The Batman (2022)
Hockey Pads
Like the Nirvana song that opens and closes The Batman, there’s “Something in the Way” of Matt Reeves’ new film that prevents it from being a great comic book movie: it seems embarrassed to have been based on comic books.
How can this be? Reeves himself has said in interviews that he and co-writer Peter Craig drew inspiration from famous Dark Knight storylines like “The Long Halloween”, “Dark Victory”, and “Hush”.
To be clear, The Batman has no qualms about being a comic book movie. At many (many, many) points it steals liberally from the best. But the pre-release hype surrounding Warner Bros’ third big-screen iteration of the Caped Crusader in two decades tells you everything you need to know about the project’s drawing board flaws.
Not-So-Secret Origins
Early on, fans gobbled up the prospect of a Batman who was more focused on detective work than fighting colorful villains in larger-than-life set pieces. I was one of them, especially when Ben Affleck was still attached to star in the project. Zack Snyder’s gloomy superhero melange barely gave the Oscar winner anything to do, much less allow breathing room to develop his character. Affleck’s version of Bruce Wayne was also middle-aged and plenty world-weary, promising a take on crimefighting we hadn’t yet seen from this franchise.
At some point, Affleck left the project and Robert Pattinson was tapped to strap on the utility belt. Solid choice, I thought, from an acting standpoint (post-Twilight/Harry Potter mega-fandom, Pattinson has shed the heartthrob label and consistently demonstrated his chops as a performer). But I got the sneaking suspicion that skewing the role younger would steer The Batman into origin-story territory—a far too familiar place for this franchise.
Still, as a lifelong comics fan, I was excited for a new Batman movie whose creative team seemed equally jazzed to share a bold vision for the movies rooted in the elements that make reading DC Comics a (mostly) rewarding experience.
I’m still waiting.
Four-Color Fears
Just after The Batman let out, I visited a nearby bookstore and flipped through the collected editions of “The Long Halloween” and “Hush”. In this moment, my problems with Reeves’ film came into focus. Though these storylines rely heavily on mystery and detective work,* the books themselves are vibrant as hell and full of unabashedly comic book characters. From Killer Croc to The Joker to Mad Hatter and many other rogues, it’s clear that writer Jeph Loeb and artists Tim Sale (“The Long Halloween”) and Jim Lee (“Hush”) were deeply committed to telling serious and elaborate stories with characters who might otherwise have been easily written off due to their outsized proportions and crayon box aesthetics.
Reeves’ Batman is anti-colorful, with scenes doused in alternating monochrome of piss yellow, jazz club blue, and murky black (punctuated by the occasional blood red)—the distinct palettes of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy fused together into a single dour feature. I don’t mind moody and oppressive films. Reeves and DP Greig Fraser give us a Gotham City we’ve seen before, but never quite this run down, this desperately in need of saving. And were it not for the fact that this is a Batman movie (and therefore has at least some responsibility to dabble in the fantastical), I might have enjoyed it as a gritty urban drama.
Nothing Left to Deconstruct
Unfortunately, one of the other early tidbits we got from the press regarding The Batman was that it was going to be more like David Fincher’s Se7en than, say, Batman Returns (which, until this movie, was the gold standard for slimy, creepy Gotham flicks). In addition to being a three-hour compilation of the franchise’s greatest hits (more on that in a bit), The Batman is Se7en for people who were either too young or too squeamish to actually watch Se7en.
From the moral crusading serial killer leaving clues to his motives at the scenes of grisly murders; to a detective duo approaching crime from different perspectives (here, Batman is the new-on-the-job crusader while Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon is the seasoned cop struggling not to succumb to violence, corruption, and cynicism); and an overall mood that makes the villain’s arguments for them, it’s disappointing to think that the “best” way to do something new with the character is to shoehorn their universe into a subpar episode of CSI.
Yes, Reeves and Craig do everything they can to make their Batman “grounded”, “real”, and “contemporary”—which includes demolishing the pillar of virtue on which Thomas and Martha Wayne once stood; turning the Batmobile into a regular car with some Fast and the Furious lights taped to the back, and turning iconic villains into (again, sadly) TV crime series nobodies.
Before we get to Penguin and Riddler, let’s look at a character who isn’t (mostly) in this film:
Jack Nicholson’s Joker, as seen in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, was a narcissistic criminal underboss who fell into a vat of acid and became a narcissistic (and very weird) criminal mastermind. He used lethal joy buzzers on rivals and pulled a 6-foot-long gun out of his pants.
Nearly two decades later, Christopher Nolan cast Heath Ledger as the Clown Prince of Crime, and gave him a mysterious past that didn’t include the acid trip (sorry). This Joker’s white skin and red grin were self-styled body art, even though the ghoulish facial scarring may not have been. This step toward realism did not negate the character’s over-the-top antics (like using a bazooka and dressing up as a nurse).
The less said about Jared Leto’s Snyderverse Joker the better, except that he’d been stripped of an acid backstory and facial scarring, and reduced to a tattooed, grill-sporting albino gangsta with a thing for pretty young shrinks.
I blame the success of Todd Phillips’ billion-dollar, titular take on the Joker for a good deal of The Batman’s problems. Joaquin Phoenix lit up the screen with his commitment to insanity and extreme dieting. But his Arthur Fleck was literally just an imbalanced Gothamite who stumbled into a life of crime and decided to decorate his face. Many fans speculated that this was a proto-version of the character, one that a future “real” Joker would emulate in taking on Batman. Whatever the case, the comics-accurate interpretation of Joker fell from the heights of Nicholson’s interpretation to the barely-qualifies lows of Phoenix’s just-a-guy art film.
Similarly, Reeves and Craig steer far from previous interpretations of Penguin and Riddler (Paul Dano) in the name of realism. Ripping not just a page but entire chapters from David Fincher’s Zodiac, the filmmakers reimagine Riddler as a personality-free, cold-blooded killer in what appears to be a black leather radiation suit—with eyeglasses placed precariously on top (recalling, not kindly, Michael Myers’ sheet-ghost getup from Halloween). Sure, he scribbles question marks on his outfit, crime scenes, and the chicken-scratch letters he addresses “To The Batman”, but there’s no flamboyance, no joy to the character.
That’s not to say I prefer Jim Carrey’s take on the character from Batman Forever, but there’s a healthy middle ground (reminder: decades of source material) between sparkly, cane-twirling Vegas Act and (again, sadly) just-a-guy art film. To see Riddler’s video messages to Gotham PD/Batman is to feel none of the cold calculation of Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. If Riddler isn’t breathing cartoonishly heavily into his microphone, he’s screaming at the top of his lungs like Nic Cage meeting his Nic Cage quota. I felt the peril of Ledger/Joker’s victims. I pegged Dano’s Riddler as more likely to die of a heart attack than to wind up in Arkham Asylum.
You may say, “But, Ian, there really are odd-looking lunatics out there who do unspeakable things while ranting on the Internet”.
I agree, and those people also have nothing to do with the Riddler.
Now let’s consider the Penguin. It’s been said that Warner Bros’ spent untold amounts of money to needlessly turn Colin Farrell into Richard Kind, but in the context of The Batman, it was cash well spent. I absolutely loved what Farrell did with this part, even if I didn’t recognize his character as the Penguin.
Sure, he’s called “the Penguin”. But instead of being a deformed smoker with fused-fingered flipper hands and a genius mind to match his monocle, Oswald Cobblepot is now just a fat Sopranos-knock-off mid-boss named “Oz” who has a bit of a limp. It’s true, someone nicknamed him “Penguin”, but that makes about as much sense as calling Sonny Corleone “Sabertooth”.
At this rate, we’re only six years away from seeing an unemployed college dropout version of Bruce Wayne who merely identifies as a billionaire crimefighter, taking on bad guys with “sweded” cardboard armor like Jack Black’s delusional video store clerk in Be Kind, Rewind. As it stands, there’s no real Bruce Wayne to speak of here, only a Bat shadow whose emo poutiness is even more pronounced when bumming around his luxury estate in black t-shirts and guyliner.
World’s Greatest Detective?
And what of the man behind the cowl, the driven young billionaire who spent years studying and training all over the world in order to become what criminals fear most? I know this is only Year Two, but I don’t see how this guy quashed his first drug ring—let alone struck at the heart of a citywide political scandal.
In Batman Forever, Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) questions the sanity of a man who would dress up as a “flying rodent”—to which Batman immediately replies, “Bats aren’t rodents, Dr. Meridian”. In The Batman, the Riddler presents Batman with a puzzle involving a “flying rat”, a challenge so gargantuan that Batman, Gordon, and Alfred the butler (Andy Serkis) spend more than an hour of screen time working their way through the world’s dumbest possible answers.
A flying rat? Why, that could be a penguin! Or a stool pigeon! Or a falcon!
Or it could be that giant shiny metal emblem on your fricking chest.
Then there’s the grand third act revelation involving a Wayne family scandal. Turns out mom and dad weren’t such models of stability and morals after all (another disturbing trend in the post-Dark Knight trilogy mythos). Somehow this news comes as a shock to Bruce Wayne, who never knew about the articles, blogs (hell, probably books and documentaries) written about the seedy side of his family—the mental illness, the corruption scandal that nearly derailed his father’s mayoral bid. I know Gotham is a “timeless” city, but they’ve clearly had working Internet long enough to spawn a subculture of TikTok conspiracy nuts.
If this Batman were truly the brilliant (or even competent) crimefighter we’d been led to believe, then his enemies’ taunts against his intellect would have bounced off him like rubber. Instead, when Riddler says, “Oh, you’re really not as smart as I thought you were!”, we understand why he might see this Batman as less Michael Keaton than Pete Holmes.
For those expecting a real brain-bender, the kind of intellectually rewarding film one thinks of when hearing “detective movie” echoed throughout the marketing and promotion, The Batman is almost sure to disappoint. It’s similar to how Captain America: The Winter Soldier was advertised as being a “different kind” of Marvel movie, a real-deal spy thriller instead of a superhero film.**
The real mystery is why Batman keeps talking about vengeance. Previous iterations have centered on Bruce Wayne’s war on crime as a way of protecting others from the kind of evil that befell his family. But that’s “justice”—an entirely different motivation than “vengeance”.
It’s the same line of thinking that found Pamela Voorhees hacking up teenagers in Friday the 13th, after having killed the two camp counselors she blamed for the drowning death of her son. We recognize her as being insane because you can only exact revenge on the person or institution that did you wrong. Bruce learns this lesson early in Batman Begins, realizing the need to channel his rage differently after his parents’ assassin is gunned down outside of court.
Reeve and Craig’s Batman wears “vengeance” like a misshapen emo band t-shirt—it looks badass for about five minutes until you realize this guy’s an adult and ought to get some smarter clothes.
The Bat, The Cat, and the Rehash
Some time ago I let a friend know that there was a new Batman movie coming out. They cut me off almost instantly when I mentioned Catwoman playing off of Batman and Penguin, with some corrupt businessman/politician pulling everyone’s strings.
“I know that movie,” they said. “Tell me about the new one.”
Stop me if you heard these before:
The villain assassinates a crime boss in front of a large crowd gathered on giant steps.
The Riddler leaves colorful envelopes for Batman, addressed in crude, childlike writing.
The villain allows themselves to be captured on purpose, as their citywide-reign-of-terror plot unfolds.
A Bat vehicle appears out of the shadows, kicking off an intense, fiery car chase across Gotham.
Batman solves (to varying degrees of success) a riddle about a winged rat.
The film uses cute editing tricks to knock the audience off-balance during an assassination scene.
Bruce has a heart-to-heart with a wounded father figure in a hospital/deathbed scenario.
Batman growl-yells at the cocky, uncooperative villain in custody and proceeds to break the room apart in frustration.
Batman takes out a gang of armed, faceless henchmen by tripping and hanging them from the scaffolding on which they’re perched.
The villain orchestrates a series of explosions around Gotham, which we see from impressive aerial vantage points, and which signify a third act plot device of infrastructural disaster.
Batman takes a special liking to an orphan boy who may or may not become his future sidekick, Robin.
The villain uses a public official’s widely publicized funeral to stage another high-profile assassination.
Batman worries that if Gotham’s citizens learn their District Attorney is corrupt, it would “tear the city apart”.
Sidebar 1: Gotham City, especially as depicted in The Batman, is a festering shithole of rising crime and dirty officials. Who are these mythical pearl-clutchers that would lose all faith in humanity by learning that the violent, prostitution-ridden streets were being enabled by a less-than-upstanding DA?
Sidebar 1: Do you even know the name of your District Attorney? I mean, I do—but that’s only because she’s been embroiled in corruption scandals for years.
For as much as Warner Bros exalts Reeves’ film as a detective thriller, you don’t have to be a super sleuth to recognize that it’s essentially “Batman’s Greatest Hits” draped in a (slightly) more youth-friendly Fincher aesthetic. Much of the commentary surrounding the movie on release has been that it’s unfair to compare Reeves to, say, Christopher Nolan or Tim Burton. It’s completely fair, especially when so much of the screenplay has been lifted from some of the most financially successful and widely discussed superhero movies of all time.
If you’re thinking that the screenwriters might have been limited in the kinds of stories they can tell with these characters and situations, I can attest that, as a comic book collector for nearly 35 years, I can count the number of truly repetitive Batman stories I’ve read on one hand. They’re not all home runs, but the best rise to the challenge of finding new ways to invigorate a nearly 100-year-old pop icon—rather than sneakily presenting watered-down versions of far better ideas.
The greatest mystery is how Reeves, Craig, and the studio execs thought no one would notice.
Bat Signal or Virtue Signal?
People did notice critic Ryan Kinel’s reaction to The Batman, which included his taking umbrage at the depiction of white characters versus black characters. In addition to Reeves and company race-swapping traditionally white characters (Gordon and Selina Kyle—aka Catwoman, played here by Zoe Kravitz), Kinel observed that, aside from Batman and Alfred, all the other white male adult characters in Gotham were villains—while the black characters (including mayoral candidate Bella Reál, played by Jayme Lawson) were do-gooders. It’s an exaggeration, for sure. While Catwoman is more of an ally here than we’ve seen in other Bat-flicks, she’s hardly virtuous. And there are several white cops and random citizens in the movie who don’t appear to be evil.
But there is a faint undercurrent of wokeness permeating The Batman, one that is initially annoying and eventually jarring. Midway through the film, Reál confronts the reclusive Bruce Wayne about sitting on his family fortune instead of helping those in need. As they are separated, the mayor-in-waiting makes a remark to the effect that, once elected, she’ll “make” Wayne do more. That’s sinister as hell, not to mention entitled, and I doubt Reeves, Craig, or anyone else responsible for inserting that creepy bit of class prejudice into the story understands that they’re advocating literal coercive fascism. The irony, of course, is that Bruce Wayne has spent years and untold millions of dollars building a crimefighting apparatus to help those very same underprivileged and/or terrorized Gothamites.
He’s not very good at it, but, hey…
The capper comes toward the end of the movie, when Catwoman directly challenges Batman, saying, “Whoever you are, you were definitely born rich", followed by some line about taking down the “rich, white assholes” whose corruption keeps everyone down. Granted, in recent years, the definition of racism has been eroded to exonerate everyone but white people, but as a mixed-race kid growing up, I can assure you my black dad would’ve knocked the shit out of me for seriously discriminating against an entire group of people based on skin color.
Here we see that the filmmakers’ lack of originality isn’t limited to story beats; it extends to ideology, too. Is the insinuation that only white people can become wealthy and powerful—that everyone else must siphon or steal resources in order to get ahead? Or that minorities are incapable of being corrupt? Have Reeves and company ever actually looked at the power structures of real-world cities in the 21st Century? As with wider culture, political influence has diversified in the last few decades—making Catwoman’s line as out of touch as it is racist.
Bat Cave of Forgotten Dreams
A few days after I watched The Batman, I put on Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin for my four-year-old son. On the commentary for that film (or maybe it was Batman Forever, I don’t recall), Joel Schumacher boasts that he would constantly (an apparently very loudly) remind his actors on set, “It’s a comic book! We’re making a comic book movie!”
I often cite this as a criticism of Schumacher’s entries, which are gaudy, over-the-top, and often neglect the rich history of their own characters. I see them differently now. They’re still not good films, but they at least attempt to translate the language and style of the source material to another medium. The Nolan trilogy walked a fine line between recognizable reality and heightened comic book exploits. The records-smashing Marvel films prove that audiences will wait in line for hours to watch a giant green man punch a flamboyant god of mischief—and greet this weird spectacle with unironic applause.
Matt Reeves strips away just about every overtly comic book element from his film—except for the plot points and set pieces that he swipes from other Batman movies and shoehorns into a PG-13 take on Se7en. It’s the kind of fat, clumsy imposter that a real Batman movie would tie up and leave at the scene of a crime in order to limit the damage it might do to itself and others.
The Batman lacks confidence, a distinct voice, and a reason to exist.
*Full disclosure, I’ve only read part of “Hush”, and may have read all of “The Long Halloween”—but both happened so long ago that I may as well have never picked them up.
**That’s bullshit, too. The Winter Soldier isn’t a “spy thriller” just because it features Robert Redford and a government conspiracy. It’s escapist, popcorn-movie fun adorned in a political gimmick—like a mid-90s chromium comic book cover. All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor are full of political intrigue and paranoia, too, but neither of them ends with genetically enhanced supersoldiers pummeling each other aboard a floating military base as it crashes into Washington, DC.
For a more balanced perspective on The Batman, watch Kicking the Seat’s live round table review with Earth’s Mightiest Critics!
