, but also delivers many thrilling sequences such as the impeccable car chase and any moment featuring the Riddler. 

Robert Pattinson’s performance is stellar, he throws away the idea of playboy Bruce Wayne, and instead replaces it with a recluse and grieving version of the character, which at times can come across as emotionless or one-note, but overall works well in enhancing the complex and reckless attitude of the Batman. It was a clever choice by Reeves to skip the Marsha Wayne’s pearls on the pavement, and workout regime starter pack of previous Batman movies as it allows the audience to get more time with Pattinson’s take on the new Batman in action, with less time wasting on an otherwise very well-known origin story that has been told multiple times already.

Equally, Zoë Kravitz excels as Catwoman, her portrayal of Selina Kyle ticks all the boxes: strong, sexy, and complex. She is a match for Pattinson’s Batman as she steals the show each time and can hold her own with any of the other characters, and the Bat and the Cat’s chemistry in their shared scenes are off the charts. Paul Dano may be the standout performance among them all – the character Riddler is a profoundly terrifying presence, perhaps because he can be convincingly grounded within both this fictional world and our reality. He can switch between terrified teenager and psychotic mastermind with the snap of a finger, and he provides some of the most tense, and nuanced moments of the movie.

In conclusion,to comic book fans and non-comic book fans alike, I would highly recommend seeing it for the acting prowess and the director’s distinct cinematic style – just be prepared for the long watch time! 

View all posts

Share this story

Follow us online.

Rector voting opens

Rising Tide: art, the climate crisis and Indigenous resistance in Oceania

Inspiring Women in the World of Sport

Donald Trump, round two

Hidden in plain sight: Reform UK

© 2024 The Glasgow Guardian

The Batman Review

04 Mar 2022

Batman has become Bat-ubiquitous. Gotham’s protector is rarely far away from the screen; this year alone, there is the return of Michael Keaton ’s Bruce Wayne, the cinematic debut of Batgirl , and the animated DC League Of Super-Pets , which features Ace the Bat-hound, Batman’s pet dog. He is everywhere. An icon. The challenge for The Batman ’s writer-director Matt Reeves : how to make a totemic, mythic figure of pop culture feel new .

Reeves’ approach, it seems, is evolution rather than revolution. Comparisons with Christopher Nolan ’s era-defining Batman trilogy are unavoidable — it shares Nolan’s serious, neo-noirish tone, and one set-piece is reminiscent of The Dark Knight — but the difference to, say, Batman Begins is that this is emphatically not an origin story. There is, gratifyingly, no new recreation of Bruce Wayne’s parents being murdered. Like Spider-Man: Homecoming , this is ‘post-origins’: a superhero still in his early years, grappling with youthful naivety and what his masked identity actually means.

Working with his cinematographer Greig Fraser, Reeves has rendered perhaps the best screen realisation of Gotham so far.

So, in Robert Pattinson , we get a very different Bruce Wayne. Where Christian Bale and Ben Affleck embraced the macho side of the character, Pattinson looks like a boyish vampire, his skin tone only a shade warmer than in Twilight . His is the first screen Batman to be fully seen wearing the eyeshadow required of the character’s costume, which evokes Robert Smith from The Cure. In the suit he’s methodical and muscular; out of it, he’s racked with insecurity and self-doubt. A repeated needle drop of Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’ confirms it: this is emo-Bats.

As a new direction, it makes total sense for this most brooding of superheroes. And though the humourlessness sometimes flirts with self-parody — Pattinson’s narration, delivered like Rorschach’s journal, grumbles mainly about vengeance, fear, justice, the usual stuff — the mood is justified by a believably dark bad guy. In a crowded rogues’ gallery (shout-outs to Zoë Kravitz ’s instantly charismatic Catwoman and Colin Farrell ’s bafflingly convincing prosthetic Penguin), this is the Riddler’s show, anchored by a chilling Paul Dano performance. He’s a bespectacled terrorist of the Trump era, driven by an incel’s misplaced sense of injustice and a love of fiendish puzzles. (And latte foam art.)

Fully embracing the “world’s greatest detective” comics reputation that cinematic Batmen often forget, Reeves thus plays things out like a twisty David Fincher -esque thriller. (Some of the Riddler’s clues could have been ripped from the pages of the Zodiac killer.) Occasionally the knottiness of the plotting will leave you feeling that near-three-hour runtime, but it is never boring, the narrative propelled by a series of grisly conundrums through Gotham’s seedy underbelly.

What will also hold your attention is how beautiful that underbelly looks. Working with his cinematographer Greig Fraser, Reeves has rendered perhaps the best screen realisation of Gotham so far; walking a careful tightrope between gritty realism and heightened pulp (lots of neon, lots of rainfall) without ever overplaying their hands. The result is some remarkable film craft, of a level rarely seen in modern blockbusters. Michael Giacchino’s brilliant, minimalist score completes the effect, building on the hugely effective work of Hans Zimmer — evolution, then, rather than revolution.

Related Articles

Movies | 13 03 2024

TV Series | 21 11 2023

TV Series | 10 03 2023

Movies | 19 02 2023

Movies | 10 02 2023

Shopping | 01 02 2023

Movies | 02 12 2022

Movies | 27 09 2022

Advertisement

Supported by

‘The Batman’ and Matt Reeves: Emerging From the Shadow of Other Caped Crusaders

Amid concurrent versions of the crime-fighter, this director aimed for something personal that would also serve a studio’s needs. The result is a foreboding vision.

• Share full article

By Dave Itzkoff

Central to the mythology of Batman is the idea of the secret identity: Beneath his fearsome mask, he is really Bruce Wayne, the billionaire scion of grimy Gotham City, and beneath that, he is still the traumatized child who saw his parents murdered in front of him.

At first glance, it’s not clear that Matt Reeves has any secret identity. The 55-year-old filmmaker is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy; with his slicked-back hair, neatly trimmed mustache and affable manner, he’s like a friendly mirror image of Batman’s hard-nosed police ally, James Gordon, if Gordon traded his cigarettes for Sweetgreen salads.

But Reeves is now the guardian of Batman’s formidable cinematic legacy. On March 4, Warner Bros. will release “The Batman,” the latest attempt at a foundational adventure for its vengeful vigilante-by-night. Directed and co-written by Reeves, the movie, like its title, promises a back-to-basics approach, disconnected from previous Bat-franchises and starring a pre-eminent film vampire, Robert Pattinson .

This is the second time in a decade that Batman has re-begun since the 2012 release of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster “The Dark Knight Rises,” and one of countless takes on the character since he became a box-office draw in 1989 , kicking off a generational wave of superhero movies.

But the Bat-cycle churns much more rapidly these days: It inexorably demands a new movie about the Caped Crusader every few years, regardless of whether other recent efforts ended gracefully, as with Nolan’s trilogy, or abruptly, as when Ben Affleck , the most recent star to play the role, stepped away from the character.

In that same time, Gotham’s fertile turf has yielded all manner of intellectual properties including an Academy Award-winning movie about Batman’s archrival, the Joker; television prequels about the city before Bruce Wayne became Batman and about Alfred before he became Wayne’s right-hand man; a family-friendly Lego Batman movie; a video-game franchise; and numerous animated adaptations of comic-book story lines.

The proliferation of spinoffs leaves fewer opportunities for “The Batman” to do something truly original with the character. At the same time, Warner Bros. has made no secret of its desire for this movie to set up even more new TV shows and brand extensions.

These would be daunting tasks for any director, even Reeves, who has shown he knows his way around dystopian mass entertainment in his work, which includes “Cloverfield” and two sequels in the latter-day “Planet of the Apes” series. As he told me earlier this month when I visited his Southern California home, moviegoers are too steeped in Batman lore and have seen enough successful adaptations to accept one from a creator who isn’t fully engaged in the material.

“If you can’t find the way to do it with a passionate connection then it’s not going to work, and the audience knows it,” Reeves said.

Unlike other directors who have brought Batman to the screen, Reeves may not yet possess an offscreen persona as clearly defined as the ruminative Tim Burton, the playful Joel Schumacher, the erudite Nolan or the rebellious Zack Snyder.

But what Reeves has now are the five years he spent — far longer than he expected — building “The Batman” from the ground up. His film, awash in bloody red and bruising black hues, is as distinctive an interpretation of the character as those of his predecessors. And it is unexpectedly uncompromising where it could have been ingratiating, with a sense of foreboding infused into every frame and every decibel. (“There’s a lot of decibels,” he said.)

In Reeves’s telling, Batman is neither a novice nor a veteran; he’s an increasingly familiar fixture in a Gotham gripped by drugs and organized crime. This time, he is drawn into a mystery involving nascent versions of the Penguin and Catwoman as well as a murderous nemesis called the Riddler — trials that will force him to reconsider the morality and motivations behind what he does.

REEVES WAS NOT YET PART of the Batman conversation in late 2016, when Warner Bros. was still committed to making a new movie starring Affleck as an older, more seasoned version of the character introduced in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Affleck, a screenwriter on this project, initially planned to direct it and then opted not to, setting off a search for a new director.

Toby Emmerich, chairman of the Warner Bros. Picture Group, said that the difficulty facing any filmmaker was to “create a Batman that is compelling and dynamic and thrilling, but different than anything we’ve seen before. Who can reinvent it? Who can find a sensibility that hasn’t been explored already?”

That hunt — in which the names of filmmakers like Ridley Scott, Fede Álvarez and Matt Ross were reportedly kicked around — led the studio to Reeves. “He is a world-builder,” Emmerich said. “His movies have a weight and a darkness to them, but there’s still a pop sensibility.”

Reeves came of age in Los Angeles, a fan of auteurs like Hal Ashby as well as mass-audience genre movies. When he was an adolescent, his amateur films were shown at local festivals, earning him acclaim and news media attention for his precociousness: “I eventually want to get into stories with a purpose, with a message like ‘Ordinary People,’” the 15-year-old Reeves told The Los Angeles Times in 1982.

J.J. Abrams, the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” director, befriended Reeves when both were teenagers, bonding over a shared love of moviemaking and the overlapping subjects in their earliest projects. “We were both telling a story of the loser in high school who can’t get the girl, who’s being bullied by someone,” Abrams said. “Mine was simpler and more comedic — his was darker and ultimately tragic.”

Another formative work that Abrams recalled was a 1992 student film that Reeves made at the University of Southern California called “Mr. Petrified Forrest.”

“It was about a guy who’s just afraid of everything,” said Abrams. “There’s an awareness that the forces working against us all are profound.”

When they worked together from 1998 to 2002 on their breakthrough WB college drama, “Felicity,” Abrams recalled a photo of himself and Reeves that hung in their offices, captioned with two Post-it notes.

“Mine was me saying, ‘Make it funnier’ — Matt’s was him saying, ‘Make it more emotional,’” Abrams said. “He always was that guy.”

As Reeves went on to direct films like the 2008 apocalyptic found-footage thriller “Cloverfield” and “Let Me In,” his 2010 remake of the Swedish vampire drama “Let the Right One In,” he looked for ways to express his own points of view while facing the challenges of increased scale and audience expectations.

“I started realizing that there was a way to do something personal that still had the genre aspect to it,” Reeves said. His films could be a place to work through his own anxieties, whether global or quotidian. “Moviemaking lets you go into the fear, but when you’re in control of it, you start to exorcise it,” he said.

That philosophy would seem to have reached a pinnacle with “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (2014) and “War for the Planet of the Apes” (2017), Reeves’s hit entries in that rebooted science-fiction franchise, which grossed a combined $1.2 billion worldwide.

Andy Serkis, who played the chimpanzee leader Caesar in the series, said that he and Reeves occasionally spent their time talking about weighty matters that the movies brought up, like the breakdown of society or the desire for revenge. Other times, Serkis said, the work prompted more personal reflection: “We’re both fathers, so we talked a lot about father-son relationships and the difficulties and the failures of that.”

Reeves was deep into postproduction on “War” when Warner Bros. approached him about directing Affleck’s Batman movie. After reviewing that script, Reeves called it “a totally valid and cool take” on the character, “an action set-piece adventure” that he likened to a James Bond movie for the studio’s extended universe of DC superheroes.

“I just didn’t know how I would direct that,” Reeves said. Despite the studio’s interest, he said, “I don’t think you’re going to want me because I wouldn’t do this. And then they asked me what I would do.”

This wasn’t a question Reeves was immediately prepared to answer. “I said, I’m in the middle of making this ‘Apes’ movie so I can’t really tell you,” he recalled with a laugh.

REEVES HAD SPENT A LIFETIME reflecting on Batman, a character defined for him less by 80 years of comic-book lore or recent cinematic incarnations than by Adam West’s straight-faced portrayal in the arch 1960s TV series . “I didn’t see any irony in any of that,” Reeves said. “There was just something cool about that Batman, and that was my way in.”

Given the many films that had depicted young Bruce Wayne’s tragic loss of his parents and his awakening as a crime-fighter, Reeves said, “we couldn’t do an origin story.” As his concept came together, Reeves said he wanted to “make sure that Batman is the character who has the emotional arc — you see him go through tremendous trauma and then marshal the will to find a way through.”

Warner Bros. waited for Reeves to finish his last “Apes” movie so it could hear his Batman pitch, and with the studio’s go-ahead, he began working on a script in early 2017. Some time later Affleck left the project entirely . Reeves said in our interview, “I think Ben was just evaluating what he wanted to do and it wasn’t what I think he had fallen in love with, in terms of playing that character in the first place.” (Affleck was unavailable for comment, a press representative said.)

It was a significant change that allowed Reeves to take the character on an altogether different journey. Had Affleck remained, Reeves said, “that story would have been about grappling with disillusionment.” The film he now envisioned “was more about someone who hadn’t quite figured out why they were doing the thing they were doing.”

“I wanted to fight against any sense that Batman would remain static,” Reeves said. “I wanted the stakes of the story to challenge him in a way that shook him to his core. He has to change.”

While acknowledging how strange this would all sound out loud, Reeves said this approach made the character more relatable for him. “He’s still stuck in those events that happened when he was 10,” he said. “When I’m making movies, I’m trying to make sense of my experience, and through his vigilantism, he’s trying to cope with his.”

This reframing also allowed Reeves to cast a new actor to play a younger Bruce Wayne in his 30s, already a year or two into his Batman experiment. After a search in which Nicholas Hoult was also said to be a close contender, Reeves landed on Robert Pattinson, the “Twilight” star he’d seen branch out into adult dramas like “The Lost City of Z” and “Good Time.”

“I could just feel his desperation, his intensity and his vulnerability,” Reeves said of those performances.

At that juncture in his career, Pattinson said, “I’d been doing really fun, interesting movies — to me, anyway. It didn’t seem like the obvious progression is to go and play Batman afterwards.”

But as Reeves unfurled his plans to the actor, Pattinson found himself drawn to this particular conception of the character. “He’d been thinking about this slightly scuzzy, crazed version of Batman,” Pattinson said. “Which is exactly the way I wanted it.”

Pattinson described the director as someone who recognizes that “fear is very real, rather than something you can bluff your way through.”

That understanding proved crucial to how he approached Bruce Wayne in the film, Pattinson said.

“When he puts on the Batsuit, it’s not like he’s putting on this golden suit of majestic armor and doing this righteous thing,” he said. “He’s succumbing to his darkness. Once he’s put on that suit, he doesn’t really know who he is anymore.”

Pattinson screen-tested for the role wearing Val Kilmer’s costume from “Batman Forever.” (“So Rob auditioned with nipples,” Reeves said gleefully.) But what probably won him the part, the director said, was a sequence Reeves shot of Pattinson looking in a mirror as he applies his Batman eye makeup, which he shot in the movie’s distinctive palette and set to Michael Giacchino’s pounding score .

For a film that Reeves already hoped would evoke classic works of 1970s cinema like “The Godfather,” “The French Connection” and “All the President’s Men,” the director said this preliminary blend of performance and style “really resonated — it had a grip.”

So much work still lay ahead. Reeves spent a couple of additional months with his co-writer, Peter Craig (“The Town”), mapping out the interwoven crime drama, corruption scandals and city history in the movie’s middle section. He populated his sprawling Gotham with fresh versions of allies like Alfred (Serkis) and Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), adversaries like the Penguin (Colin Farrell) and the Riddler (Paul Dano), and the hero’s cat-burgling love interest, Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz).

All the while, Reeves said, he was pushing himself to find new ground that hadn’t been covered in the Batman films that still dominate the pop-cultural consciousness, particularly Burton’s and Nolan’s movies.

He worried that at any moment Warner Bros. might sour on his film, which is not connected to the broader continuity established in other DC movies like “Aquaman,” “Wonder Woman” or the forthcoming “The Flash” (which will feature Affleck and Michael Keaton reprising their Batman roles).

“There’s an imperative if you know that Movie 6 is coming and you’re Movie 5,” Reeves said. “They could be like, ‘Look, we believe in this take, but this doesn’t fit our overall plan,’ and they could pull the plug.” (Emmerich said that Reeves always had the full backing of the studio.)

Then in March 2020, two months into production and with about 25 percent of the movie completed, the pandemic struck. Andrew Jack , the film’s dialect coach, died from Covid and other crew members became sick. Reeves was preparing to travel from London to Liverpool for a sequence involving 600 extras when production was shut down.

“It was a weird moment — everyone was like, what’s going on? And nobody knew the weight of it,” Reeves recalled. When filming resumed that fall, he said, “we had to be nimble.” Though Reeves said that no parts of the movie had been substantially reconceived for pandemic-era production, digital effects did help fill some gaps: “There are places where we absolutely have CG crowds.”

Despite the immensity of the task that lay ahead and the pace required to finish, Reeves’s colleagues say they never saw him waver during this time. “It took twice as long to shoot anything because of Covid,” Pattinson said. “And Matt was literally, like, ‘No, I am going to make the movie that I want to make, and nothing will stop me.’”

“He’s a sneaky one,” Pattinson added. “He seems like such a gentle, sensitive person. But he’s hard-core. He will not stop until he’s getting what he wants.”

NOW THE DIRECTOR HAS HIS FILM, one that he realizes may appear to be more in tune with current events than he intended. The story, written several years ago, seems to anticipate real-world developments that happened during shooting; its depiction of a metropolis overwhelmed by tragedies yet determined to forge ahead feels alarmingly on the nose.

“Gotham has always been a metaphor for our world — Gotham is the dark side,” Reeves said. “There were moments where, as events were unfolding, we were watching from London, going, ‘Oh my God, is our world worse than Gotham?’”

Even before its release, “The Batman” has raised eyebrows for its nearly three-hour running time, but Reeves shrugged off such concerns. “Once you see the movie, I think that ceases to be an issue,” he said. “It’s immersive, it takes you along and it keeps you engrossed.” He has tested it with preview audiences and, he added, “by the way, it was once longer.”

He is on board with plans that Warner Bros. has made to use the movie as the engine for a whole new franchise, including live-action HBO Max shows about the Penguin and the Gotham police department, as well as a Batman animated series.

“The Bat-verse, if we’ve done our job right, is the beginning of a lot of that,” said Reeves. He added that these multimedia ambitions were sensible in an era when filmgoers aren’t reliably returning to cinemas in large numbers.

“It’s a scary moment for moviegoing in general, and these companies are going, we have to find the way — these might be the building blocks that keep theatrical movies alive,” he said.

Having laid some bread crumbs in his own movie about what might come next for Batman, Reeves sounds like he is almost surely planning a sequel. But the director didn’t make it easy to quiz him on these plans.

I started to ask, are you tangibly — “Tangibly exhausted?” he interrupted.

Sure, but are you completely — “Completely spent?” he interjected again.

Eventually, yes, Reeves admitted that he could see the Bat-Signal lighting up again someday: “The events of the film would create the first glimmer of hope that the city has had in 20 years, but also smash the power vacuum apart.”

“Where the story goes, for sure, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about that,” he said. “But as I said, I need a nap.”

Dave Itzkoff is a culture reporter whose latest book, “Robin,” a biography of Robin Williams, was published in May 2018. More about Dave Itzkoff

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

“X-Men ’97,” a revival on Disney+ that picks up where the ’90s animated series left off, has faced questions after the firing of its showrunner  ahead of the premiere.

“3 Body Problem,” a science fiction epic from the creators of “Game of Thrones,” has arrived on Netflix. We spoke with them about their latest project .

For the past two decades, female presidential candidates on TV have been made in Hillary Clinton’s image. With “The Girls on the Bus,” that’s beginning to change .

“Freaknik,” a new Hulu documentary, delves into the rowdy ’80s and ’90s-era spring festival  that drew hundreds of thousands of Black college students to Atlanta.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

• Classifieds
• Advertisers
• Pick-up Places
• Past Issues
• Petra Best Realty
• Editorial & Ad Policies

• Local Perspectives
• Photo Galleries
• Entertainment

Categorized | Arts , Carousel , Entertainment

Movie review: the batman.

Posted on 18 March 2022.

By: Anton Massopust III

“Who you supposed to be?” – Thug

“I am vengeance!” – Batman

Batman returns to the big screen in “The Batman”.   Batman/Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) dons the cape and cowl in this detective story in the tradition of film noir such as “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Big Sleep” and the modern classic thriller, “Seven”. A serial killer is on the loose attacking and brutally murdering Gotham’s elite including the police commissioner, district attorney, mob bosses and anyone who is connected to the corruption in Gotham City, even the woman that is currently running for mayor.   To solve this mystery was not going to be easy. There are clues within clues, riddles within riddles. Batman and Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffery Wright) are trying to figure out why the Riddler (Paul Dano) is doing this. The two mob families: the Falcone’s and the Maroni’s are connected to the corruption in Gotham City. What is their connection to Bruce Wayne’s mother and father? The Riddler keeps leaving little notes on his victims for Batman starting on Halloween. Connected to all this is well is Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) who is after something that the Maroni’s or the Romans have over her.

   The Penguin (Colin Farrell) steals every scene he is in and he vicious and funny at the same time. The actor is unrecognizable, even his voice is changed. What I really loved about this movie was the influence from the comic books and the famous nineties’ animated TV series. What I was glad about it was it was not another origin story. We get Batman already established right away after two years slowly working with Gordon to end crime in Gotham. I also liked the fact that criminals did not know where Batman is. He can be anywhere. Batman’s motivation right now is seeking vengeance for the death of his parents, so he has to change from being just a vigilante to becoming more of detective and more of a hero. Everyone is afraid of him. Besides a really clever mystery we also get lots of action and probably one of the craziest car chases you’ve ever seen in the movies that would even rival the car chase in “The Dark Knight”. There is a brand new Batmobile which is a muscle car. The musical score is awesome, dark and haunting while the cinematography and the use of being filmed London to give it a dark look is chilling. We also get Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth who reveals slowly more about Bruce’s parents and why and how they died.  

   It’s always great to see director Matt Reeves who previously directed the reboot of the Planet of the Apes. He is a huge comic book fan and Batman fan and really gets and understands him. We also get a little bit of cameos from other villains, but I won’t say who. I’m sure that we’ll see more of this Batman because this is great start, but at the same time, it is dark brooding and a fascinating from beginning to end. I was not bored for 1 minute, but I don’t think kids will find this interesting because it’s a lot of talking and it’s a lot of clue and mystery solving. There is action, but kids might be bored. We probably will see more of these characters because HBOMax is already planning a Penguin TV series and a Catwoman TV series.

   Is this the best Batman movie ever? Well, it’s really good. Check out the graphic novels or trade paperbacks Batman: Long Halloween and Batman: Year Zero and Batman: Year One to look for the inspiration. Go see “The Batman”.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Safety Announcement

We are taking safety precautions in the City of Perth Amboy, and emphasize that it is important: IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!! Report Suspicious Activity – Be Vigilant – STAY ALERT! Do not think that any call or report is too small. Don’t allow the actions of a few dictate your quality of life. FOR ALL EMERGENCIES, DIAL: 9-1-1 FOR ALL NON-EMERGENCIES, DIAL: 732-442-4400

• Entries feed
• Comments feed
• WordPress.org

© 2024 The Amboy Guardian. Powered by WordPress .