Batman the skilled riddle-solver

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

The Batman (2022)

Runtime: 176 minutes

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for strong violent and disturbing content, drug content, strong language, and some suggestive material.

The infamous funeral scene, where the ominous presence lurks, or encompasses.

Dark, complex, and stylishly unpredictable, Matt Reeves' The Batman doesn't feel like a Batman movie, or a superhero movie. It leans on crime-solving and mystery, and it always feels like there's an undercurrent of danger throughout. Reeves, who directed War For The Planet of The Apes, infuses sinister mood with inventive cinematography, and also approaches its source material in a fresh and exciting way. As a matter of fact, despite the titles of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, The Batman is the darkest "Dark Knight" of them all.

The Batman interestingly starts in present day, where a new serial killer, The Riddler (Paul Dano), murders political figures in Gotham. He leaves several clues at the site of murder of his first target, Gotham City mayor Don Mitchell Jr. Along the way, he also murders more political figures and leaves clues specifically for The Batman (Robert Pattinson). After the first target, Bruce Wayne meets a potentially dangerous figure The Penguin (Colin Farell, who looks nothing like his character), and a mysterious woman named Selina Kylie (Zoë Kravitz) at The Iceberg Lounge, a retreat for many political figures. Accompanied by Alfred (Andy Serkis) and Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright, New 007's Felix), they join the crime-solving scene to uncover the identity of The Riddler.

Matt Reeves allows his style to overtake the film: some scenes have a noticeable dark mood and setting, some scenes are menacing, and some are seemingly normal, though danger always lurks around. There isn't much of the superhero action around; we only get to see the famous Batmobile half-way into the film. No, this movie is more complex than that. Watching it, I was so absorbed I completely forgot that superhero films could actually be skillfully written and not just ugly and unabashed computer-generated images serving as the filler. With a few turns to its narrative and masterful cinematography (done using shots at certain angles), this is an excitingly unique experience.

Another thing The Batman does that The Dark Knight Rises couldn't do is amplify the presence and purpose of the Catwoman. In Rises, she was just a supporting character that joined the action as that 'side character' in school fights. Here, Catwoman is more developed, and there is the evident sense of anger and revenge, but as Batman assures, violence and murder isn't the best way to exact revenge. Scene to scene, and towards the end, she provides an emotional support for Batman as they venture on the dangerous quest.

The terrifying villain, the Riddler, has his identity revealed over two hours in. In normal clothing, he looks like an ordinary bespectacled man, but appearances can be deceiving, and his masked appearances resemble the Zodiac killer; in fact, one scene involves a victim's head trapped in a cage, reminding me of the "Saw" franchise, a brutally gruesome torture series. However, The Batman doesn't reach that violence but largely focuses on the threat the motive of The Riddler. See, as a young orphan, Edward Nashton was forfeited privileges from the false claims of Thomas Wayne, and upon researching him and other political figures, he discovered horrifying corruption, and intended to reveal it. It may make him the true hero that Gotham needs but doesn't deserve, but his methods make it look like he's a psychopath.

The music is sometimes calming, sometimes unsettling. It's fits well to many scenes that I wasn't bothered by it and largely forgot about it.

But we come down to one question: who really is this Batman? Of course, we know some information about him, but there is that weak emotional connection to the audiences. Robert Pattinson is no doubt highly talented in his roles, but The Batman doesn't allow him to fully express his versatility. Still, Matt Reeves' style mostly overpowers this unexpected shortcoming, or maybe it's a smart, carefully planned move to draw in audiences to emotionally invest in him in the sequels.

And yes, about the runtime. It's a little slow moving in two or three scenes, but it doesn't really matter. This is probably the most confident and menacing take on Batman to hit theatres. You shouldn't miss this out.