Is The Batman the Best Batman Movie Ever? Everyone’s favorite caped crusader appears in yet another blockbuster. Reception seems positive, but is it warranted?
Title: The Batman
Director: Matt Reeves
Genre(s): Action, drama, superhero, adventure, crime film, mystery
Runtime: 2h, 56m
The Bat Signal shines against the night clouds. Criminals run from the ATMs they just robbed, cowering in fear of the shadows. Everyone recognizes the Bat Signal and who it means is prowling. That is, of course, one of the most beloved superheroes in the media since his creation in 1939. Batman has been a staple of culture from his first theatrical debut in Batman (1943) to a new movie by a similar name released in early Mar. 2022.
With The Batman Part II slated to release in 2026, I figured, why not return to the ever-iconic world of DC’s Batman.
The Batman (2022) is a dark, gritty, action-mystery directed by Matt Reeves. It focuses on a reclusive Bruce Wayne, who patrols the night in a cape and cowl.
It is safe to assume that consumers were wary regarding Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne and Batman after critical reviews of the book-to-film adaptations of The Twilight Saga. Though, those biases have seemed to go out the window when people viewed the movie. With lengthy three hours of runtime, The Batman scored an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, 7.8 out of 10 on IMDb, 3.9 out of 5 on Google, and a 72% Metacritic. Regardless of the critic scores, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
Batman is two years into his crime-fighting career. He and Gotham City Police Department Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) are investigating a mysterious masked man leading them with riddles and puzzles. He calls himself the Riddler. The vigilante-cop duo follows clues in, around, online, and deep inside Gotham’s underworld. Occasionally accompanied by Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), who is only in it to find her friend, the group unroots schemes and corruption in the city’s highest elite.
While mostly shrouded in a darker tone, there were a few moments of humor dispersed in between important scenes. While not laugh-out-loud-worthy moments, the humor is dry and adds something important to the dark atmosphere of the film. It was a refreshing take in the current overwhelmingly humorous climate of other superhero films.
Music is often used to develop the mood and tone in important scenes. This film utilizes “Something in the Way” by Nirvana as an addition to Batman’s main theme. The two songs sound fairly similar and mix together really well. Although this is an awesome mix, in general, the audience disliked the number of times they heard the motif combined with the extended runtime.
In this movie, we got to see much more of the investigator side of the “world’s greatest detective” than audiences have in other movies. It is something that audiences have begged for within the live-action Batman adaptations but barely got to see. I appreciate that Batman often silently examines the crime scenes, ignoring all the policemen glaring at him.
Unfortunately, this movie lacks Bruce Wayne as a character. In The Dark Knight Trilogy, viewers got a taste of who Bruce Wayne was without the cape and cowl. He had a reputation to restore and keep up. He had to do outlandish things to make sure no one discovers his secret identity. In this movie, viewers only got to see Batman. There were a few scenes of Bruce Wayne, but most of them took place in the Bat Cave, where only Alfred could see. When audiences do see him out and about, he is grim and unlikeable. When tragedy strikes, Bruce Wayne disappears, and Batman comes out of the shadows. As the movie’s title suggests, this is a Batman movie instead of a Bruce Wayne movie, but, that does lead to some underdeveloped characters. Bruce is what gives Batman character. Fans can forget that Batman is more than just a dark and brooding superhero; he is human. Although Pattinson gives something in his portrayal of both Bruce Wayne and Batman to where viewers can feel how depressed and sad he is. Overall, I believe that audiences have seen better Bruce Waynes, but Robert Pattinson is the better Batman.
The Batman doesn’t have an end-credits scene that most modern audiences have become accustomed to. Instead, there is an after-credits message that only appears for a few seconds. By dissecting the codes, fans have long since discovered the secret URL. Here’s an explanation. Because typical movies don’t incorporate viewer participation, this is a unique experience that most early movie-goers enjoyed participating in. For whatever it was worth, this new information helped tie the story together past its credits. It closes the narrative of the Riddler but opens many more questions.
This film is so entertaining and refreshing, while still hitting the traditional beats of superhero movies. It made me feel like I wasn’t watching an overpopulated genre, but instead, a captivating mystery. It renews the character of Batman after the many adaptations. Overall, this movie compellingly combines both mystery and thriller into a neat borderline PG13 package.
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