Gritty, Grimey, & Long
The Batman, Warner Bros. (2022)
By C. A. Ramirez
The Batman is a visceral, violent tale of revenge and redemption that could have been an hour shorter.
Robert Pattinson has come a long way from his shovel-faced Twilight legacy. To his defense, the entirety of the Twilight cast decided not to act during the filming of the trilogy; tragic, because all of them are fantastic actors when given the right material. Taylor Lautner is epic in Cuckoo. Kristen Stewart has also proven that her stoned façade may have been a stitch in time. Her performance in 2007’s, The Cake Eaters, and her recent action sci-fi thriller, Underwater, prove Stewart’s performances tend to be on par with the quality of the script she has to work with. Robert Pattinson wears the black rubber suit well, old enough to pull off the brooding billionaire orphan with an ax to grind, and handsome enough to pass as an affluent playboy.
The Batman dares to generate a franchise that depicts the Dark Knight in his infancy, rough around the edges, flawed, but determined. Imperfect, and the film mirrors it’s hero in similar fashion.
There are plenty of flaws in Matt Reeves’ vision — but none are catastrophic enough to condemn this freshman franchise to the bin. Reeves wrote the screenplay for The Batman, along with Peter Craig — who is most known for his contributions to Ben Affleck’s 2010 bank robbery masterpiece, The Town. The weight of Craig’s hand is identifiable, and has lent a hand in crafting the dreary, sorrowful world of Gotham City. Matt Reeves has crafted a winner with The Batman, though his debut has all the hallmarks of re-writes and unwanted studio interventions.
The very beginning of the film is interesting because it has three different versions of an introduction. We are first introduced to the Riddler, then Batman’s monologue and a gloriously savage beating of clown-faced thieves, before we end at a crime scene that mirrors the movie Seven. The Riddler introduction seemed like a decent way to start the film, but the victim is forgettable, and his name and role has no relevance to the rest of the film. Batman’s crime scene felt like it should have been the original introduction, complete with brooding music, dramatic walk and hushed talk.
It was quintessential Batman; the monologue and subway clown mash-up should have followed. Batman’s realization that he failed to spare another child from the wrath of another murderer compliments the tone of his monologue, and lends much more emotional weight to his line, “I’m Vengeance.”; and explains his ferocity in the subway fight against the clown gang. Not only would it make more sense, it means the merciless Batman the city already feared has a splinter in his paw and is ready to unleash hell. I digress, the start might be rocky, but the meat and potatoes of this film are expansive and supportive enough for this Caped Crusader to fly…oh God, Alfred!
Andy Serkis is a great actor, but his role as Alfred is fantastically ancillary in this film, and it’s not because of his performance. Alfred and Bruce Wayne’s relationship is absolutely forced. Neither seems to like the other, but Bruce apparently can’t cook or do the laundry, so Alfred remains. Far less time should have been spent on random extras touting meaningless dialogue, and more time should have been lent to Alfred and Bruce. Had enough time been spent building their backstory, it would have made Alfred’s near-death experience more dramatic. Bruce Wayne should be sobbing at Alfred’s bed side, not waking him with glib condemnations about past indiscretions.
When you have a 3-hour runtime, needless characters and drawn-out moments need to be purged. Schindler’s List has a runtime of three hours and fifteen minutes, and at no point do you feel this needs to “move along”. Imagine if the relationship between Stern and Oskar was boring and flat, lending nothing to the story or plot. It would grind that epic to a halt; and that is exactly what happens when Bruce Wayne shares any scene with Alfred. Luckily, those moments are few and far between, and if you can look past those speed bumps, the rest of the film is mad as a box of frogs.
The Batman might have a few hitches in its storytelling, but holy hell does it boast a cast of superb acting talent. Wearing more latex and plastic than a Kardashian, Colin Farrell is absolutely excellent as Penguin, falling back on his New York accent from Phone Booth. Farrell is underrated when it comes to his mastery of accents. My only complaint is that there was far too much makeup on him, but then again, Matt Reeves may have had a Fight Club moment, compelling him to, “destroy something beautiful”.
Penguin is not the hyper stylized character that we remember Danny DeVito playing in Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns. Instead, we have a much more realistic and contemporary version of Penguin, one that suits the organic fiber of the rest of the cast, like a well duct-taped head.
Paul Dano as Riddler is perfect as he is an expert at playing quiet, angry loners, although he needed far more screen time, and it would have been nice to see Riddler in his “normal” life. Batman is Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle is Catwoman, but who was Riddler when he wasn’t busy duct-taping the heads of Gotham’s elite? There was plenty of run-time to squeeze that in. Less time on Batman’s slow, dramatic-music-laden entrances would have been a good compromise here.
The Bat and the Cat. The Batman, Warner Bros. (2022)
Clawing her way out of the alleys is a Cat Woman that might actually have a chance of matching the sultry seductiveness of Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic interpretation of the infamous cat burglar. Played by Zoe Kravitz, this kitten has claws. Kravitz is fantastic, and if the sequel has her reprise the role, it will be all the better for it. I enjoyed the tension between Batman and Selina. It was framed very much in the vane of Batman: The Animated Series, where the two black-clad misfits danced around each other – never sure if one could trust the other. The magnetic force that only well-written tension can produce between two star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the track is missing here. When Batman finds himself in Selina’s home, he remarks, “you got a lot of cats.” Selina responds with, “I have a thing about strays.” Not bad, but it feels forced. Had her response been, “I only take in the one’s without parents.” Batman then asks, “how can you tell?”, and then Selina looks Batman in the eyes while she runs her finger across the Batman symbol on his chest and says, “I got a thing for orphans.” A little more passion would have made this scene fire, giving it the kind of iconic romantic tit-for-tat that we see in Aaron Sorkin’s Ocean's Eleven between Danny Ocean and Tess. “You’re a liar and a thief”, says Tess. “I only lied about being a thief,” remarks Danny. That is the kind of dialogue that is missing between Batman and Selina, but I digress, I am a hard customer to please.
With three hours to burn, Matt Reeves does a decent job of not allowing the audience to slump into severe boredom. I was eager to see more of the characters and where the plot takes them, even though most of the plot “twists” were as subtle as a dump truck rolling through a nitroglycerin plant. The main issue I have with The Batman is that it strains to do what it does, which is paint a realistic picture of the dark world of Gotham City. Matt Reeves has succeeded in recreating the tone and setting that the Animated Series was able to deliver. It is nothing short of spectacular and feels like it’s a few cell-shades away from being a living, breathing comic book. Well done. Christopher Nolan was able to paint a crisp, clean, and corporatized version of Batman, ensconced in stocks, bonds, and financial instruments; the true evils of that world. Tim Burton delivered a hyper-stylized version of Bob Kane's Batman, where the entirety of the world, though alien to the audience, was perfectly matched with heroes and villains that helped expand that intensely artistic atmosphere. In 1995, Joel Schumacher released Batman Forever, another hyper-stylized adaptation of Batman, but with a heavy emphasis on the 1960’s TV series Batman; borrowing its flower power campiness, complete with over-the-top villains who can barely contain their psychotic laughter as they face down their mortal enemy, the Batman. Schumacher’s sequel, 1997’s Batman and Robin, is everything a movie shouldn’t be. Matt Reeves has successfully carried the torch with The Batman, and though it may not be perfect, it is a faithful representation that honors Bob Kane’s original vision while laying the foundation for a much more realistic version of Batman that has been absent from the big screen for nearly thirty years.
In the end, The Batman delivers more brooding angst and anger than anyone who still listens to My Chemical Romance. It is absolutely too long. The entire Falcone, Maroni, macaroni, plot line is congested with too many characters. By the time Batman realizes the Riddler’s game, we have already forgotten who the first victim is, was, and why he was even killed. The motives of the Riddler are not entirely clear, and when it is made so, the totality of it is fleeting. The Riddler’s motives are, “I was an orphan. Then Thomas Wayne was shot, so the funding dried up for my orphanage. Now, I’m mad at his six-year-old son because he had plenty while I didn’t.”. It is a motivation that can be written on the back of a match book and is so thin in substance that a microscope would have trouble seeing it. Attach that to a three-hour run time and you have a plot that will leave the audience in the dark, time and time again.
The Batman is good enough to escape Schumacher’s barometer of failure. It is not a cluster of undeniable failures; it is, instead, a well-collected accumulation of everything Bob Kane's Batman should be—a visceral tale of violent redemption that forces the most daring and dangerous of the city to clash in fantastic fashion. Matt Reeves understands this world and has recreated it honorably in 2022’s The Batman. Even though this entry in the series is rough around the edges and in desperate need of script polishing, the cast of characters are exemplary, and the potential exists for this entry to mark the beginning of a wildly successful Batman franchise.
It might be one hour too long, but The Batman is gritty and grimey, laying a fertile foundation for this “new” Caped Crusader to flourish for the next decade.