Movie Review: The Batman(2022)

“Fear is a tool. When that light hits the sky, it’s not just a call. It is a warning”

IMDB Rating: 8.4/10

Letterboxd Rating: 4.2/5

My Rating: 3.5/5

We finally watched The Batman and in my opinion, it somehow divided its audience. While one group of people are saying that The Batman was a masterpiece and they are comparing the movie with the Christopher Nolan trilogy, especially with the Dark Knight(2008), other group is saying that the movie was alright, however, it wasn’t totally a flawless movie. If I will classify myself in a group which I mentioned above, I think I would be in the second group who are saying the movie was great, however, there were some deficiencies and flaws in it. Anyway, let’s do the critique about The Batman.

THIS PART OF THE REVIEW IS NOT CONTAINING ANY SPOILERS, HOWEVER, IF YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE THE MOVIE WITHOUT ANY BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE, PLEASE WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST THEN READ THE REVIEW :))

Before talking about the storyline or events of the movie, I want to talk about Robert Pattinson’s Batman interpretation. After Ben Affleck’s Batman interpretation, Robert Pattinson’s Batman looks like an oasis in the desert. Don’t get me wrong, Ben Affleck’s Batman was bad and under its potential because of the studio’s(WB) bad decisions, not because of Ben Affleck. Warner Bros and DC rejected to make a solo movie for Ben Affleck’s Batman so it was up in the air. However, Warner Bros didn’t make the same mistake again and they did a solo movie for Robert Pattinson’s Batman. The interpretation was successful and years later, we finally had a Batman which we can make empathy, understand his feelings, and understand what is he going through. Robert Pattinson literally lived the Batman in the movie and I can not think of any alternative actor to play the Batman in this movie.

The movie’s music composer Michael Giacchino, as we can remember him from successful works in UP, Ratatouille, and JOJO Rabbit, did a successful job and I think the movie’s original musics were great. However, if you are expecting original musics like that of in Nolan Trilogy, composed by Hans Zimmer, it is a big possibility to you will be disappointed. In my opinion, it would be unfair for Michael Giacchino to be compared with Hans Zimmer for his performance in his first Batman movie. Besides the original musics made by Michael Giacchino, I also liked the song “Something in the way” covered edition. The movie used “Something in the way” so great and efficient so it fits its scenes really smoothly.

IF YOU GO BELOW, YOU WILL TAKE THE RISK TO GET SPOILERS.

The Things That I Love in the Movie

So in the spoiler part, I want to start talking about Robert Pattinson’s Batman, again. In the movie, it is the second year after Bruce Wayne turned into Batman, and in some scenes, we see Bruce Wayne is still not a really experienced Batman and doing some mistakes. At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Wayne was really anti-social, depressed, and desperate. Even the Gotham police are not trusting to him, except James Gordon, and Bruce has no effort to gain their trust. His only motivation was vengeance and he is fighting with the villains with hate and rage. I can say, Bruce Wayne was on the border between becoming a hero and becoming a villain at the beginning of the movie. And I think these are a few of the crucial components that make this movie good. Bruce is in his second year of being Batman and it is expected that he can listen to his emotions while taking action rather than listening to his logic. In the movie, Bruce Wayne is still dealing with balancing his emotions and logic, still trying to understand when and how to use them when he is Batman. I think that’s what I really liked about Robert Pattinson’s Batman interpretation, besides his marvelous acting. It was also nice to see that at the end of the movie, Bruce Wayne took his lessons from the incidents he experienced and he started to change his vengeance mentality to giving hope to common people.

I grew up with the Batmans who are highly skilled in fighting, however, their detective capabilities were highly in the background. If you read the comics, you know that Batman is also a great detective as much as he is a good fighter. In this movie, I really liked that we see Batman’s detective scenes more than his fight scenes. The movie's tempo was much slower than other Batman movies, due to the movie focused on Batman’s detective ways, however, it is definitely not a flaw. I think it was such a realistic approach to Batman’s character so I am glad that I finally see a Batman who is a real detective.

I also loved the dark atmosphere of the movie. Of course, we’re in Gotham so there has to be a dark atmosphere, however, in this movie the dark atmosphere of Gotham was so great that we can clearly see how Gotham is full of corrupted politicians, corrupted police officers, and full of mobs. In some scenes, we can even see there is an underground world of an underground world. So, it makes us think that Gotham really needs a Batman. Without a doubt, it was one of the best Gothams I have ever seen in the Batman movies. I really want to congratulate and thank Greg Fraiser because of this “dirty” and “corrupted” approach to Gotham. Gotham was always dirty and corrupted but not as much as in The Batman.

Finally, I really liked the Zoë Kravitz cat women performance. To be honest, I had some doubts about her when the cast of the movie was announced, however, she really misapprehend me and she performed such a great performance.

The Things I Didn’t Like About The Movie

As I said the movie wasn’t flawless to me. I am not saying it has huge deficiencies, however, I am not also saying like some people the movie was so flawless that this was better than the Dark Knight. Before I continue with the things that I didn’t like in the movie, I believe it is really wrong to compare The Batman(2022) to other loved Batman movies, such as the movies in the Nolan trilogy. The manners and purposes of the movies are so different. In this movie, we’re seeing a Batman who is trying to reach his full potential while dealing with balancing his logic and emotions. However, Nolan’s movies were focused on Batman who reached their full potential and dealt with mobs and super-villains. The detective ways of Batman weren’t the main focus of Nolan’s trilogy, however, it is obviously the main focus in The Batman (2022). Anyway, I will not talk further about this subject and I will continue the aspects about the things I didn’t like in the movie.

I Expected a Less Skilled and Less Powerful Batman

As we know that it is the second year of Batman, we naturally expect that Batman is amateur, more emotional, and less developed than other Batmans. However, I can surely say, there was no difference between the fight skills of Christian Bale’s Batman and Robert Pattinson’s Batman. Even though it is only his second year after Bruce Wayne decided to be the Batman, he really looks like a master of martial arts. He is literally winning every fight without even a scar. Of course, I am not expecting Batman to be killed by just a simple gang member, however, I really expected less powerful Batman so the fight scenes could be more realistic and could be fitted to the context of the movie. For example, in one scene, the timed bomb was about to explode just in front of Batman’s face(the distance was about 30–50 centimeters or 19 inches). Since the Batman was face timing with Riddler and didn’t want to interrupt the call in order to receive more clues, he didn’t even move his finger and the bomb literally exploded in front of his face. Let me remind you, his costume was not advanced, his face was not fully covered, Gil Colson is died because of the explosion, and batman survived the explosion literally without a scar on his face. At least if he tried to run away from the explosion and survived, it would make sense but I think it was really an amateur mistake for a big movie like this.

Alfred

I couldn’t understand the purpose of Alfred. I am not saying Alfred shouldn’t be in this movie, however, he didn’t do anything significant in this movie. Even before the half, he left the movie because of the Riddler’s trap and we didn’t see him after the hospital scene. In the past Batmans, Alfred had important roles and he was significantly contributing to the storyline, however, I can’t say the same things for Andy Serkis’s Alfred.

After Credit

First of all, the after-credit was great and interesting. If you enter the website link shown in the after credit, you will see many easter eggs about the movie. However, I will talk about a scene that should be put into the after-credit. I am talking about the Joker and Riddler dialogue at the end of the movie. Although the scene was interesting, the scene has nothing to do with the storyline so I think they made a wrong decision by not putting this scene as an after-credit scene. Interestingly, the director Matt Reeves said he has no plans with the Joker in future movies so the scene has no purpose. As a result, it makes this scene as much more unnecessary.

FUN FACT

In the original version of the movie, we see the Joker in Arkham, and Batman goes to the Joker for advice on how to catch the Riddler, however, Joker responds to Batman in a bantering way and tries to provoke Batman. This scene is removed due to the people who watched the movie on tests didn’t like the scene.

The Things I Didn’t Mention Above about the Movie

I know there are things I didn’t mention above such as I didn’t talk in very detail about Riddler, Penguin, or Falcon because I don’t think there were special things to talk about them. I am neutral to Riddler, Penguin, or Falcon. Penguin had no crucial role in the movie. In my opinion, Riddler was such a classical super-villain in Batman. That’s why I didn’t talk about them. However, I think they didn’t give any background information about the Penguin because HBO Max is doing a spinoff series for Penguin so I think we’ll reach the background information that we need to understand the Penguin from the new series of HBO Max.

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