REVIEW: ‘The Batman’ is a Gritty True-Crime Noir Masterpiece

‘The Batman’ is the best winged vigilante movie since Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight.‘ And if you thought that version of Batman felt darker and more gritty than just wait until you check out Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman.’ 

Matt Reeves invokes a true-crime story by the way of David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’ mixed in with elements of the Zodiac Killer. Gone are the bright colors and facial expressions of Jim Carey’s The Riddler from previous installments and instead saturation is injected into the atmosphere of the entire film and its characters. Only the bright lights of Gotham’s Time Square illuminate the screen and even that feels dirty somehow.

Reeves manages to connect the comic book work in such a way Tim Burton did with ‘The Batman Returns’ when he made the characters over the top while Reeves approach takes them and grounds them more in an everyday desperate world of crime. It feels like the same world Todd Phillip’s ‘Joker’ breeched but 30 years later. The visuals, characters and soundtrack paint a grim future for Gotham.

Reeves was inspired by a few set of comics in the DC universe that you can check out more below:

• Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
• Batman: Dark Victory by Loeb and Sale
• Batman Ego and Other Tails by Darwyn Cooke
• Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

During the nearly 3 hour run-time it never feels that the story stalls. In fact it feels like a more cohesive storyline than the previous ‘Dark Night’ installments. It is brimming with interesting characters that leave you guessing, as it should, seeing how Paul Dano plays our main villain here, The Riddler. More on his performance in a moment. But there are multiple opportunities for spinoffs.

The atmosphere of Gotham is dark and unforgiving. Spiraling into a city of crime that we see happening in ‘Joker’ it feels like the city is worse off now with crime bosses, dirty cops and street gangs taking over Gotham. Enter the hero we need, Robert Pattison. His version and take on Batman isn’t the sauve playboy character that we have recently experienced in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. This is a more grounded and gothic Batman that dishes out punishment with no regard to his own life. While he still has plenty of toys and gadgets they are not on as full display as you might think. Even the bat mobile itself has taking a more ‘Mad Max’ approach but with a supercharged jet engine. A mentally exhausted version of the character is something we haven’t really seen in this magnitude before and it makes the character more relatable in a lot of ways. Pattison is sure to prove any doubters wrong by his performance in the bat suit.

Like most of the characters in the film, Zoë Kravitz‘s Catwoman feel very subdued but are ramped up by action sequences that are brutal and gritty. She proves to hold her own and becomes Batman’s Robin-esque sidekick in the film with a constant push and pull on screen that toes the line of trust and lust. The chemistry on film between her and Pattison is great and as I mentioned earlier, could easily see a Catwoman spinoff take place down the road.

Her portrayal of Catwoman will brush up against your leg, memorize you just before kicking you in the face and walking away with your stash. A badass that we want to see more of in the future.

Paul Dano’s Riddler brings him into a modern world as he leverage social media to terrorize the media and his victims. Without giving to much away it shows just how captive an audience can be while also being felt like you are being kept captive by social media. Building tension through puzzles and riddles that feel ripped out of a ‘SAW’ movie Dano ramped up the intensity factor, but in my opinion, fails to reach the character driven level that Heath Ledger invoked in ‘The Dark Knight.’ For my money that will also be hard to beat when we are in these gritty comic book worlds. That being said, Dano has to be a firm number 2a with Joaquin Phoenix Joker being 2b.

As I mentioned earlier in the review the two worlds of ‘Joker’ and ‘The Batman’ feel like they could go hand in hand. With Reeves showing so much box office success there is no doubt he will get another crack at at least one if not two more Batman films. The dream scenario here would be to have ‘Joker’ face off against this version of ‘The Batman.’ Bring back Joaquin Phoenix to reprise the role and let the showdown in Gotham commence with Robert Pattison. While the two backstory’s on Bruce Wayne’s family don’t quite overlap, I could suspend my disbelief to get that movie.

 

The success of the film will certainly spawn a sequel and most likely spinoffs, as previously mentioned. There is already talks about Colin Farrell’s character The Penguin getting a Scarface like film. Which would fit perfect in this universe. So many different directions they could go, but the only direction you should go is to your local theater to see this film. ‘The Batman’ does not disappoint.