The Batman
Year: 2022
Rating: PG-13
Length: 176 minutes / 2.93 hours
I am glad that society has reached the point where every new reboot of a comic book franchise does not require repeatedly rehashing the same origin story. Spider-man: Homecoming (2017) did this, and now The Batman (2022) can join its ranks. It’s a good thing, too. At almost three hours long, The Batman takes its time exploring a side of Batman we rarely see: the detective. Perhaps now that he’s solved this case, he can figure out where all the lights in Gotham City went? Either way, the aesthetic and style of this Matt Reeves reboot had me skeptical at first, but won me over by the end.
After rolling my eyes at yet another reboot of a comic franchise that has seen five reboots since I’ve been born, I have to admit that this film felt the closest to being realistically feasible. The characters (brilliantly acted by Robert Pattinson, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Ferrell, and Zoe Kravitz) feel like real people instead of caricatures pulled from a brightly colored page. And while the scope of this film was ambitious (perhaps needing a sub-plot or two trimmed), running it more like a mystery than an action film was a fresh take that I readily welcomed.
The Riddler (Paul Dano) has been a criminally underutilized character from the Batman canon—until now. Sure, Jim Carrey was fun as The Riddler in Batman Forever (1995), but this one has full Zodiac killer vibes that perfectly match the enigmatic rhymes he leaves for the detectives. There’s a desperation in Pattinson’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne that reveals how tired he is of trying to solve The Riddler’s (and the world’s) problems the only way he knows. While I had to groan at the hints to the villain for the sequel, I am interested to see where this new version of Batman takes us in the future.
The first “detective” Batman movie to grace the big screen, I give The Batman 4.0 stars out of 5.
