Movie Review: The Batman
Had several people insist I watch The Penguin TV series recently so I decided to revisit this one. I remembered having mixed feelings about it and upon rewatch the issues really jumped out at me. The Batman is for the most part a pretty entertaining and effectively shot film. Director Matt Reeves of Cloverfield and Planet of the Apes fame deserves a lot of credit for the great atmosphere and visuals. The concept of a young, early in his career Batman is intriguing and Robert Pattinson was a ballsy choice of actor for the role. He surprised all of us I think with wrathful take on the Dark Knight and a rather haunted interpretation of Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately not every casting choice landed as well and the script has a number of issues that dilute what should have been a stronger film.
The Batman starts strong by introducing The Riddler as a compelling and dangerous villain. Paul Dano deserves a lot of credit for his maniacal portrayal. The narrative returns Batman to his roots in a classic noir detective story. This is a refreshing change of pace given the last two decades of Batman movies. Like a lot of modern movies the first half is much stronger than the second. I loved the slowly evolving web of intrigue and corruption as Batman and Jim Gordon try to unravel the Riddler’s endgame.
We meet a range of supporting characters along the way including a scene-stealing take on Carmine Falcone by John Turturro, a serviceable Alfred by Andy Serkis, and a hilariously unrecognizable Colin Farrell as The Penguin. For me the weakest casting I think was Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman. She’s a capable actress, but I didn’t buy her as a proper femme fatale. Her looks (pixie cut? really?), costume design, and writing also didn’t help.
Catwoman’s plot thread leading into the 2nd and 3rd acts is where the film started to deteriorate. We had some under-cooked subplots related to Bruce Wayne’s father potentially being implicated in the corruption, only for it to be resolved in very hand-wavey fashion two minutes later. Batman’s dramatic confrontation with the Riddler ends up being an anticlimax that pivots to a weirdly bolted-on feeling final action scene in the midst of a flood. The action and effects aren’t bad but the presentation of the theme was rather muddled and the pacing felt rushed.
Ultimately I think a lot of The Batman’s issues lie in how it was edited. It needed far more aggressive cutting given its near three hour runtime. The elements were all there for at least a 4 out of 5 star movie. What ended up getting shipped is a well-executed 6 out of 10 comic book flick. At the very least I enjoyed Colin Farrel’s aggressively Italian Penguin and may give his series a watch.
Grade: C+
