The Batman 2022 — Film Review — Kravitz, The Script & The Score Spare Reeves The Blushes As…

Right off the bat (pun intended) I was expecting this Pattinson & Matt Reeves reboot to underwhelm, but given my preconceived notion, it…

Right off the bat (pun intended) I was expecting this Robert Pattinson & Matt Reeves reboot to underwhelm, and it did, but given my preconceived notions, it turned out to be a rather interesting story but not as compelling to watch as compared to Nolan’s trilogy, and it did drag on a bit.

When I just got my seat in the theater and the movie began, with a strange and odd opening musical piece by Michael Giacchino and the Ave Maria song began in the background as the Riddler stalks his first victim(or I’m not sure whether the Riddler was indoors and it was just a shot of a camera stalking the mayor). It just began that way, but it was a rather odd start to the film, which in hindsight, at least as I thought, was quite a different approach to the beginning scenes of the movie.

It then begins with a political debate for the post of mayor of Gotham between the two front runners as the current mayor watches the broadcast at his residence. It was rather reminiscent of the Donald Trump vs Joe Biden presidential debate, and I’m fairly certain director Matt Reeves intended it to be that way.

As the Riddler hacks away at the mayor bludgeoning him to death and wrapping his head in grey duct tape with ‘no more lies’ scrawled on it and on the walls, the start of the movie wasn’t nearly as exciting as Nolan’s Dark Knight opening scenes. The comparisons are a given, and that bank robbery scene that Nolan used for the Dark Knight was just exhilarating.

It then cuts to the monologue by Pattinson which kicks in as the whole of Gotham city is celebrating Halloween on October 31, with the streets echoing the noir feel of Reeve’s approach to the film filled with shots of citizens drenched in rain, & muck, & the venality and crookedness of the Gotham streets, a pervading theme depicted throughout the film.

As Reeve’s portrays corruption running rampant on the Gotham streets, it cuts to shots of the Gotham underground subway & masked citizens glued to their phones, celebrating the holiday covered in face paint and dressed in different get ups.

It was a monologue that setup the precedence for Pattinson’s arrival, but it wasn’t the most eloquently written one, where Pattinson says “Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal” and “I am the shadows”, as he is revealed as Batman for the first time in the film to a group of masquerading thugs trying to assault an innocent Asian dude who just gets off the train.

The first fight scene was a theme to follow because Pattinson does get kicked and pushed around a bit, a stark contrast to Christian Bale who was much more resilient and powerful, and slicker with his defense in fight scenes. However, Pattinson’s attack had a brash violence to it.

Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’ kicks in right after, complementing the visuals rather fittingly as Cobain’s drudgy vocals reveal shots of Pattinson and the Gotham skyline as the late Nirvana frontman sings the lines ‘All the animals I’ve trapped, have all become my pets’, complementing the shots pretty deftly as Pattinson’s monologue continues.

As the scenes shift to the ‘Bat Cave’ with Pattinson swapping the bat outfit for a hoody with droopy eyes and a brooding expressionless face and Andy Serkis as Alfred enters the frame, their onscreen chemistry paled in comparison to Bale and Michael Caine, the latter of who made much more of an absorbing duo to watch. The quips by Caine and the retorts by Bale; those scenes were much more classy and cohesive, if you will. Caine as Alfred had a certain air about him, and delivered his dialogues significantly better, while Serkis was rather mediocre.

The lone star who stole the show however, was surely Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle or Catwoman. A cocktail waitress by night at the club owned by the Penguin and Falcone, the predominant mobsters of the film, and a cat burglar in the after hours, her short hair, stunning eyes and impeccably maintained and alluring body as she undresses from her waitress attire to her Catwoman suit, would have surely won hearts. Although, as the film continues, we find out that she is in love with another woman, who she shares her apartment with. But that’s balanced by a romance with Pattinson, as the film progresses.

The script was rather well conceived I thought, but executed not as astutely. The riddles, the ciphers, the rats, the ‘thumb drive’ and the ‘URL’ and conspiracies of the Gotham mobsters which revealed from one victim to the next kept me guessing about who was the main instigator of the whole conspiracy and who ‘the rat’ was, along with the underpinnings to Bruce Wayne’s family and his part in the entire sequence of events. I’m certain if Nolan had this script to work on he would have executed it much more capably and much more compellingly.

The Riddler’s riddles and dark humour & Pattinson breaking the ciphers and codes were well thought out, but executed poorly and they failed to make a noteworthy impact. While Dano essentially caused a dilemma for viewers to question whether he was in the wrong at all because he relentlessly targets corrupt, powerful people as his victims, with ‘no more lies’ etc. spray painted everywhere and he is also a victim of a scarring past as an orphan, which called for some empathy, but of course he remained rather nuts as the film progressed on.

But again, compared to Heath Ledger’s Joker or Tom Hardy’s Bane, Dano as the Riddler failed to be as captivating to watch on screen and his face is revealed only much much later in the film with him behind a mask and outfit that resembles the attire of nuclear lab scientists for the majority of the film, as he broadcasts his messages on social media and kills one victim to the next.

Talking about the ‘Bat Mobile’, the Nolan-Bale tank-like bat mobile was a million times cooler as compared to the sh*t bat mobile Pattinson drives, and Nolan executed those car scenes in a much more compelling way. The car chase sequence involving the Penguin with the bat mobile driven by Pattinson was ordinary and not the best but as was the case in the film, the music came to the rescue and surely proved to make things more interesting.

As an upcoming composer, I pay close attention to the score and Giacchino did quite a good job for the score to the film in all, it wasn’t cliche, the ‘Batman’ theme was simple yet moving, much akin to Zimmer’s two note brass theme for Bale. It was three notes mainly with brass and bass but occasionally played on the piano, and it was rather well conceptualized, and musically well written along with the choir elements to the Riddler theme which was a different approach.

Jeffery Wright as Gordon on the contrary, looked rather confused and displayed the same expressions on his face throughout the film as he portrayed the ‘good cop’ commissioner and failed to make any considerable impact and just made up a number in the film.

John Turturro as Carmine Falcone was also unexceptional, perhaps I’m typecasting him because of his role in Transformers, which I’ll admit, but he didn’t have that pervading command over his character and his character Falcone was an important and central figure as the script’s mystery unfolds. The casting team certainly got that one wrong and could have surely gone with someone else.

Colin Farrell as Penguin, however, does an excellent job and I couldn’t even recognize that it was Farrell under all those heavy layers of makeup, and his acting was, as is usually the case with Farrell, on-point and well played.

Coming to Pattinson then as the final verdict, I felt he tried his best, sometimes trying to hard, and there were parts where I thought he was trying to mimic Bale, especially in dialogue, nonetheless coming full circle, he did better than I expected, but it was nowhere near a performance to be remembered.

Zoe Kravitz was undoubtedly the highlight of the film, with her all laced up in her slick black Catwoman outfit and the digs she takes at ‘white-privilege’ and ‘growing up rich’ and the hustle she portrays along with her kicking some serious a*s in the film, which would’ve surely go down well women not to mention men across the globe, surely stealing a few hearts.

And of course the end revealing what seems like the Joker, also paves the way for part II but Reeves will have to create something spectacular to beat Nolan’s part II.

In all, the film wasn’t a flop, but I’d say it was bang average and it did drag on rather painstakingly. It was saved by Kravitz, the script and the score.

To rate the film in separate parts

Script — 7/10
Cinematography — 7/10
Score — 7.5/10

Pattinson — 6/10
Kravitz — 9/10
Dano — 5/10
Serkis — 3/10
Farrell — 7.5/10
Wright — 3/10
Turturro — 4/10

Total rating — 6/10

It’s a film that won’t turn a lot of heads or prove to be evocative or one for the records, so it’s not on the same level as the Batman trilogy I watched as a teenager directed by Nolan.

Perhaps I’m slightly biased, but I’m sure Batman fans(And I’m not the biggest fan of comic book movies) expected much better, and Reeves’ take which was in some elements Watchmen-like for the Neo-noir approach, failed to deliver an enthralling blockbuster of a film that would keep audiences gripped (it was a bit of a drag), and leave an enduring impression after.

Of course the comparisons to Nolan are relentless, but that’s a given for this franchise.

Let’s see what Reeves comes up with in the follow up.