Batman is back for the umpteenth time on the silver screen and our spoiler free review will unmask it to see if it’s worth watching. With Robert Pattinson of Twilight acclaim donning the Batsuit and Planet of the Apes reboot director Matt Reeves at the helm, how will the latest Batman flick be different from its predecessors?

Let’s find out by diving into this spoiler free review of The Batman!

Direction

At 3 hours long, you might think that The Batman is an epic on the scale of Avengers: Endgame. However, this film is nothing at all like a superhero film. The world is dark, gritty and bleak, even more so than the Gotham City portrayed in Todd Phillips’s Joker. The Batman is first and foremost a mystery thriller featuring a main character who’s a superhero. The thing is, Batman in this film is barely portrayed like other movie superheroes at all.

Every time Robert Pattinson appears on screen in the Batsuit to fight crime, his entrance is akin to a horror film villain. Reaction shots of the criminals paralysed in fear are seen multiple times in the film, reminiscent of horror films. Director Matt Reeves does this masterfully through lighting, cinematography and incredibly suspenseful music. Batman feels like a monster and his presence on screen is so foreboding, he’s far more intimidating than the likes of Michael Myers or Jason. With so many brilliantly shot and lit set pieces, The Batman left my heart pounding for most of its runtime. I’m not joking.

Besides the horror aspect in a lot of the action sequences when Batman is kicking butt, the mystery and thriller elements take centre stage when Batman isn’t fighting. The film transforms from an action/horror flick into a detective movie. The vast majority of the film is spent solving riddles and puzzles. These parts are very tense and well written. Unlike the Dark Knight Rises‘ philosophical battle between Batman and Joker, The Batman‘s focus is more of an intellectual one, a cat and mouse game between Batman and The Riddler. 

One thing that’s surprisingly prominent in this film is the internet. From live streaming to social media, this rendition of the Caped Crusader is surprisingly modern and realistic. Reeves managed to weave a grounded tale that hits close to home. Without the supernatural and fantastical elements of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Batman strongly sets itself apart from all its predecessors.

If there is one thing I can nitpick, it’s that there is a chase scene that’s hard to follow because of how dark it is and the breakneck pace at which it was cut. Overall, the film starts off as a tension-filled slow-burn that continuously ups the suspense as it progresses, drawing parallels to Se7en. The action sequences in between help to balance the pacing and keep things interesting.

Performance

The main focus of the film is Robert Pattinson, famous for being pretty boy vampire Edward Cullen from Twilight. He brings this edginess from Twilight to The Batman, but somehow, it works incredibly well.

Pattinson plays a tortured soul, completely obsessed with fighting crime to an almost unhealthy degree. As Bruce Wayne, he’s not the playboy billionaire like we see in the comics or other Batman films, this Bruce Wayne is a hermit, hiding away from society almost the entire time. It’s really fascinating to watch how Robert Pattinson plays this character. He may not be very expressive or talk a lot, but you can’t help but feel invested in his character. 

Zoë Kravitz plays Catwoman and she does a good job at being a femme fatale. Her performance is akin to spies from Russian spy movies and her flirty attitude is a good contrast from Pattinson’s stoic and brooding performance.

The Riddler is played by Paul Dano, but he’s a hit and miss for me. He’s a really intimidating opponent for Batman. Whenever he’s on-screen, half of the time, his psychopathic nature and unhinged performance command your attention, but in the other half, he’s trying too hard to be crazy that he comes off as annoying. To compare with other psychopathic Batman villains, both Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker feel like real madmen and are completely unpredictable, but Paul Dano’s Riddler feels like a deadly serial killer one moment, then a pretentious attention seeker in the next.

The other characters like Jim Gordon and Penguin were fine. They’re not as fleshed out as the previous characters, but the actors did a decent job within the confines of the screenplay.

Sound Design

I already mentioned how similar The Batman feels to a horror film, so you know the audio is astounding. The film’s sound design really helped to set the tone and sell its dark atmosphere. The strings were absolutely electrifying when it came to the tense sequences, keeping my heart pumping the whole time as every buildup perfectly reaches a climax. The Batman benefits a lot more from the surround sound system of the cinema, so if you plan to watch it on other platforms in the future, you’ll be missing out a lot.

Fans of the Hitman video game series will be surprised to find Ave Maria being played frequently in this film, as a means to unsettle the audience and even add thematic weight to the story. 

The film also gives Batman a theme of his own that plays when he punishes criminal and it sounds exactly like a villain’s theme, which is incredibly fitting with the direction of this film. All in all, The Batman does a phenomenal job at building suspense through its sound and music. 

Closing Thoughts

Batman has appeared countless times on cinema, with the character being interpreted in many different ways, whether it’s Christian’s Bale clear differentiation between Bruce Wayne and Batman or Will Arnett’s chaotic and fun Batman. However, Robert Pattinson’s portrayal is, in my opinion, the best we have seen yet. Behind the bulletproof, almost Terminator-like terror that is Batman is a damaged human being anguished by the loss of his parents.

Couple that with Reeves’ impeccable direction and you have a Batman film that can live up to the legacy left behind Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. While there are moments here and there that don’t really work out like The Riddler’s pretentiousness and a chase scene that’s too dark and hastily edited to follow, The Batman is still a wholly engrossing work of cinema.

That is all for this spoiler free review of The Batman. To learn more about the film, visit its website.