Review of The Batman (2022) by Mathiasbs — 08 Mar 2022

It’s an okay movie, but definitely waaaaaaaaay too long - as in, it should have been half as long! The portrayal of The Riddler was probably my favorite part tablet it. He had an uncanny Ed Kemper vibe to him, that really made him feel very scary.

The action scenes were also great.

What ruined it for me though, was Robert Pattinson as Batman.

The way Batman was portrayedwas too edgy and emo for my liking. I read a lot of the Batman comics, and I get that he’s actually very often portrayed like this in the comics, but he’s also portrayed like this big, burly dude who got a hurt a long time ago, and now he’s dishing out his vengeance. He’s like a hurt kid hiding behind a ton of muscles.

While Robert Pattinson brings the muscles to the table, you can’t help but notice that he just looks like pale a vampire (I’m sorry, but it’s true), which makes the character seem more like a depressed teen, than a man who’s seen some **** Also, all scenes with Bruce Wayne could have been omitted as they served no purpose to further the plot.

Speaking of the plot, it’s very convoluted and messy. It draws some light inspiration from The Long Halloween, but combines it with a bigger-than-life, nonsensical story about The Riddler that would have worked well in a comic, but in this movie it falls flat.

I think the main reason for this is that the movie tried very hard to be grounded and gritty, but fails to ever mention why there’s a guy dressed like a bat in this dirty, realistic Gotham.

On one hand I understand why they chose not to address this; we’ve all heard the story a thousand times, and it doesn’t need to be retold - but on the other hand, here we have a city filled with terrible crime and cop drama, while a guy runs around dressed like a bat and everyone just accepts it.

Sure, the movies tries to justify this when The Batman first appears by having some thugs make fun of his costumes, but it is never brought up again or even questioned.

In “Joker”, which also rooted it self in realism, the character works because we get the backstory and an explanation for why a criminal dressed as a clown makes sense in this world.

On the other hand, we have Christopher Nolan’s movies, which were also somewhat realistic, but added lots of techy elements, that made the inclusion of a man dressed as a hi-tech bat feel less questionable.

“The Batman” just flat out ignores this whole conundrum; it’s a gritty, dark crime drama with a guy in a bat costume. When you say that sentence out loud, you’ll understand why the movie didn’t work for me. I’m not saying they had to retell his entire origin story, but when choosing to ditch the gadgets, make every other character dress in something more realistic and make Bruce Wayne as 2D as possible, it just seems so stupid that this guy would run around in that costume in this world. I know, I know; I’m supposed to just accept the premise because it’s a beloved character, but in my opinion, it just didn’t work in the world this movie set up.