Here is The review of the American much-anticipated superhero movie, The Batman (2022). Directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson as the Batman. So does this live up to the hype?
The Batman Review
Directed by Matt Reeves, The Batman (2022) is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman.
When the Riddler begins murdering key political figures in Gotham, Batman is forced to investigate the city’s hidden corruption and question his family’s involvement.
All right, so first off, maybe you already knew this, but I had no idea going into this movie that it is a noir detective thriller. It’s evident right from the very start of the movie as we get narration over scenes of this rainy Gotham City.
Robert Pattinson plays Bruce Wayne in a portrayal that I’m not sure I’ve actually seen done before. I mean, he plays the billionaire Cape crusader as the shy, if not troubled, introvert, and I thought it was really refreshing seeing this character that is typically flashy with his money be tucked into himself and extremely private.
This is a very gritty film, both in lighting and settings. There’s not much sunlight that we see, and then when the scenes aren’t taking place at night, they’re still very overcast with clouds and downpouring rain. I think this works to add a real melancholy to the tone for the story, which is fairly dark, but it’s also incredibly engaging.
The Riddler is targeting powerful people with political connections, and each time he incorporates some sort of twisted Riddle befitting his name.
Now, the Batman in this movie is our Detective. He’s working to solve the murder cases alongside Jim Gordon, who is not yet a police Commissioner.
Jeffrey Wright plays Gordon, and I liked him in this role. His signature raspy, whispered voice adds this layer of intrigue, but there were a few times that when he’s delivering his lines, they just came across awkwardly, almost like he was trying to have some kind of affectation to his voice. I only noticed this once, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Now, integral to a noir story is a film fatal, and she’s played excellently by Zoe Kravitz. Kravitz is Selina Kyle, who is also known as Catwoman. If you’re unfamiliar, I thought she was awesome in this, playing just a very strong but wounded thief. There’s a sadness that’s captured in her eyes. But if you take that for weakness, then you’re going to end up with your teeth kicked in and some broken bones because this girl is fierce.
She’s also got some really great chemistry with Pattinson, too. They’re often at odds, but we root for them to be this team or sometimes even more.
I’ve said this from when I first saw the very first trailer, and Colin Farrell is absolutely unrecognizable as the Penguin. There were a couple of times that he said certain things that I could kind of tell it was him, but between the makeup and the way that he crafts his performance, he just disappears into the role.
The Riddler is awesomely unhinged. I mean, there’s this deranged element mixed with hyper-intelligence that makes it very unsettling. And though I do wish that his reveal wouldn’t have been shown in the trailer because we almost go the entirety of the movie before we see his face.
In some ways with his character and even some set decoration elements, the Riddler reminded me a lot of John Doe in Seven, and part of the beauty of that role was that we didn’t know who it was until the reveal came, and I would have preferred that the Batman followed that same style and just kept him completely unknown.
Now, all of these players are important to the story and they have to be convincing for it to work. If Robert Pattinson, though, can’t pull off Bruce Wayne or the Batman, then the whole thing just falls apart.
I’ve already said that I liked how he crafted the performance of making Bruce just more of an introvert, but Pattinson is absolutely awesome as both characters. He sells the shy Bruce really well, and then when he puts on the mask in the Cape, he becomes terrifyingly ruthless.
And one of the first trailers showed him saying, “I am vengeance”. He illustrates that more than a few times in this movie, and when this wants to get violent, it gets violent.
And the kind of brutality is a little bit surprising for a movie that’s rated PG 13 in the US. And I think they got away with some of it just because they don’t show all of the actual blows landing on people’s faces, which at times will be just really turning them into bloody pulses.
But aside from the viciousness, Pattinson is able to do the Jacqueline High transformation of Bruce to Batman very convincingly. He’s damaged, haunted and even hopeless at times, which I think then is very humanizing. We see the weight that the world has on him and how he struggles with writing that line between justice and vigilantism.
Now, the murder mystery aspect of this story is very engaging, even though we know who’s behind the murders. The challenge of solving the Riddles to see where they lead and then the ongoing pursuit I think makes it completely enthralling.
I was blown away by the cinematography in this movie. I mean, some of the rooftop scenes are beautiful because they just put our characters in the right scale of the surroundings, showing just how dwarfed they are by everything around them.
There’s also an effective use of shallow depth of field. Now, if you saw Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, so much of that movie was shot with a very shallow depth of field, so everything was just kind of blown out and it made those sometimes difficult to see what was going on in a scene. Now it’s a good effect, but when it’s overused, it just becomes too much.
And in this movie, the shallow depth of field is used consistently, but it’s not too frequent and sometimes we’ll get a few seconds of a scene that has a character’s face as they’re standing or even driving where just portions are in focus and then the outer portions of their face become soft depending on the angle that they’re looking. But then after just a bit of that, the angle is going to change and we’ll have more of a medium-wide shot where the depth isn’t nearly as shallow, making the whole subject in focus.
And there are other times where the camera would be on a pole or maybe some sort of gimbal allowing the camera to follow a car or a character like on a motorcycle.
Again, this isn’t overused, but it’s also not just shown once as a gimmick. The choice to use exparingly but consistently makes it an effective style that adds a bunch of visual interest to the movie.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen any of the trailers or even the stills of the Batmobile, but this one might just be my favorite out of all of them. I mean, I like the tumbler that’s used in The Dark Knight, but this one just has something to it that made it even more awesome, I don’t know if it’s a big blue flames flying out of the back, I don’t know.
The internet kind of lost its mind when the runtime was announced for this. It clocks in at just under 3 hours. I got to say I didn’t feel the time at all. I was completely sucked into the story and could have just kept sitting there enjoying the ride.
That being said though, there was a point where I thought the movie was wrapping up, but there was probably still another 30 to maybe 45 minutes left and it wasn’t the time that made it feel like the story was coming to the conclusion. I mean, it was actually the way that the narrative was unfolding.
There were natural story elements that led me to believe that it was drawing to a close, but really thankfully the rest of the movie completed the Detective case, which then makes for a much more satisfying ending.
There are a lot of moments in this where the story is more patient and then dramatic and less action-oriented, but when the scenes call for action, just know that it will be an adrenaline-fueled roller coaster of awesomeness.
I’ve been trying to think of which action sequence would be my favorite, but right now it’s just too hard to choose because more than a couple of them. I mean, they’re just epic in the way that they’re executed.
And I also love that when we get a fight scene, which are typically hand to hand battles, they’re not all quick cuts that break up the action and then make it difficult to see the actual fighting.
Here we get some great continuous fights and when the camera does need to cut, it feels natural and it just provides us with a better angle for the craziness that’s going on. Rather than cutting away to hide some wonky fight choreography.
While I don’t always talk about the musical scores of a film when they are moving and awesome, I certainly want to draw attention to them. Michael Jacquino creates a spectacular score that is orchestral and emotional and he also uses the song Ave Maria throughout and sometimes it’s with vocalizations and other times it’s just as instrumental, but the meaning and the emotional triggers that this evokes, I think, are wonderful.
And the music is also very complementary to the action sequences working to amp them up even more so that as exciting as the action really is, Your heartbeat will increase Due to the intensity of the music.
So if you can’t tell, I absolutely love this movie. Despite the story feeling like it was wrapping up well before it actually was. Everything else about this gritty murder mystery noir thriller was incredibly engaging.
The cinematography is stunning. The acting is superb carried on the shoulders, really of Robert Pattinson has more than proved his worth as the Caped crusader.
The action is incredible, but it complements the drama of the story well, balancing the two to create a narrative that satisfies the mind as well as the heart.
Now experiencing this, I really hope that we get more of Pattinson as the Batman and I really want to see what else director Matt Reeves can bring out of Gotham.
There’s also a post-credit scene, but it’s extremely quick and short of being able to actually pause a transition that’s happening on the screen, I’m not really sure It’s Worth Sticking around for, but at least you know it’s there.
There’s no sex or nudity, some profanity and a bunch of violence.
I am going to give The Batmanc (2022) 5/5.
I had an absolute blast with this And I am certainly going to be watching it over and over again now. Before I saw the movie, I had heard some early reactions that said that this could actually rival the dark night in terms of quality of story and awesomeness. I agree.
So are you looking forward to seeing this one? Who’s your favourite Batman? Let me know in the comments below.
Guys thank you for reading my review of The Batman (2022) Movie. See you next time.
The Batman (2022) Movie Review
Watch the trailer of The Batman (2022) Movie.
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