The latest entry in the Batman franchise, THE BATMAN (2022) tries way too hard to be the film SE7EN and features a somewhat flat, heavily emo Batman (nonetheless well played by Robert Pattinson), but it’s respectable, and its action and fast pacing deliver quite a bit of fun.
So it’s a new Batman world, Batman is obsessed with fighting Gotham crime even though crime is going up, and a mysterious villain, the Riddler (Paul Dano being Paul Dano), is murdering the city’s elite. This takes Batman into the lair of a crime family led by Carmine Falcone (played to the usual perfection by John Turturo), whose lieutenant is known as the Penguin (Colin Farrell in heavy prosthetics such that nobody believes it was actually Colin Farrell). An employee at Falcone’s club, The Iceberg Lounge, appears to be the key and turns out to be the Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz). To win, Batman must follow the Riddler’s clues to unmask Gotham’s utter corruption and stop the Riddler himself from a far darker plan of vengeance.
The result is good entertainment. Despite the three-hour runtime, it all moves pretty quickly, and there are enough plot developments to keep the story juiced. The actors are all great, and the plot, while complicated, doesn’t become overwhelming and overblown with the inclusion of secondary heroes and villains. Thematically, there is an interesting idea that heroes with a black-and-white view of justice can inspire others to attempt to do the same thing only with stronger means, leading to the question of what is a hero and what is a villain. The soundtrack, including Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” adds to the heavy sense of atmosphere.
On the downside, the film tries way too hard to be SE7EN, right down to a scene in the Riddler’s apartment that appears directly lifted almost line for line from the Nineties classic. A theme of class warfare (which I normally applaud) appears directly inspired from the most recent JOKER film and is tied to terrorism. (Basically, the movie is SE7EN set in the world of JOKER.) The usual movie logic rule breaking happens, such as bullets not hurting Batman in one scene but in the next scene they do. Probably the biggest issue I had was Batman himself, as there isn’t much there to like or dislike. Gone is the dichotomy of playboy billionaire and brutal crime fighter, now it’s all brooding, dark, emo, making Batman pretty flat. It’s strange how he goes around beating up petty criminals and crime keeps going up. It’s also funny that if he spent more time with his accountants, the movie might have never happened.
Anyway, I didn’t go into it expecting much, though these movies occasionally surprise such as Nolan’s take on Batman. While the writers and director played it all pretty safe by borrowing from other successful films and elements, the bottom line is THE BATMAN was all pretty entertaining for me, Pattinson has matured into a fine actor and makes a solid Batman, the secondary characters are pretty vivid and well played by their actors, and overall, it’s a good time.
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