I hear you, internet. In our never-ending quest to immediately rank things and compare new phenomena to their predecessors, it was inevitable that The Batman wouldn’t be in theaters for a day without folks comparing Robert Pattinson to the men who played Batman before him. While I’m going to pile on with the praise of this film, same as everyone else not named Ben Shapiro, I think it’s wise of us to reserve judgment until after we see how far this run with Pattinson as The Dark Knight goes.
I found The Batman to be a welcomed effort at grounding the character. Matt Reeves and company took a more nuanced approach with the story, while at the same time simplifying Batman to focus on a specific time in his life. It was nice – they didn’t spend time re-hashing the origins of Bruce Wayne. They understood that by the year 2022, most people seeing the flick probably already know. They didn’t overdo the theatrics, and it damn sure wasn’t a campy comic book movie. Instead, The Batman painted Gotham City as a cesspool of corruption, a pressure cooker capable of spitting out a gallery of characters whose trauma, greed, or both manifested in a plethora of ways, few actually beneficial to the greater good of the city. And, they used that myriad of characters to tell a winding detective story, departing from a more traditional…dare I say, formulaic…approach to the modern superhero movie.
It’s important to keep that context in mind when we evaluate Pattinson as Batman. In a way, it didn’t feel like Pattinson and Reeves went full bore with this – they dialed some things back, leaving them as areas of development for the future. That leaves us with what I would deem an incomplete Batman – one that was painfully stoic in a way that suggested a thin crack could unleash a flood of pain behind his eyes. We saw this in his conversations with Andy Serkis‘ Alfred. But, it’s also a Batman that learns throughout this movie, and we see the slightest hint of growth, which suggests there’s plenty of further character development on the horizon for Bruce Wayne. Batman was bent on vengeance and intimate, brutal, hand-to-hand violence. But, by the end of this story, he wrestled with the question of whether or not Gotham City was actually better for it. In that, we may see Pattinson’s Batman begin to realize the importance of “being Bruce Wayne” and how he can help with his checkbook. That’s my best guess, anyway, whether that decision was a calculated one on the parts of Reeves and Pattinson or not.
I’ve seen the take floating around that Pattinson was the better Batman while Christian Bale was the better Bruce Wayne. While I may agree with that today, I certainly won’t be surprised if Pattinson gets another couple cracks at the character and hangs up his cape as the better both.
Earlier this week, our resident film critic, Brandon Vick, and the President of the Music City Film Critics Association, Sean Atkins, joined me for an episode of The Vick’s Flicks Podcast, on which we dive into a (spoilery) discussion about The Batman.
If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to The Vick’s Flicks Podcast on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or you can simply smash that play button on the embed below!
Listen to “Ep. 97: The Batman Review with Spoilers” on Spreaker.Check out Brandon’s review here, and Sean’s review here.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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