The opening scene of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” the third live-action version of the caped-crusader in the last 16 years, delays our introduction to the eponymous vigilante. Reeves, keenly aware of the longstanding fascination with the character, plays around with the illusion of what we expect from Batman. Batman’s legacy as a figure is so well-known, each set-up to the first look at him feels taut in order to distinguish this Batman from the many others that came before him.
For much of the film’s almost three-hour runtime, I found the look of it to be genuinely unappealing and sometimes even ugly. Believe me when I say that this is a mark in the film’s favour. Greig Fraser’s cinematography favours a murky palette that unsettles our relationship with this world. Darkness is inherent here, both in the tonal gloominess of the story and the characters steeped in sadness but also in the lensing and production design that relentlessly follows suit. It all works as an intentional and incisive communication of the stakes of this world, where the murkiness is not undercut by glamour but is unsettlingly confident in its perversion. That commitment to an aesthetic is part of what defines the very best of “The Batman”, risking ugliness for the goals of its larger vision. Just as Fraser’s ambitious photography feels in lock-step with the demands of the film, there’s not a single moment in this new iteration of the caped crusader that feels like this is not the exact film that Reeves, his technical team, or his actors set out to make. This is a methodically created beast of a film that’s most impressive for the clarity of its vision. At varying turns during the 176-minute runtime of “The Batman” I was fascinated, repelled, amused, and seduced – in rapt attention at the varying turns of the film. From start to finish, this is one of the most thrilling superhero films of the last decade.
“They said I live in the shadows. I am the shadows.” This line is part of the monologue early in the film that introduces us to this new version of the character. In the moment it feels like the kind of mic-drop tagline that’s more about the bravado than anything meant to evince some deep meaning. But the further we go into the film, the deeper we travel into the darkness that feels inherent to this imagining of Gotham City and the numerous conflicting meanings of the word “shadows” take on greater significance. A shadow is very similar to a ghost. A ghost is the lingering identity of a dead person; a shadow is the projection of a real body when put into the light. We cannot touch them, but they linger. And they are reflections and symbols of things that have already passed. The ghost of a memory. The shadow of a past trauma. And they are both identified with silence. Shadows and ghosts may linger but they are often soundless, almost as if they might disappear if we try too much to find them. As played by Robert Pattinson, this Batman retains that same relationship with silence. In a recurring hook, a character teases him for constantly appearing without a sound.
When a shadow appears, it points us to something that came before – the corporeal thing responsible for its existence. It’s the same with Batman, who is evinced by a kind of cause and effect that becomes integral to the centre of the film. It makes sense then that this new film is fascinated by the past, so much so that it’s structured as a detective story that exhumes the hitherto buried secrets of Gotham city. The film opens with the brutal murder of the city’s mayor that sets off a series of crimes as a killer emerges from the shadows. The ways his relationship with the shadows recall our hero is intentional. He is The Riddler, intent on bringing the truth of Gotham’s perversions to the light and fascinated by Batman, for whom he leaves clues to help him put his plans into action. But in our first meeting with him, you’d be forgiven for thinking his costume looks like a strange inversion of the caped crusader. Early on, this sets up the straightforward hook of the film. As The Riddler’s plan swings into action, Batman becomes both vigilante and detective, working with two allies: policeman James Gordon, and waitress Selina Kyle, to uncover the reason for the string of murders in the city and find the source of the darkness in Gotham.
And there’s a lot of darkness here. Ostensibly, one could trace the aesthetic shift from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy to the gloominess of Zack Synder’s gloomy “Justice League” to Reeves’ newer iteration, but the functional darkness at work here feels different in some ways. The darkness here is not just for show, but there’s an unsparing seediness to ideas of goodness and virtue. When we first see Bruce Wayne, after a night of fighting as Batman, he looks worn out and tired. It’s a jarring shift from our conceptualisation of the billionaire playboy iteration of him we are familiar with. When waitress Selina Kyle is revealed, early on, as Catwoman the sleekness of her movements is no distraction for the precarity of her situation, which retains no sense of glamour but feels more desperate. Even the lily-coloured memory of the deceased Waynes, the dead-parents whose deaths loom over Bruce Wayne into adulthood, feel dependent on a level of darkness that feels unavoidable. The darkness encroaches on everything in this world.
It’s a hook that adds a level of intrigue to the central mystery. Late in the film when the villain begins the typical “you and I are not that different” speech, it makes sense. There’s a level of intense neurosis that defines many of the main players here. It’s more than the familiar enquiry on the boundaries between goodness and badness, but an even more intriguing enquiry into the ways that shadows follow each of us, the good and the bad in different ways. The focus itself is not compelling for being particularly original but it works because there’s a concerted effort in building the stakes in this world through that lens. Every technical aspect – the murky photography, oppressive sound design, and the best in show score from Michael Giacchino – all are in service of Reeves’ vision. Even the performers, each good in their way, never overwhelm the world he has rendered.
It’s all well-acted, even if no actor reaches the level of performance complexity of Michelle Pfeiffer in “Batman Returns”. The actors are in service of the story, and the overall affect in ways that are surprising even for a hero whose stylistic preoccupations have always overwhelmed the specific films. The closest thing to a rocky performance is Andy Serkis’ reimagining of Alfred, which works a little better in theory than it does on the screen with two scenes with Bruce that almost grind things to a halt. The two never seem quite to fit together with the history the story demands. Colin Farrell is also slightly frustrating on some level in his unrecognisable turn as The Penguin; not because he’s bad but because there’s a potentially great William Hurt performance this could have been but films remain obsessed with casting performers and then caking them in makeup. But it’s a minor gripe in a film that’s generously cast and performed. I keep thinking about Peter Sarsgaard in a two-scene role that lingers, a reminder of his ability for playing unctuousness by way of sadness by way of pitiful that compels you to care about his characters. But every nuance and every avenue at work here feels methodically keyed into the desolation of this Gotham.
Here’s another strange compliment. At almost three hours “The Batman” is long and you feel it, not in its pacing because it lays out its detective plot with clear forethought. But one can easily imagine a more orderly, perhaps sharper 2-hour film in there. Something less unruly and odd. But I’m also happy that we don’t have that film. This stranger, darker, longer version feels all the better for its full commitment to itself. I don’t expect any film to top the perverse audaciousness of Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns” but this new Batman film is a welcome entry in the long series of films about him This new “The Batman” is a seductive, and gripping detective tale by way of super-heroism. If this is what blockbuster filmmaking in 2022 looks like, then we’re off to a great start.
