The Batman

Thanks to a free preview weekend of HBO/Cinemax, I'm catching up on a few movies I missed in 2022. First up is Matt Reeves' The Batman. 

There was a lot of push back on casting Robert 'Twilight' Pattinson as Batman. But he did a decent job. I don't think he was the best to have ever donned the cowl and cape. However, he was a heck of a lot better than George Clooney and Val Kilmer. With Pattinson, I thought his Bruce Wayne was far better than his Dark Knight. I think if we could have took Christian Bale's Batman and used Pattinson's Bruce Wayne, we would have had a perfect character here.

Jeffrey Wright's (Casino Royale) take on Jim Gordon was by far one of the best ever. Probably only Gary Oldman's version was better and that's just because of how epic Oldman is as an actor. I've heard that a GCPD series is being developed and if Jeffrey Wright is going to be on this, playing a major role, I very much might need to sign up for HBOMax. 

Speaking of the GCPD, it was refreshing to have a Batman movie that was more driven by mystery than action. A mysterious serial killer calling himself The Riddler is systematically killing corrupt members of Gotham City government. When this killer begins sending personalized calling cards to the Batman, the GCPD is forced to work mano a mano with the masked vigilante on this case. 

Other than on the 1966 series, I don't think I've ever encountered a live action version of Batman in which the Dark Knight is on scene in public working with police officers and detectives to solve crimes. Christopher Nolan's trilogy tried to accomplish this but there was a lot more subterfuge involved in all that. It was a refreshing change to see these corrupt Gotham City cops getting freaked out by the presence of an amateur sleuth dressed as a bat, operating in front of all of them.

When this film does dip its toe into action packed waters, I get bored. There was this very unnecessary scene in which the Penguin is being chased on a Gotham freeway by the Bat and the carnage was just gratuitous. Like 7 semis explode and you know a lot of folks died from that destruction and yet Batman doesn't seem to have any remorse over that. 

Kudos however to the actor and make-up team behind The Penguin. I learned in the credits that Cobblepot was played by Colin Farrell and I was stunned. He looks and sounds nothing like Farrell has in any of the few films I have seen him in like 2003's Daredevil. When I realized just who was under all that makeup, you could have knocked me over with a feather. It's that good of a transformation.

Another great transformation is that of Zoe Kravitz (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald) as Seline Kyle. In Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, Selina is portrayed as a light-skinned black woman with short bangs. Well, chalk another mark up for the make-up department as Kravitz's Catwoman looks like she was Miller's artwork come to life. 

I'm seeing on Wikipedia that Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) hopes to make a trilogy with the Pattinson Batman and that part 2 is currently in some sort of pre-production mode. Even though this wasn't my favorite Batman film, I definitely want to see more if only for another mystery. Batman is a detective you know. But it might be how Jim Gordon rises the ranks to police commissioner that I find more interesting than what Bat-tinson does...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.