the new batman movie reviews

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Matt Reeves ’ “The Batman” isn’t a superhero movie. Not really. All the trappings are there: the Batmobile, the rugged suit, the gadgets courtesy of trusty butler Alfred. And of course, at the center, is the Caped Crusader himself: brooding, tormented, seeking his own brand of nighttime justice in a Gotham City that’s spiraling into squalor and decay.

But in Reeves’ confident hands, everything is breathtakingly alive and new. As director and co-writer, he’s taken what might seem like a familiar tale and made it epic, even operatic. His “ Batman ” is more akin to a gritty, ‘70s crime drama than a soaring and transporting blockbuster. With its kinetic, unpredictable action, it calls to mind films like “ The Warriors ” as well as one of the greatest of them all in the genre, “ The French Connection .” And with a series of high-profile murders driving the plot, it sometimes feels as if the Zodiac killer is terrorizing the citizens of Gotham.

And yet, despite these touchstones, this is unmistakably a Matt Reeves film. He accomplishes here what he did with his gripping entries in the “Planet of the Apes” franchise: created an electrifying, entertaining spectacle, but one that’s grounded in real, emotional stakes. This is a Batman movie that’s aware of its own place within pop culture, but not in winking, meta fashion; rather, it acknowledges the comic book character’s lore, only to examine it and reinvent it in a way that’s both substantial and daring. The script from Reeves and Peter Craig forces this hero to question his history as well as confront his purpose, and in doing so, creates an opening for us as viewers to challenge the narratives we cling to in our own lives.

And with Robert Pattinson taking over the role of Bruce Wayne, we have an actor who’s not just prepared but hungry to explore this figure’s weird, dark instincts. This is not the dashing heir to a fortune prowling about, kicking ass in a cool costume. This is Travis Bickle in the Batsuit, detached and disillusioned. He’s two years into his tenure as Batman, tracking criminals from on high in Wayne Tower—an inspired switch from the usual sprawl of Wayne Manor, suggesting an even greater isolation from society. “They think I’m hiding in the shadows,” he intones in an opening voiceover. “But I am the shadows.” In the harsh light of day, Pattinson gives us hungover indie rock star vibes. But at night, you can see the rush he gets from swooping in and executing his version of vengeance, even beneath the tactical gear and eye black.

As he’s shown in pretty much every role he's taken since “Twilight” made him a global superstar in 2008, working with singular auteurs from David Cronenberg to Claire Denis to the Safdie brothers, Pattinson is at his best when he’s playing characters who make you uncomfortable. Even more than Christian Bale in the role, Pattinson is so skilled at making his beautiful, angular features seem unsettling. So when he first spies on the impossibly sexy Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, slinking into her leather motorcycle gear and shimmying down the fire escape in her own pursuit of nocturnal justice, there’s an unmistakable flicker of a charge in his eyes: Ooh. She’s a freak like me.

Pattinson and Kravitz have insane chemistry with each other. She is his match, physically and emotionally, every step of the way. This is no flirty, purring Catwoman: She’s a fighter and a survivor with a loyal heart and a strong sense of what’s right. Following her lead role in Steven Soderbergh ’s high-tech thriller “Kimi,” Kravitz continues to reveal a fierce charisma and quiet strength.

She’s part of a murderer’s row of supporting performers, all of whom get meaty roles to play. Jeffrey Wright is the rare voice of idealism and decency as the eventual Commissioner Gordon. John Turturro is low-key chilling as crime boss Carmine Falcone. Andy Serkis —Caesar in Reeves’ “Apes” movies—brings a paternal wisdom and warmth as Alfred. Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable as the sleazy, villainous Oswald Cobblepot, better known as The Penguin. And Paul Dano is flat-out terrifying as The Riddler, whose own drive for vengeance provides the story’s spine. He goes to extremes here in a way that’s reminiscent of his startling work in “ There Will Be Blood .” His derangement is so intense, you may find yourself unexpectedly laughing just to break the tension he creates. But there’s nothing amusing about his portrayal; Dano makes you feel as if you’re watching a man who’s truly, deeply disturbed.

This is not to say that “The Batman” is a downer; far from it. Despite the overlong running time of nearly three hours, this is a film that’s consistently viscerally gripping. The coolest Batmobile yet—a muscular vehicle that’s straight out of “ Mad Max: Fury Road ”—figures prominently in one of the movie’s most heart-pounding sequences. It’s an elaborate car chase and chain-reaction crash ending with an upside-down shot of fiery fury that literally had me applauding during my screening. During a fight at a thumping night club, punctuated by pulsating red lights, you can feel every punch and kick. (That’s one of the more compelling elements of seeing this superhero in his early days: He isn’t invincible.) And a shootout in a pitch-black hallway, illuminated only by the blasts of shotgun fire, is both harrowing and dazzling. Greatly magnifying the power of scenes like these is the score from veteran composer Michael Giacchino . Best known for his Pixar movie music, he does something totally different with “The Batman”: percussive and horn-heavy, it is massive and demanding, and you will feel it deep in your core.

Working with artists and craftspeople operating at the top of their game, Reeves has made a movie that manages to be ethereal yet weighty at the same time, substantial yet impressionistic. Cinematographer Greig Fraser pulls off the same sort of stunning magic trick he did with his Oscar-nominated work in Denis Villeneuve ’s “Dune”: Through pouring rain and neon lights, there’s both a gauziness and a heft to his imagery. His use of shadow and silhouette is masterful, and does so much to convey a sense of foreboding and tension. I could write an entire, separate essay on the film’s many uses of the color red to suggest energy, danger, even hope. And the costume design from the great Jacqueline Durran —with Dave Crossman and Glyn Dillon designing Pattinson’s rough-and-tumble Batsuit—put just the right finishing touch on the film’s cool, edgy vibe.

This is the most beautiful Batman movie you’ve ever seen—even if it’s not really a Batman movie at all.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Amelia’s Children

Simon abrams.

The Animal Kingdom

Monica castillo.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Matt zoller seitz.

Outlaw Posse

Peter sobczynski.

On the Adamant

Film credits.

The Batman (2022)

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

176 minutes

Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne / Batman

Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle

Paul Dano as The Riddler

Jeffrey Wright as Lt. James Gordon

John Turturro as Carmine Falcone

Peter Sarsgaard as District Attorney Gil Colson

Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth

Colin Farrell as Oz / The Penguin

Matt Reeves

Writer (Batman created by)

Bill Finger
Peter Craig

Cinematographer

Greig Fraser

Costume Designer

Jacqueline Durran
William Hoy
Tyler Nelson
Michael Giacchino

Latest blog posts

The End of the World is Going to be Weird on Prime Video’s Quirky, Clever Adaptation of Fallout

The Zellner Brothers Take a Walk in the Woods with Sasquatch Sunset

The Scene That Clint Eastwood Cut to Make Unforgiven a Classic

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise

Supported by

‘The Batman’ Review: Who’ll Stop the Wayne?

Robert Pattinson puts on the Batsuit and cats around with Zoë Kravitz in the latest attempt to reimagine the Caped Crusader.

Share full article

By A.O. Scott

The darkness in “The Batman” is pervasive and literal. Gotham City in the week after Halloween, when this long chapter unfolds, sees about as much sunshine as northern Finland in mid-December. The ambience of urban demoralization extends to the light bulbs, which flicker weakly in the gloom. Bats, cats, penguins and other resident creatures are mostly nocturnal. The relentless rain isn’t the kind that washes the scum off the streets, but the kind that makes a bad mood worse.

The Batman — not just any Batman! — is less the enemy of this state of things than its avatar. On television in the 1960s , Batman was playful. Later, in the Keaton-Clooney-Kilmer era of the ’80s and ’90s, he was a bit of a playboy. In the 21st century, through Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy and after, onscreen incarnations of the character have been purged of any trace of joy, mischief or camp. We know him as a brooding avenger, though not an Avenger, which is a whole different brand of corporate I.P.

But a modern superhero is only as authentic as his latest identity crisis. Both the Batman (Robert Pattinson) and “The Batman” itself struggle with the vigilante legacy that has dominated the post-Nolan DC cinematic universe. “I am vengeance,” our hero intones as he swoops down to deal with some minor bad guys. He doesn’t seem happy about it. He’s grouchy and dyspeptic in his costume, and mopey and floppy in his Bruce Wayne mufti. Having fed on Gotham’s violence and cruelty for years, he now finds that the diet may not agree with him.

For nearly three hours, “The Batman,” directed by Matt Reeves from a script he wrote with Peter Craig, navigates a familiar environment of crime, corruption and demoralization in search of something different. Batman’s frustration arises most obviously from the intractability of Gotham’s dysfunction. Two years after the city’s biggest crime boss was brought down, the streets are still seething and the social fabric is full of holes. Drug addicts (known as “dropheads”) and gangs of hooligans roam the alleys and train platforms, while predatory gangsters and crooked politicians party in the V.I.P. rooms.

This isn’t only a bum deal for the citizens of Gotham. It’s a sign of imaginative exhaustion. Fourteen years after “The Dark Knight,” the franchise and its satellites (including “Joker”) have been mired in a stance of authoritarian self-pity that feels less like an allegorical response to the real world than a lazy aesthetic habit.

That’s where “The Batman” begins, but — thank goodness — it isn’t necessarily Reeves’s comfort zone. In his contributions to the “Planet of the Apes” cycle (he directed the second and third installments, “Dawn” and “War” ), he demonstrated an eye for ethical nuance and political complexity unusual in modern-day blockbuster filmmaking.

Glimmers of that humanism are visible in the murk (the low-light cinematography is by Greig Fraser), but for Reeves the path out of nihilism is through it. A masked serial killer (eventually revealed as Paul Dano) is stalking Gotham’s leaders — including the mayor and the district attorney (Peter Sarsgaard) — leaving behind encoded messages and greeting cards for Batman. His signature is a question mark, which even a casual comic-book fan knows is the sign of the Riddler.

Upholding a genre cliché, he sees himself less as Batman’s nemesis than as his secret sharer, using more extreme means to accomplish similar ends arising from parallel motives. The Riddler exposes the connections between Gotham’s power structure and its underworld, links that seem to have eluded the Caped Crusader and Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), his ally in the police department. The mythology of the Wayne family — in particular the martyrdom of young Bruce’s parents — is held up to revisionist scrutiny. What if we’re wrong about Batman? What if he’s wrong about himself?

These are potentially interesting questions, but it takes “The Batman” a very long time to arrive at them. Luckily, there are some diversions in the meantime, most notably the arrival of Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman, also known as Selina Kyle. Like the Riddler, Catwoman is Batman’s self-appointed vigilante colleague, seeking payback on behalf of women who have been exploited, abused and killed by members of Gotham’s criminal and official elite. The prickly alliance that arises between these masked, pointy-eared cosplayers adds a much-needed element of romance with a just-perceptible hint of kink. Maybe there will be a place for fun in the DC universe.

But not just yet. Don’t get me wrong. There are things to enjoy here, in addition to Kravitz’s nimble work: John Turturro, hammy and slimy as a top mobster; Colin Farrell, almost unrecognizable as the oleaginous Penguin; Andy Serkis as Alfred; a crackerjack car chase; Michael Giacchino’s eerie score.

The problem isn’t just that the action pauses for long bouts of exposition, as long-past events are chewed over by one character after another. Or that Pattinson, in and out of the Batsuit, is almost as much of a cipher as any of the Riddler’s scribblings. It’s the ponderous seriousness that hangs over the movie like last week’s weather — the fog of white-savior grievance that has shrouded Gotham and the Batman for as long as many of us can remember.

“The Batman” tries to shake that off — or rather, as I’ve suggested, to work through it. Maybe it shouldn’t have been so difficult, and maybe the slog of this film will serve a therapeutic or liberatory end. Let’s hope. I can’t say I had a good time, but I did end up somewhere I didn’t expect to be: looking forward to the next chapter.

The Batman Rated PG-13. Grim and occasionally gruesome. Running time: 2 hours 55 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig have wound in and out of each other’s lives and careers for decades. Now they are both headlining an Apple TV+ comedy of wealth and status .

Nicholas Galitzine, known for playing princes and their modern equivalents, hopes his steamy new drama, “Mary & George,” will change how Hollywood sees him .

Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth met while filming “Fargo” in 2017. Now married, they have reunited onscreen in “A Gentleman in Moscow.”

A reboot of “Gladiators,” the musclebound 1990s staple, has attracted millions of viewers in Britain. Is appointment television back ?

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Civil War Link to Civil War
Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
The First Omen Link to The First Omen

New TV Tonight

Chucky: Season 3
Fallout: Season 1
Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
Franklin: Season 1
Baby Reindeer: Season 1
Dora: Season 1
Good Times: Season 1
Beacon 23: Season 2

The Batman Reviews

It starts with an original vision of the hero, has an inspired cast, creates a self-sufficient story and elevates it with a stylized direction that's in line with the film's substance. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 20, 2023

The Batman is an ALL TIME BEST FILM. Matt Reeves has crafted the DEFINITIVE take on The Caped Crusader that Pattinson will define for generations to come. Brooding and brutal, I didn’t want it to end.

Full Review | Sep 27, 2023

The Batman isn’t just another entry in a trilogy or a multi-directed Batman starring three Bruce Wayne’s. It’s a love letter to fans who have waited decades for a faithful adaptation of Batman.

Full Review | Sep 25, 2023

This latest Batman tale is grounded, noir and detective based, and a highly realistic entry into the movie mythos of the caped crusader.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 7, 2023

It’s a part-serial killer mystery, part-superhero adventure, and part-crime drama stuffed in a 3-hour runtime that can feel loaded but never dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2023

Not only does the central plot feel like a rehashing of other films and comic books, the entire movie plays like a patchwork quilt of past works.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 10, 2023

A phenomenal take on the caped crusader that will leave you wanting more from this Batman world.

Full Review | Aug 9, 2023

The Batman becomes less of a full-throttle action romp and more of a detective tale, an arc that hasn’t been filmed before.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 29, 2023

BEST Batman Film yet…. Beautifully made with incredible action sequences, a thrilling mystery, & amazing characters. You can’t get any better than this & wherever smart Reeves goes next door will I.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

With an incredible score by Michael Giacchino, and a backdrop of Nirvana songs to elevate the mood, The Batman is a fantastic film. The acting and fighting sequences will keep audiences on the edge of their seats.

Matt Reeves delivers a distinctly darker, more intense, frighteningly realistic noir thriller than past adaptations, with an aggressively vengeful Bruce Wayne / Batman and a fear-inducing, mysterious, lunatic Riddler.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 25, 2023

Even with a runtime of nearly three hours, The Batman leaves the audience wanting more. While ultimately fumbling the ending, the characters, performances, plot, and visual appearance leave enough behind to warrant a return to this version of Gotham.

The Batman is everything a superhero film should be. It’s gritty, stylistic, and most importantly, there’s an intrinsic balance between the action and quiet moments, which Matt Reeves masters superbly through this adaptation.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 23, 2023

In a lot of ways, the disjointed editing in The Batman leaves much for the viewer to process; not enough time exists for key character moments.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2023

... In this Batman -- very different from Nolan's, Burton's or Schumacher's -- everything seems more appeased, more contained, more... human. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 12, 2023

They turned revealing an antagonist's presence to the audience without the victim's knowledge into a suspense-driven art. Here, Reeves taps directly into these tactics to phenomenal effect...

Full Review | Jan 9, 2023

This is the ultimate Batman movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 6, 2023

Batman's superpower has always been that he's the smartest guy in the room. ... His title as the Dark Knight Detective has never been showcased on film as well as it was in The Batman.

It may take three hours for Bruce to learn this lesson, but it's an incredible three hours. It may be fun to watch Pattinson put on black make-up and strap into the Batsuit to fight some bad guys, but there's much more to this story than just that.

Full Review | Original Score: 9.8/10 | Dec 30, 2022

THE BATMAN exceeds my expectations and passes the bar of a reboot. It justifies its own existence with great storytelling, insights into humanity and human society, and powerful performances.

Full Review | Dec 28, 2022

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Performing Arts
Pop Culture

In back-to-basics 'The Batman,' Robert Pattinson shines in the darkness

Glen Weldon

Even in a cowl that blocks his peripheral vision, The Batman (Robert Pattinson) can still serve side-eye. Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros. hide caption

Even in a cowl that blocks his peripheral vision, The Batman (Robert Pattinson) can still serve side-eye.

Let's get this out of the way at the top.

No, you don't see Thomas and Martha Wayne die.

You heard that right: Mercifully, in Hollywood's latest effort to begin Batman yet again, director and co-writer Matt Reeves skips the venerable, too-oft-told origin story.

No pearls. No popcorn. No alley. No mugger. I come before you today to make it known: Our long bational nightmare is over.

Be honest: If I hadn't told you this, you'd have spent the entirety of The Batman 's two-hours-and-fifty-five-minute running-time (!) crouched defensively in your theater seat, hovering in a constant state of low-level dread, waiting for those damn pearls to start hitting the pavement yet again. Well, I'm here to tell you: They don't.

(There's a part of me convinced that we wouldn't have arrived at this welcome, long-overdue cultural milestone if it weren't for one very dumb, very dark, and very good blink-and-you-miss-it joke in the underrated gem of film called Teen Titans Go! To the Movies back in 2018. The part of me in question is my inflated ego, because I predicted the joke would have that effect , back then.)

We love the Oscars – but we need to talk about those awards ceremony changes

Setting the scene (in gotham).

Smartly, The Batman begins in media-property res, as it were, establishing that wealthy scion-of-the-city Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has been strapping on a bulky bulletproof batsuit for two years, spending his nights clomping around rooftops and delivering beatdowns to street gangs and robbers and their ilk. (The film's Foley artists really earn their keep; the Caped Crusader's every footfall resounds like thunder, and every time he turns his head we hear the squeak of worn leather.) He's already found an ally in not-yet-Commissioner Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), and his butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) has more or less gotten used to Bruce's Chiroptera -themed war on crime.

Even so, he's carrying a lot on his shoulders, over and above all that Kevlar. There's a serial killer (Paul Dano's Riddler) targeting some of Gotham's most prominent citizens and leaving clues for Batman at his crime scenes. There's a cocktail waitress who's gone missing and her friend Selina (Zoe Kravitz) is prepared to slap on a cat-eared beanie and deal with the mobsters who took her. Selina's boss, the Penguin (Colin Farrell, buried under mounds of prosthetics) may or may not be mixed up with all that, and is definitely mixed up with Gotham crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).

Reeves and his co-writer Peter Craig have settled upon a back-to-basics approach to Batman and his world. Where Tim Burton went goth, Joel Schumacher went swoonily over-the-top, and Christopher Nolan strove for a kind of stoic, masc, gunmetal-gray realism, Reeves' The Batman seems less hung up on stylistic flourishes that betoken his particular directorial perspective and more concerned with combining disparate, pre-existing elements of Batman lore in novel ways.

In the thriller 'Severance,' Adam Scott's humanity hangs in the (work-life) balance

That, of course, is the job, with respect to a franchise like Batman. He's been around for 83 years, and spent most of that time cycling through the same rogues gallery. Over the years, some creators have found success adding the occasional new villain to the mix, but it remains a rare occurrence.

That might have something to do with how simply and effectively Batman's extant, O.G. foes manage to highlight the different facets of his character. Historically, a given story's villain pulls Batman into a distinct and recognizable genre. A Joker story? Psychological thriller. Catwoman? Noir. Penguin? Mob story. Scarecrow? Horror. Riddler? Mystery.

Nerds like me, who value the semiotic tidiness of all this, may quibble with the film's Riddler, whose methods and motivations Reeves seems determined to simultaneously Jokerize, and Baneify, and Ra's al Ghulicate.

Let me be clear: Most moviegoers won't care about keeping Batman's villains true to their historical essences — to them, it'll sound like I'm whining about having my peas touching my mashed potatoes. But the fact remains that it's tough to get a bead on Dano's interpretation of the character, even after his mask comes off. That may be intentional, but it's not particularly satisfying.

This Batman is back-to-basics

Reeves doesn't seem interested in offering us a singular, discrete and distinctly Reevesian cinematic Batman. Instead, what he's accomplished is something that looks and feels more akin to the kind of Batman story you could pick up in a comic book shop today than any previous Batman film has managed to achieve.

Or, more specifically, a multi-issue Batman story arc, because that nearly three-hour running time lends the film a distinctly unhurried, deconstructed sense of storytelling. So many characters gets introduced in the first hour that when the film's various plotlines begin to complicate, they don't so much deftly intersect as slam headlong into each other. The story's big reveals aren't permitted to stick around very long before getting summarily reversed or minimized, so they tend to land without much much of an impact. Connections between characters grow muddier just when they're meant to become clear.

Along the way, the fans get duly serviced: Wright's Jim Gordon does his narrative duty as Officer Exposition, reading Riddler's clues aloud to Batman like a kindergarten teacher at Story Time. Kravitz's Catwoman flirts and fights and must be dissuaded from choosing violence. Farrell's Penguin is ... is basically Robert De Niro's Al Capone, really.

Production designer James Chinlund's Gotham is filled with capital-G Gothic elements, but though the city's architecture sends plenty of buttresses flying hither and yon, it feels lived-in and functional, unlike the Gothams of Burton and Schumacher, which never stopped looking like the painstakingly designed movie sets they were.

'The Worst Person In The World' is an achingly precise portrait of young adulthood

Robert pattinson's batman puts the emo in emote.

But it's Pattinson who makes the film what it is. It's not surprising that he can brood — he made his bones in the Twilight franchise, where he spent much of his screentime glittering and sulking. But since then, he's made a series of bold choices in idiosyncratic films; on paper, his taking up the Bat-cowl might seem like a step backwards.

But Pattinson's Bruce/Batman is a searching, wounded, haunted soul with a My Chemical Romance haircut. The black makeup he smudges across his eyelids before donning the mask feels less like a costume choice and more like an extension of his truest, most emo self. Pattinson's jawline is sharp enough to slice Manchego, and this iteration of the Batman costume has been designed to highlight that fact — in close-up, he looks like a lovingly rendered illustration.

As the tenth actor to wear the Batman costume in movies (yes, I'm counting the two dudes who did the '40s movie serials), he tackles the role's signature limitation — the way it strips its performer of access to facial expressions — with aplomb. There's a scene later in the film that calls for Batman to seem impassive to the person he's speaking to, but it's necessary for all of us in the audience to register that in truth he's freaking the hell out. In close-up, Pattinson's eyes glisten, his taciturn mouth ever-so-slightly tightens. He sells that moment, and others like it.

As a result of this expressive vulnerability, Pattinson's Batman is unique in following a clear narrative and emotional arc over the course of the film. Whereas Christian Bale's Batman, for example, was bellowing "SWEAR TO ME" from the jump, Pattinson's starts the film whispering his every utterance: The ASMR Crusader. But as he's confronted by a series of revelations about Gotham and his family's connections to it, his anger waxes and wanes; he begins to question himself and his methods. By the time the credits roll, he's not the same Batman he was when the film began — his motivation has changed, and Pattinson ensures that we can see that change, in every frame. He holds himself differently. He's more centered, more assured. He's grown up.

Could it all have taken place in less time? Does every one of the film's 175 minutes justify its existence? If it were just 20 minutes shorter, might some of those needlessly complicated plotline pile-ups have been avoided? These are legitimate questions that I started grappling with the moment the lights came up.

But while Matt Reeves' The Batman was unspooling before me, I didn't check my phone, didn't think about the passing of time. No, the film isn't a Nolanesque game-changer, nor does it manage to step out of the long shadow of previous Bat-films to do anything so grand as define Batman for a new generation. And that's fine; it doesn't seem much interested in doing so.

What it does do, quite effectively, is tell a solid Batman story, with the most soulful and vulnerable Batman to ever grace the big screen. And that much, at least, is new.

The Batman Review

Bruce wayne's beautiful nightmare..

The Batman hits theaters on March 4, 2022. Below is a spoiler-free review.

“Fear,” Bruce Wayne tells us in a gloomy voiceover early in The Batman, “is a tool.” He’s talking about how the presence of the Batman can be used to intimidate bad guys, but it’s also possible writer/director Matt Reeves took this to heart for his approach to rebooting the famous superhero. This is the scariest Batman yet. Right from the violent opening scene, the message is clear: this is not your mother’s Caped Crusader. This is a creeping, angry, white-knuckle-inducing psychological thriller with a heavy dose of crime noir – and believe it or not, Reeves absolutely pulls it off, achieving a grimly beautiful masterpiece.

The Batman stands on its own, but it’s still dripping with cinematic references. Among the movies I thought about while watching: Zodiac , Se7en , Chinatown, and Saw ! You know what I didn’t think too much about? Most of the previous live-action Batman movies. Its gritty realism is most similar to Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, but this is a refreshingly bold new cinematic take on the Dark Knight.

The Batman: How Robert Pattinson's Batsuit Draws From the Past

Click through for a look at how Robert Pattinson's Batman costume evokes many incarnations of Batman from the comics and video games.

If anything, its grounded nature is a lot like 2019’s Joker . But the difference here is that the Joaquin Phoenix thriller didn’t really need the A-list DC villain’s name to tell its story of an impoverished man forgotten by society. The Batman, on the other hand, is still very much a Batman tale in a surprisingly loyal way. It pulls from and remixes various storylines from the comics in daring yet respectful fashion, all while being very different from what we’ve seen on the big screen up to this point.

For one thing, it’s not a Batman origin story. Reeves knows we know Thomas and Martha Wayne are dead, and he correctly assumes we don’t need to see them get gunned down yet again. Instead, we’re dropped right into Batman and Jim Gordon’s vigilante/detective partnership. It takes place late enough in Bruce Wayne’s story to not retread scenes we’ve already seen a million times, but early enough that he’s still got a lot of growing to do before he’s the nigh-flawless superhero. We don’t see the beginning, but we do see plenty of development, as well as some clever callouts and additions to the histories of several Gotham families.

On that note, Robert Pattinson is playing a much more vulnerable, human version of the orphaned billionaire than we’ve seen before. With a role so iconic, it would’ve been easy to crib – even accidentally – from the many actors who came before him, but Pattinson makes Bruce his own entirely. Gone is the convincing illusion of a charismatic playboy we’ve seen in past iterations. Here, we get a sad weirdo who’s both crippled and compelled by his unresolved trauma in a way that’s gripping to watch. This Bruce is a broken man, unable to hide his emotions even under the cowl. Pattinson’s performance, in turn, is crushingly painful, whether he’s in or out of the Batsuit.

But, believe it or not, Pattinson’s performance isn’t even the second most memorable of The Batman. Those honors go to Zoe Kravitz and Paul Dano as Selina Kyle/Catwoman and The Riddler, respectively. The former struck me as inspired (dare I say, purrrrfect?) casting from the get-go, but Kravitz’s layered portrayal of the catburglar clawed past even my high expectations. She’s got all the slinkiness and slyness you could hope for, but, like Pattinson’s Bruce, she’s also incredibly vulnerable, while selling an insatiable need for revenge. Pattinson may be the one screaming “ I am vengeance!,” but it’s Kravitz who simmers with a need for payback. Plus, the two actors’ chemistry is undeniable. Whether they’re trading fists or information, it’s all very hot.

As for Dano, his Riddler is easily the best live-action Batman villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker. This is a far, far, far cry from the previous most famous Riddler performance by Jim Carrey, with Reeves putting a modern, murderous spin on the wordsmith that’s heavily influenced by the real-world Zodiac Killer. Dano sinks into this unhinged yet genius killer with terrifying realism. Seriously, Dano managed to give me chills with a single eye movement in one scene. The best Batman villains are the ones who challenge at least two of the three of his mind, morals, and body, and this Riddler puts the first two to the test. Whenever Pattinson and Dano face off, it’s impossible to look away.

Colin Farrell and Jeffrey Wright, too, are formidable as The Penguin and Jim Gordon, respectively, with both responsible for a few very welcome moments of levity. Farrell is deeply unrecognizable (seriously, if I didn’t already know it was him, I would’ve never guessed) as the mobster, and seems to be having fun under all those prosthetics. Wright, meanwhile, has a nice buddy-cop dynamic with Pattinson, lending to some of the best campy (in a good way) detective noir moments. Andy Serkis’ Alfred Pennyworth has a different relationship with Pattinson: a paternal one that connects him to the Wayne family roots and packs an emotional punch when needed.

Who's your favorite Batman actor so far?

If that seems like a lot to stuff into one movie, well, The Batman does clock in at a hefty three hours, so it has the time! It mostly earns that bladder-testing runtime, although there are moments in the middle when I didn’t feel completely glued to the political mystery at its center. But when the story – and the action – revved up again, it felt like one of the Bat’s grappling hooks pierced me and yanked me back so hard that I didn’t even have time to complain.

The last hour makes all that build-up worth it with a few big, beautiful, brilliantly choreographed action sequences. This movie’s grounded take ups the stakes in the fight scenes, and when Batman throws or takes a hit, it hurts . Plus, the cityscape in which it all takes place is darkly gorgeous. If you’ve seen pretty much any of The Batman’s posters you should know the look you’re in for, which constantly bathes Gotham in a palette of black and red. Cinematographer Greig Fraser’s smart contrast of saturation and darkness keeps it from being monotonous, instead keeping us gripped in a Gotham that mirrors other major U.S. cities in many ways, but is still entirely its own. Michael Giacchino’s sweeping, dramatic score brings it all together, creating a few epic moments worthy of one of comic books’ most famous characters.

The Batman, again, is a standalone tale and works well as one, but make no mistake: it definitely leaves the door open for a sequel. Maybe that’s underselling it; it leaves a Batmobile-sized hole for a sequel. Luckily, it’s a dark, grimy, politically seedy world that I certainly wouldn’t mind getting swept up in again.

The Batman is a gripping, gorgeous, and, at times, genuinely scary psychological crime thriller that gives Bruce Wayne the grounded detective story he deserves. Robert Pattinson is great as a very broken Batman, but it’s Zoe Kravitz and Paul Dano who steal the show, with a movingly layered Selina Kyle/Catwoman and a terrifyingly unhinged Riddler. Writer/director Matt Reeves managed to make a Batman movie that’s entirely different from the others in the live-action canon, yet surprisingly loyal to Gotham lore as a whole. Ultimately, it’s one that thoroughly earns its place in this iconic character’s legacy.

More Reviews by Alex Stedman

Ign recommends.

What Happens at the End of Fallout: The Series?

Review: Robert Pattinson embodies a broody, brawny Dark Knight for a new era in 'The Batman'

There have been so many Batman films – and quite a few Batmen – since Christopher Nolan’s 2005 reboot “Batman Begins” that the new one is bound to drive some moviegoers, well, batty.

Director Matt Reeves’ ambitious and excellently crafted “The Batman” (★★★½ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters and streaming on HBO Max ) more than justifies its existence as a world-building wonder that slathers a realistic grime across its Gotham City, a metropolis filled with familiar yet refreshing takes on its iconic coterie of heroes and villains. And at the center of it all is Robert Pattinson , the latest actor to don the famous cape and cowl , who brings a grungy, broody brawn to an emotionally conflicted Caped Crusader.

The character has long been known as the “world’s greatest detective” in comic books, and in that vein is where “The Batman” thrives – with a noir-style voiceover narration introduction by Pattinson – as the "Chinatown" of the Bat-movie canon.

Definitively ranked: All of the big-screen Batmen (including Robert Pattinson)

'The Batman': Zoë Kravitz talks sweaty first day on set, breaking the ice with Robert Pattinson

This new Bruce Wayne is more two-fisted gumshoe than masked vigilante (though he certainly can whale on street criminals' heads if need be), but honestly, the job’s not going well at all: Batman is in his second year punching punks and solving crimes, though the crime has actually grown worse since he started.

A corrupt police department on the whole doesn’t love that he’s around, and piling on to the problems is a masked serial killer named the Riddler (Paul Dano) who is murdering Gotham power players and leaving cryptic cyphers and puzzles for Batman by name.

Bruce, a dark sort even when not in his Batsuit, goes down an investigative rabbit hole to uncover a city poisoned by good intentions turned bad and learns about his late parents’ involvement. What he mainly needs to figure out, though, is will Batman just be a symbol of vengeance or should he be something more?

Robert Pattinson: Actor no longer hates 'Twilight,' says he has 'very warm memories' of it

Reeves tries to do a lot over three expansive hours, and he mostly succeeds, filling out an expansive Gotham mythology that Batman and his colorful co-stars exist in naturally rather than overshadow. (As much as he packs in, Reeves also seeds intriguing aspects for sequels down the line.)

Bruce has allies in good cop/frequent partner Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), loyal butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) and the shadowy Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz), a club waitress and cat burglar who grows close to Batman as they work together and find commonalities in their past traumas. Dano’s Riddler is a Zodiac Killer type with a penchant for punctuation who grows creepier as his story is revealed, while Colin Farrell fabulously embraces his inner Robert De Niro (and is delightfully unrecognizable under a ton of prosthetics) as the gangster Penguin.

The OG Batman: How Michael Keaton's 1989 blockbuster 'Batman' changed superhero movies forever

There’s an interconnectedness among the characters that really works, plus “The Batman” is undoubtedly just really cool. Pattinson plays Batman as an enigma slowly unlocked along with the film's central mystery – as Kravitz’s pre-Catwoman persona discovers, you dig him the more you get to know him. Also, the hero’s muscle-car Batmobile is the niftiest since Michael Keaton’s 1989 road monster, and Reeves’ movie is the best-scored comic book film since 2008’s “The Dark Knight.” A composer with the creativity to be this generation’s John Williams, Michael Giacchino constructs individual character themes and a genre-mashing piano-and-orchestra soundscape that are essential elements in making “The Batman” a triumph.

Reeves’ “The Batman” is doing its thing far outside the DC movie universe where Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman hang out. That’s a good thing: Pattinson’s main man holds down a revamped Gotham that feels distinctively gritty with its blueprint of madness and mayhem, a place you would never want to live in but still would love to revisit as soon as possible.

'It was terrifying': 'The Batman' star Robert Pattinson embraces a superhero who's 'a mess'

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

The Batman review – Robert Pattinson’s emo hero elevates gloomy reboot

Matt Reeves’ film is spectacular and well-cast but an intriguing saga of corruption devolves into a tiresome third act

T hat definite article means it’s the genuine article. Adding “the” to Batman’s name has become a huge part of the brand identity, a sign of how elemental and atavistic this shadowy figure is supposed to be. You can imagine some growly voice saying “the Batman” – but not Tom Holland putting on a deep baritone to say he’s “the Spider-Man”, or Henry Cavill booming he’s “the Superman” (although maybe you could have Billy Joel stride into a dark Gotham City bar to raspingly confront “the Piano Man”).

Director and co-writer Matt Reeves has created a new Batman iteration in which Robert Pattinson reinvents billionaire Bruce Wayne as an elegantly wasted rock star recluse, willowy and dandyish in his black suit with tendrils of dark hair falling over his face; but Wayne magically trebles in bulk when he reappears in costume and mask as the Dark Knight, his whole being weaponised into a slab-like impassivity. And this of course is happening in the sepulchral vastness of Gotham City, the brutal and murky world which Christopher Nolan thrillingly pioneered with his Dark Knight trilogy and made indispensable for imagining Batman on screen.

Intriguingly at first, The Batman feels like a serial killer chiller such as Saw . For a time it promises a mystery plot relating to the theme of municipal corruption which is so important to the Batman franchise, and holds out hope of an unmasking with a satisfying narrative resolution. But not really. It is tremendously designed, visually spectacular with great set pieces and juddering, sternum-shivering impacts coming at you out of the darkness. There are unassumingly good performances from Jeffrey Wright and John Turturro , and Zoë Kravitz ’s superpower is charisma. But the film is overlong; the Riddler’s puzzles aren’t particularly ingenious or even important to the story and there’s a pretty feeble non-ending which sheepishly sidesteps The Batman’s existential crisis.

Robert Pattinson and Jeffrey Wright in The Batman.

Gotham City’s political classes are complacently congratulating themselves on rooting out a major drug dealer, Sal Maroni. But the city is still drenched in crime and addiction to a new narcotic called “drops”, to which law enforcement is clearly turning a blind eye. Most exercised about this is the Riddler (Paul Dano), sporting a rubber gimp mask for his many social media appearances. He sets out to whack the corrupt Gotham establishment one by one, including Mayor Don Mitchell (Rupert Penry-Jones) and district attorney Gil Colson ( Peter Sarsgaard ), leaving quibbling questions for the Batman on Hallmark-type cards at the scene of each gruesome crime. So our antihero effectively joins forces with commissioner Gordon (Wright, lending his innate dignity and integrity to the role) to take down the Riddler, incidentally putting himself up against mob boss Carmine Falcone (Turturro) and his bloated sidekick Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot ( Colin Farrell ) who don’t like questions being asked about who is doing the corrupting.

But wait. The Riddler is obsessed above all with what he says is the most grotesquely crooked thing about Gotham City: the plutocrat Wayne family and Bruce’s late father who made fraud and crime the city’s foundation stone. The Riddler longs to kill Bruce Wayne. And the Batman is beginning to wonder … could the Riddler have a point?

Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman and Robert Pattinson.

The Batman has some people in his corner. Kravitz is stylish and assured as cat burglar Selina Kyle, or Catwoman, who has reasons of her own for detesting creepy Falcone. There is a nice sequence when Bruce gives Selina some surveillance contact lenses to wear before she sashays through Carmine’s club, making eye contact with the cringing regulars, while Wayne monitors it all on a screen.

Andy Serkis plays Wayne’s butler Alfred, a loyal plain-speaking fellow who has apparently done time in the “circus”: meaning the John Le Carré intelligence world, not the actual circus, although it’s confusing given the Cirque du Soleil stylings all the combatants are going in for.

But the ending is tiresome and shark-jumping in the extreme, with faux-apocalyptic scenes which work better in less solemn superhero adventures, and an exasperating non-revelation whose significance is teased for the next film. Inevitably, night falls on the latest Batman iteration with the cloudy sense that – of course – nothing has really been at stake. A classy turn from Pattinson, however, as the crime fighter with an injured soul.

Robert Pattinson
Superhero movies
Matt Reeves
Jeffrey Wright

Comments (…)

‘The Batman’ Review: The Future of Superhero Movies Is Finally Here, for Better or Worse

David ehrlich.

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Share on LinkedIn
Show more sharing options
Submit to Reddit
Post to Tumblr
Print This Page
Share on WhatsApp

It was less than three years ago that Todd Phillips’ mid-budget but mega-successful “Joker” threateningly pointed toward a future in which superhero movies of all sizes would become so endemic to modern cinema that they no longer had to be superhero movies at all. With Matt Reeves ’ “ The Batman ” — a sprawling, 176-minute latex procedural that often appears to have more in common with serial killer sagas like “Se7en” and “Zodiac” than it does anything in the Snyderverse or the MCU — that future has arrived with shuddering force, for better or worse. Mostly better.

This isn’t “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” posturing as a 1970s conspiracy thriller or “Logan” half-committing to its Western heart, nor is it a simple throwback to Christopher Nolan’s Bush-era take on the Dark Knight, which grounded Bruce Wayne in a tactile Gotham while still broadly adhering to the storylines and spectacles expected of its genre. No, the better part of this Batman belongs to another genre altogether, as Reeves stubbornly eschews the usual razzmatazz in favor of a hard-boiled murder-mystery in which The World’s Greatest Detective just happens to be a (very) tortured billionaire with an unexplained hard-on for bats.

Which isn’t to suggest that people will confuse this mirthlessly dark Bat-noir for a Raymond Chandler adaptation, or even any of the David Fincher movies that lent “The Batman” its grim style or haunted air of fear — not with Colin Farrell playing Oswald Cobblepot under 50 pounds of Jake LaMotta cosplay, Paul Dano ’s Riddler drawing foam question marks in his lattes, and a glowering Robert Pattinson karate-chopping street gangs while entombed inside a rubber Batsuit thicker than the tires of a monster truck. But it’s those brief (and very rare) dashes of action that best illustrate the film’s defiantly anti-blockbuster approach, as Reeves designs them with a much greater emphasis on close-up emotion than big screen excitement.

The combat is shot in silhouette, the sole Batmobile sequence is framed tighter than “Locke,” and the setpieces double down on Greig Fraser’s bonfire cinematography — his Stygian color palette extending Bruce’s personal hell across the whole of Gotham — to a degree that makes them seem like a scorched-earth rebuttal to the candied aesthetic of most other superhero movies (and a serious crisis for any corporate multiplex that doesn’t regularly change its projector bulbs). Even this film’s relatively familiar, broadly Nolan-esque Batman tries to save the city climax is discomforting for the way it stages all the usual POWs! and BAMs! against a recognizable backdrop of real-world horror.

And there is plenty to be afraid of in this Gotham, as “The Batman” makes clear by opening with a Halloween-night home invasion that unfolds like a chapter from the Book of Saw (a fitting prelude to a film whose Riddler is equal parts Joker and Jigsaw). The mayor is murdered by a serial killer just days before his potential re-election, leaving behind the first of several mangled bodies and taunting clues.

What it doesn’t leave behind is a power vacuum. If the mayor’s vacated office is certain to be awarded to the inspirational young Black woman who was challenging him for it (Jayme Lawson as the wonderfully named Bella Reál), that foregone conclusion allows Reeves to shift his attention towards the rat’s nest of festering white men who are ominously unconcerned with the outcome of the vote. Gotham has been controlled from inside Falcone’s nightclub for longer than Bella has been alive, and the rot has grown deep enough to keep things from changing.

That stagnation bleeds through the film’s retro-modern production design, as Koch-era taxi cabs and MS-DOS coexist alongside Trumpian identity politics and viral livestreams, all of them housed together in a Gotham that seamlessly blends parts of London, New York, and Chicago into a single mega-city buried under a mountain of violent grime (the film’s immaculate CGI is largely invisible and pointed towards world-building instead of than spectacle). The past is always coming back to haunt people in “The Batman,” though some are determined to prove that it never really went away.

Fittingly, and despite all of the ways “The Batman” pushes superhero movies forward, it still has one foot stuck in the familiar. For all of its bruising power, it still pulls a number of its punches. It’s possible Reeves’ epic had its wings clipped from the minute it was conceived with a PG-13 in mind. The film’s antiseptic bloodlessness often neutralizes the stench of a city rotting from the inside out, even if the MPA rating doesn’t stop Reeves from creating several of the scariest moments in superhero movie history. But the more significant issues lie under the surface.

Writ large, the biggest impediment to Reeves’ caped incursion on a foreign genre is that “The Batman” is so eager to blur the line between a superhero movie and a serial killer neo-noir that it isn’t particularly good at being either of those things. Its portrait of Bruce Wayne as a revenge-obsessed recluse is psychologically thin even by the standards of a Batman story (Pattinson’s sullen performance is 90 percent clenching), while Andy Serkis’ turn as Hot Alfred Pennyworth finds the iconic butler limited to cooking breakfast and delivering exposition on demand. Meanwhile, the Riddler’s game of cat-and-bat (and cat) is weighed down by Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig’s groan-worthy struggle to Gothamify the Zodiac Killer, though Dano’s demented embodiment of the villain adds a riveting new dimension to his character before it’s too late.

It doesn’t help that the film’s parallel genres are crudely forced together by a half-baked corruption plot that trickles down from the same tradition of “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential,” but lacks the layered intrigue of those inspirations. That plot is further diluted by John Turturro’s sniveling comic take on crime boss Carmine Falcone, as the most dangerous figure in this grimdark mosaic also becomes the only character who isn’t nearly serious enough. And yet that same part of the story is also what gives us Zoë Kravitz ’s fierce and focused Selina Kyle, a family-minded nightclub waitress born into a city where cyclical violence continues to hide behind empty promises of renewal a full year after an anonymous vigilante first began terrorizing petty criminals from the shadows.

In the burnt orange underworld of Gotham — as in “The Batman” itself — good and bad are as inextricable from each other as the different genres that define their terms, and the film’s hard-earned flares of light are only so capable of pointing the way forward because of how vividly they’re painted against the darkness that surrounds them. Forged from the embers of previous Batman movies despite never indulging in the kind of meta-commentary that has defined so many recent mega-sequels, Reeves’ effort may be too overstuffed and underwritten to succeed on its merits as either a Bruce Wayne story or a blockbuster noir, but there’s something ineffably beautiful to how “The Batman” smelts its many separate components into a new kind of superhero movie. It’s not just another multiplex extravaganza about masked saviors fighting to rescue a few glimmers of genuine hope from a cultural legacy of fear and greed, but one that’s also thrillingly unafraid to put its money where its mouth is.

Maintaining the courage of his convictions is not a problem for this Bruce Wayne. In fact, conviction is pretty much the only thing he’s got left by the time the movie starts — that and the billion-dollar fortune he’s willing to squander in order to scare Gotham straight for killing his parents when he was a kid (Reeves mercifully declines to revisit the murders themselves, though he finds a clever way of depicting the effect they might have on a young boy with a penchant for dress-up). Pattinson’s Bruce isn’t a playboy philanthropist or a recovering fuck-up trained by Ra’s al Ghul or whatever else this character has been in the past. He doesn’t have a social life or a sense of humor. All he has is the big house his parents owned, the slowed-down version of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” that follows him like a bad smell, and the mission that gives meaning to his life. Batman is simply the scar that’s grown over Bruce Wayne, and the wound it covers is wider than it is deep.

If this angle is true to the history of the character, doubling — or quadrupling — down on the Caped Crusader’s intrinsic darkness still feels like a bold choice in the wake of Ben Affleck’s dour stint behind the cowl and the hilarious LEGO Batman movie that roasted it alive. Pattinson’s Bruce is so broken inside that you half expect him to microwave a whole lobster for dinner and laugh at the ending of “Jerry Maguire” for dessert, and the fact that he always looks like he’s just come back from a 2006 My Chemical Romance concert doesn’t help (it only makes his penchant for journaling feel more emo than it does “First Reformed”).

That it doesn’t come off as a parody of a parody is a testament to both the holistic nature of Reeves’ vision and the eagerness with which Pattinson buys into it. Bruce is pure id (“I am vengeance” is a common refrain), but the actor behind the eyeliner is earnest enough to balance out his anger, and “The Batman” survives its eventual transition into more familiar superhero movie territory because of the slow-thawing self-awareness that Pattinson brings to the title role — his realizations galvanized by a career-best Michael Giacchino score that pounds into your head as if Batman were sitting at the piano and playing it himself. If Bruce already knows that fear is an effective weapon, he’s about to learn that you can’t build anything with it.

The truth comes to light slowly — ploddingly — as Batman and lieutenant James Gordon follow Riddler’s clues deeper into Gotham’s web of corruption (Gordon is played by a thankless Jeffrey Wright, the actor defaulting to his “Westworld” mode in a movie where no one is cast against type). Their goofy investigation unfolds in tandem with the one that Batman launches with Selina, though both are regularly interrupted and brought closer together by Riddler’s explosive games. Kravitz’s electric screen presence is enough to make Selina’s origin story feel less basic than it is, and she and Pattinson are both so beautiful that you might be able to stifle your laughter when Catwoman moves in to kiss Batman’s motionless face (new type of superhero movie, same type of sexual dysfunction). This is a case where cinematic heft excuses all manner of silliness; it’s more exciting to watch a close-up tracking shot of Bruce walking down the corridors of Falcone’s nightclub than it is to see other superheroes save the world.

By far the most nuanced relationship here is that between Batman and Riddler. The one proper scene they share together at the end of their long flirtation is fascinating for its aired grievances and curious misapprehensions, as “The Batman” finally merges its procedural body to its superhero soul just in time for a wild fight over Gotham’s future — the film reconciling a split identity to a degree that some of its characters never can. While Reeves unfortunately retreats to the safety of franchise-building mode with the penultimate scene, “The Batman” succeeds in transforming the Bat-Signal into a beacon of hope rather than something to fear. Not just for the citizens of Gotham, but also for the multiplex audiences who will inevitably have to visit the city a few more times before Hollywood gives us somewhere else to go. Compared to the superhero movies that came before it, “The Batman” is already halfway there.

Warner Bros. will release “The Batman” in theaters on Friday, March 4.

The Batman ’s Grounded Mystery Is Unlike Any Other Batman Movie

The Batman is Superhero Seven, and that kinda rules.

You thought Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman was realistic? Matt Reeves says “Hold my Batarang.” Reeves’ new film, The Batman, is unlike any Batman movie we’ve ever seen. It’s more of a detective procedural than a superhero movie. Law and Order blended with horror featuring costumed vigilantes. This is a Batman story told with a commitment to reality which instantly distinguishes it from all other films featuring the character. And it works incredibly well.

The story is a gritty mystery that’s gripping and exciting, coupled with several high-octane action scenes and tons of gorgeous imagery. However, the film’s dense story and long runtime create such a deep investment in this untraditional superhero story, it’s consequently a letdown when the film’s finale betrays that overarching vision. After being wowed by The Batman’ s ambition and commitment to realism, everything flies right out the door in its finale, leaving us with a detached set piece that could have been in any other Batman movie before it . Thankfully, there’s so much good to be found before that, it’s only a minor gripe on what’s the most unique, and interesting, Batman film since The Dark Knight.

Batman standing with the word LIES behind him.

Co-written and directed by Matt Reeves, The Batman picks up two years into Bruce Wayne’s (Robert Pattinson) time as the Caped Crusader, when a mysterious new villain named The Riddler (Paul Dano) starts killing famous officials around Gotham City. At each crime, The Riddler leaves a card addressed “To the Batman,” and so Jim ( not yet Commissioner ) Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) brings him in. Most of the other cops don’t trust this masked vigilante who runs around the city at night, but Gordon does, and the two form a formidable crime-solving duo.

That’s the first of several things that make The Batman so captivating. While Batman is clearly the star, Jim Gordon is without a doubt the second most important person in the movie. From almost the very first scene, Reeves’ makes The Batman into Superhero Seven , with Batman as Brad Pitt, Gordon as Morgan Freeman, and Riddler as Kevin Spacey. Batman and Gordon go from brutal crime scene to brutal crime scene, looking for clues, solving riddles, each of which compounds this growing mystery of the Riddler’s motives.

As the case goes on, Batman runs into a waitress named Selena Kyle (Zoe Kravitz), who has a personal connection to one of the victims as well as The Penguin (Colin Farrell), a second in command to Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). With the exception of Falcone, who is every bit the crime boss we know from Batman lore, Selena and Penguin aren’t the comic book characters we know them as yet yet. Like Batman, they’re very early in their journey, and as the Riddler’s web extends out, they’ll get wrapped up in it, just like he does and we do. There’s just something oddly pleasing about watching a man in a Batsuit solving mysteries, stopping crime, and interacting with equally weird and wonderful characters.

The Batman is a movie about discovery—discovery of the truth but also the discovery of one’s self. Throughout the film, there are big, heroic moments that touch up upon an expected superhero movie grandeur... but then Batman slips up. He’s not the best at this yet. He makes mistakes. The same goes for Selina Kyle: she’s a very capable cat burglar, but her commitment to her missing friend blinds her. She teams up with Batman because she’s not quite ready for all of this, and that relationship reveals to each of them that life has more to it than just fighting crime and getting revenge.

Reeves explores lots of little subtextual threads like that. Several characters challenge both Batman, and Bruce Wayne, for his privilege in ways that feel almost shocking because it humanizes and cuts him down to size. The Riddler’s whole plan is centered on government corruption, and so Mayoral candidate Bella Real (Jayme Lawson) becomes a beacon of hope not just in Gotham City, but in ways the audience can relate to in their own lives. There are scenes that tackle gun violence head-on, some of which are more disturbing than others. The relationship between parents and their children is important throughout. Basically, almost every scene works not just in forwarding the story, but also in getting you to think about something beyond just the movie itself.

Robert Pattinson with dark makeup around his eyes

Lots of that comes from the performances too, which are fantastic across the board. Pattinson crafts both Bruce Wayne and Batman as almost different characters, making it clear that this version of the hero is much more comfortable with a mask than without. With it, he’s powerful, confident, and menacing. Without, he’s shy, guarded, almost scared. The same can be said for Kravitz , though her Selena is equally impressive with or without the mask. In both iterations, she’s crafty and cunning but also vulnerable and loving. It’s a very nuanced, welcome take on the character. Dano’s Riddler gets less screen time than almost everyone else in the film, especially out of the unsettling costume, but he’s electric whether he’s giving a simple smile or a piercing scream. Farrell’s boisterous Penguin is also a highlight, standing out from the other corrupt men he keeps company with played by Turturro, Peter Skarsgard, and others.

Speaking of highlights, Reeves’ work with cinematographer Greig Fraser is one. It’s stunning. The Batman is a dark movie. A very dark movie. And so when there’s light, it almost paints the frame , creating exquisite shots and sequences throughout, drawing your eye to exactly where the filmmakers want it to be. Plus, most of those sequences are so well done, the visual effects are all but invisible. Car wrecks, huge crowds, men soaring through the air. Truly, for two-thirds of this movie you know you are looking at visual effects. They have to be there, but it all looks so real, and their use is so subtle, you can barely see them.

Gordon holding off cops from fighting batman.

It’s that “two-thirds” thing that holds everything back, though. As Batman, Gordon, and Kyle work to solve the Riddler’s shocking mystery , it all kind of wraps up—but The Batman doesn’t end there. It keeps going, and we’re treated to a massive third act action set-piece befitting of every major superhero movie you’ve seen in the past thirty years. Big action, obvious visual effects, etc. Which would be fine if, for the previous two-plus hours, Reeves hadn’t made a film that’s so sumptuous, grounded, and lived in that the Batmanness of it almost melts away. The divide between the ending and the rest of the film is a disservice to each part, and it leaves the movie off on a more awkward, ambiguous note than probably intended, even if there’s a lot of spectacle on display.

However, even with those missteps, The Batman is an impressive movie. It’s an engaging and entertaining movie. It’s not the rousing, over-the-top exciting superhero version of the character we remember from Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan, but it shouldn’t be. This is Matt Reeves’ Batman . And though he doesn’t completely stick the landing this time, the effect is something like Pattinson’s take on the dark knight: Batman is getting better at what he does every day. So thankfully, The Batman is unique and layered enough that there’s little doubt we’ll get the opportunity to see more of that growth in the future.

The Batman opens March 4.

Wondering where our RSS feed went? You can pick the new up one here .

Entertainment

'The Batman' Review: The Darkest Dark Knight is a Horror Epic on HBO Max Now

Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz are Batman and Catwoman in an apocalyptic, operatic comic book saga that's a million miles from Marvel movies and available on HBO Max.

The new Batman movie for 2022, streaming on HBO Max.

You've seen a loads of Batman movies, but you still need to steel yourself for the darkest Dark Knight yet. Starring Robert Pattinson as DC's Caped Crusader, 2022's new movie The Batman was a hit in theaters and arrived streaming service HBO Max on Monday . From its horror movie opening to the teasing final credits , it's an intense, apocalyptic cinematic experience.

Following the murder of his parents (you know that bit by now), a young and troubled Bruce Wayne is two years into a bat-themed crusade against Gotham City street crime. He's formed an alliance with upstanding cop Jim Gordon, but nothing prepares them for a chillingly planned series of atrocities by a macabre masked murderer who leaves fiendish puzzles with each victim. As Batman unpicks the cryptic clues, the investigation peels away a greater conspiracy. But the real riddle is how the ranting killer's twisted motive ties back to Batman himself.

As that synopsis suggests, The Batman is barely a superhero movie. Director Matt Reeves , who co-wrote the script with Peter Craig, shovels previous Bat-films into one roaring furnace: There are notes of Tim Burton's gothy angst, Christopher Nolan's criminal politics and Zack Snyder's operatic brutality , combined with the standalone Joker movie's psychological backstory, vaguely timeless design and layers of dark irony.

But it's also more of a detective mystery than previous Bat-flicks, borrowing in particular from David Fincher's serial killer chillers Seven and Zodiac. And it's a gangster movie. Also a '70s conspiracy thriller. And a relentlessly bleak film noir.

Most of all, though, The Batman is a horror movie.

In 1989, pearl-clutching parents were shocked and appalled by Tim Burton's Batman. The tights-wearing funny book hero who biffed, powed and zapped cartoon villains was replaced by a traumatized weirdo in black rubber fetish gear, trading blows with a giggling, acid-scarred psychopath. In Britain, they even had to invent a new rating category for the movie.

Let's not get into the perennial argument among fans about whether superhero movies should be for kids or for grown-ups. Let's just say you absolutely 100% can't show The Batman to a child. This new flick is PG-13 in the US, but it's on a whole other level to the relatively bloodless Dark Knight movies -- and on a different planet from any Marvel film -- immersing you in a nerve-shredding three hours of escalating dread and simmering pain garnished with some astonishingly nasty touches.

The Batman takes on a serial killer.

This explicitly scary Batman film opens with a sinister scene of jaw-tightening suspense, adding serial killer scares and even a few dashes of torture porn. The people of Gotham are introduced as a swirling crowd of faceless, Halloween-masked figures. Jagged horror movie strings and Michael Giacchino's relentless score ratchet up the tension. There aren't any baddies plundering diamonds from charity galas, but a ghoulish serial killer who plunges the city into a simmering cauldron of creeping panic. Batman himself stalks from the shadows with a heavy tread and heavier fists, meting out pitiless vengeance with a chilling lack of affect behind his mask.

Pattinson's Batman (Battinson? Pattman?) is a lank-haired mess, a world away from Christian Bale's slick professional or Ben Affleck's graying grump. Hunched in the basement listening to Nirvana with mascara running down his face, this younger Bruce Wayne is unformed and yet already unraveling, muttering a Taxi Driver-esque voiceover as he drowns in a filthy tide of lawlessness and degradation. Pattinson genuinely inhabits the Batman, expressing despair with just his perfectly angled jaw and soulful eyes staring from beneath the black mask. Still, you could probably shave down the epic two hour and 47 minute runtime if there was a bit less of Batman slowly... walking... and... meaningfully... staring...

For all his formidable fighting skills and detective prowess, this Batman is barely holding it together. And that gives the film a vital charge.

Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne.

As Selina Kyle -- the Catwoman to Pattinson's Bat -- Zoë Kravitz is eminently watchable. But the film struggles to get under the character's masks, piling on schlocky twists rather than exploring character with any depth. The same is true for Jeffrey Wright's buddy cop Jim Gordon, given the thankless task of standing next to Batman and frowning as they growl exposition at each other. The bad guys clearly have more fun: a barely recognizable Colin Farrell channels Robert De Niro's Al Capone from The Untouchables, while John Turturro's purring menace recalls Brando in The Godfather.

So if you were wondering whether there's any room for a fresh take after 14 movies, it's actually surprisingly invigorating to see a Caped Crusader who's more human -- not just Bruce Wayne, but as the Batman himself. This Batman doesn't magically disappear from a room, but has to run for his life sometimes. One of the highlights of the film is when Batman does something we've seen the character do a million times, but it's clear from Pattinson's little wince this is the first time he's done it. Suddenly a superhero cliche becomes a genuinely perilous and thrilling moment.

While the sleuthing drives the story, the action scenes really are hair-raisingly exhilarating. The fights unfold as long lingering shots and show the Batman wading through each fight with economical ferocity. The use of light and shadow adds to the drama of the punch-ups.

Perhaps most thrilling of all is an apocalyptic car chase. Instead of a glossy high-tech speedster or city-conquering tank, Pattinson's Batman drives a car that's as unhinged as he is. This Batmobile is a demonic hot rod snarling with rage as it races to devour its prey, lit only by blood-red taillights and infernal flame. It's an incendiary highlight in a deliriously intense film.

'The Batman' Ending and Creepy Cameo, Explained
Is 'The Batman' Streaming on HBO Max? What to Know
Every Batman Movie Ranked: From The Batman to The Dark Knight
Robert Pattinson's 'The Batman' Is Brilliant, Except for the Ending

There's a lot to unpack in The Batman's psychological and political leanings, not least the film's treatment of women. There aren't many, despite the sprawling cast. The plot hinges on the grisly-sounding murder of a woman, which is replayed more than once. A fairly major twist introduces a horrific backstory for a significant woman in Bruce Wayne's life. And Selina Kyle is a driven badass, but she's still introduced with a lingering pan up her stiletto boots to her tight skirt, before the camera (and Batman) voyeuristically watch her undress.

Batman is clearly linked to the Riddler's voyeurism and violence, questioning the caped crusader's methods more than previous films. The level of moral ambivalence is much closer to the darkly ironic Joker film. When Batman first appears, for example, a mugging victim sees little distinction between his attackers and this demonic figure who savagely beats them. It's also the first Batman film to engage with the revisionist take that Bruce Wayne is a wealthy man whose hobby is hospitalizing poor people. Like the Joker movie, The Batman explores the radicalizing effect of inequality on a repressed populace. But Joker focused on a villain, and so the ironic conclusion required you to be in on the joke. The Batman, meanwhile, focuses on a hero -- a conflicted, dubious hero, but still -- and so there's opportunity for a more hopeful moral underpinning buried under the crushing gloom.

It's long, it's frequently slow and it's crushingly bleak. But The Batman deserves that definitive article. It's "The" Batman because it evokes many previous incarnations of the Caped Crusader while still bringing something distinctive. This darkest Dark Knight may not be for everyone (and certainly not for kids), but it's a gripping and nerve-shredding Bat-thriller.

New Movies Coming in 2023 From Marvel, Netflix, DC and More

2023's Best TV and Streaming Shows You Can't Miss on Netflix, HBO, Disney Plus and More

Photo composition of two images of Robert Pattinson as Batman from the movie “ The Batman”

Filed under:

The Batman needed a harder reboot

Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson, and a strong cast rely on execution for a familiar comic book movie

Share this story

Share this on Facebook
Share this on Reddit
Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: The Batman needed a harder reboot

Batman is back, and he is pissed as hell. The Batman , Matt Reeves’ moody reboot of the famous comic book hero, launches a new version of the Caped Crusader for the 2020s. Somewhere between the Snyderverse’ s failure to launch a solo franchise with Ben Affleck’s elder-statesman take, and the enduring appeal of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, there’s a lot of room for something new. Unfortunately, Reeves’ new take has a lot in common with the old takes.

The Batman is full of moments most Bat-fans will have seen before, and not that long ago. At its most exhausting, it restages moments from the Nolan trilogy: A mobster tells Bruce Wayne the truth about how the world works, Batman fights his way through a nightclub in a fury or through a hallway illuminated only by gunfire, footage of the film’s villain terrorizing their next victim is broadcast over the evening news. Almost all of the characters, apart from the Riddler, are recognizable from previous Batman movies. The new layers on display here are easily derived from what came before. There is nothing particularly bold about The Batman . Its strength is in its execution.

A rain-slick mystery in the mode of David Fincher’s Seven , The Batman is a methodical hunt for the Riddler (Paul Dano) after his grotesque murder of Gotham City’s incumbent mayor in the leadup to the city’s elections. Batman (Robert Pattinson) has been operating in Gotham for two years, and has established both a street rep that keeps common crooks scared and a rock-solid partnership with police Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) that lets him in on crime scenes, even if most other cops hate it.

Lt. Gordon and Batman stand in the Gotham Police precinct.

The case takes the pair on a tour through Gotham’s underworld, crossing paths with crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), striver Oz “The Penguin” Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), thief Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), and all of Gotham’s mobsters and elites, who have become codependent. Like its protagonist, The Batman is driven — while the hunt for the Riddler sprawls out in different directions, the film never deviates from it. Bruce Wayne rarely appears out of costume, wholly given to his mission and seeing little use for the life he was born into.

In building a story around the construction of Batman over his human alter ego or any people around him, The Batman becomes a movie of abstract ideas about cities, and where their denizens should place their faith when they know the game is rigged. These are compelling ideas to explore, particularly in this version of Gotham City — which is built to look like a dark-carnival rendition of 1970s and ’80s New York City transposed to the present day. Recognizable landmarks are given a grimy makeover, and theatrical gangs overrun the streets in a merging of fantasy and reality that ultimately adds up to a metaphor in search of a meaning.

If Batman is, as he repeatedly states, “vengeance,” then what is Gotham? The answer is pretty simple: It’s every city as portrayed by conservative commentators, a den of crime that needs Batman to clean it up, but maybe not the way he’s been doing it for the last couple years. Bruce Wayne’s arc is one where a young man who was molded by Gotham learns that perhaps it’s time for him to mold it in turn.

Robert Pattinson is shirtless Bruce Wayne, very cool.

This also feels familiar: The arc of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy was expressly about the idea that Batman was a necessary response, but also one with an expiration date. It’s about a guy who learns how to move from boogeyman to inspiration, and how the latter is a more effective vehicle for change.

The contours of how Reeves gets there is how he distinguishes The Batman . Like Heath Ledger’s Joker, the Riddler in this film is a cipher with a point to make: Gotham City’s vision of law and order is a lie fueled by corruption, and Batman’s journey to stop him, using the tools and means of his wealth, calls that wealth into question. In the world of The Batman , all money is dirty money, powering the ascent of dirty politicians and mobsters while also blinding the well-intentioned to the reality of their impact on the community. The tension between Batman and Catwoman does not just come from their positions on opposite sides of the law, but also Gotham City. He lives in a tower and sees the entire city, while she comes from the gutter and tells him he can’t see a damn thing.

The echoes of past Bat-films are made worse when the people telling the story are so good. Robert Pattinson is a great Batman, surly and serious, but not impenetrable. His Bruce is still open to learning, still capable of feeling, but isn’t invincible. He might not crack a smile in this film, but it’s conceivable that he could, once he achieves a better work-life balance. Zoë Kravitz also makes for a great Selina Kyle, even though the movie does little to establish Catwoman as a known presence the way it does Batman. As Batman’s de facto partner, Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon is perhaps too similarly steely, a great movie cop, but one who could lean a bit more into the fact that he’s a Gotham City cop, where a guy named “The Riddler” leaves birthday cards behind for Batman.

The Riddler shows off his advanced skills in the art of applying duct tape.

The film’s take on the Riddler may be the movie’s most divisive aspect. Much like Batman, Paul Dano is masked for most of the movie, a character who’s more in line with Jigsaw from the Saw franchise than the quizmaster of the comics. He’s a cruel constructor of death traps, out to impart some kind of moral lesson that won’t be revealed until the movie’s end. Unfortunately, he looks quite silly, somehow requiring more suspension of disbelief than the guy in pointy ears trying to catch him.

Fortunately, The Batman ’s detective-story structure means he’s mostly an offscreen puppetmaster, and as ridiculous as he appears, everything else in The Batman looks incredible, as ambitiously staged fight scenes unfold in a city draped in shadows and streetlamps. The film is only hard to parse during one of its most ambitious setpieces, a car chase that attempts to give its pursuit the physicality of a fistfight, with close shots and weighty collisions. It’s a failure of ambition in a movie that mostly has none, because the cinematic vision of what Batman can be has become terribly narrow.

The pieces were there to do something different. Director Matt Reeves established himself as a surprising blockbuster director with his Planet of the Apes sequels, two films that turned a rote franchise revival into meaningful, bold show-stoppers. His cast is headed up by popular actors with outsider appeal, and more than a decade of dark and grim Batman stories inspired by the same handful of comics have primed audiences for something different.

Instead, The Batman is frustratingly safe, a movie full of potential for more and settling for less. It preaches to the choir, reinforcing the same ideas trodden over and over again across five movies, multiple video games, and every comic book in the mold of Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s Batman: Year One . If those are your Batman touchstones, the film may very well speak to you. If, on the other hand, you’re curious as to whether Batman can speak to a different audience, it might be time to pack up the signal. No one’s coming to save you.

The Batman premieres in theaters on Friday, March 4.

The Joker 2 trailer introduces Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn to the hallucinatory stage

The people’s joker director wanted a trans villain on screen in an era of trans vilification, suicide squad: kill the justice league’s new joker is here, and players aren’t laughing.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Robert pattinson in ‘the batman’: film review.

The Caped Crusader is back on Gotham City’s crime-infested streets, exposing corruption at the highest levels in Matt Reeves’ reboot, also featuring Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano and Colin Farrell.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

With his Planet of the Apes installments, Matt Reeves demonstrated that big studio franchise movies based on iconic screen properties didn’t have to exclude intelligent, emotionally nuanced storytelling. The same applies to The Batman , a brooding genre piece in which the superhero trappings of cape and cowl, Batmobile and cool gadgetry are folded into the grimy noir textures of an intricately plotted detective story. Led with magnetic intensity and a granite jawline by Robert Pattinson as a Dark Knight with daddy issues, this ambitious reboot is grounded in a contemporary reality where institutional and political distrust breeds unhinged vigilantism.

Full credits

Distributor: Warner Bros. Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, 6th & Idaho, Dylan Clark Productions Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson Director: Matt Reeves Screenwriter: Matt Reeves, Peter Craig, based on characters from DC, created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger Producers: Dylan Clark, Matt Reeves Executive producers: Michael E. Uslan, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo, Simon Emanuel Director of photography: Greig Fraser Production designer: James Chinlund Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran Music: Michael Giacchino Editors: William Hoy, Tyler Nelson Sound designers: Chris Terhune, Lee Gilmore, Craig Henighan Visual effects supervisor: Dan Lemmon Casting: Cindy Tolan, Lucy Bevan

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Jonathan nolan initially disagreed with christopher nolan over ‘dark knight rises’ villain, cinemacon: donna langley talks universal’s big year amid industry angst, ‘wicked’ lights up cinemacon with ariana grande, cynthia erivo and director jon m. chu, ‘wicked’ casts peter dinklage as dr. dillamond the goat, blumhouse shows off creepy first ‘wolf man’ footage, trailer for ‘see no evil’, lee isaac chung’s ‘twisters’ touches down at cinemacon with glen powell, daisy edgar-jones.

‘The Batman’ Review: A Tortured Robert Pattinson Goes Even Darker Than ‘The Dark Knight’

'Cloverfield' director Matt Reeves brings a tough new vision to DC's most easily reimagined character, channeling elements of film noir and hard-R horror movies.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

‘Arcadian’ Review: Nicolas Cage Takes a Back Seat to Two Boys and a Bunch of Bugs in Clumsy Survival Thriller 14 hours ago
Critic’s Notebook: Sharper Than Ever, French Crime Classic ‘Le Samouraï’ Might Be the Coolest Film Ever Made 2 days ago
Don’t Believe What You Read About ‘Liarmouth,’ Says John Waters, Whose Next Movie Is Still Up in the Air 3 days ago

The Batman - Film Review - Variety Critic' s Pick

Where do you go after “The Dark Knight”? Ben Affleck blew it, and even Christopher Nolan, who brought unprecedented levels of realism and gravitas to that franchise-best Batman saga, couldn’t improve on what he’d created in his 2012 sequel. So what is “Cloverfield” director Matt Reeves ’ strategy? Answer: Go darker than “The Dark Knight,” deadlier than “No Time to Die” and longer than “Dune” with a serious-minded Batman stand-alone of his own. Leaning in to those elements doesn’t automatically mean audiences will embrace Reeves’ vision. But this grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if — or more aptly, because — what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes.

Sure, that’s been done before — “Who watches the Watchmen?” Alan Moore memorably asked, influencing decades of spandex-clad savior stories — though Reeves does something relatively unique here, at least by comic-book-movie standards: He strips the genre of its supernatural elements (even more than the Nolan trilogy did) and introduces a more complex version of a classic pulp hero who’s only a whisker’s breadth removed from the story’s bad guy, morally speaking. Whereas these movies are typically defined by their villains, “ The Batman ” gets under your skin by asking: What if the good guys aren’t really the good guys? What if the person we were counting on to protect us might actually be making the situation worse?

While Batman — who’s played here by gloomy “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson , representing the orphaned character’s tortured psychology to an almost painful degree — focuses on punching out petty thugs in shadowed alleys and on subway platforms, the Riddler (a genuinely disturbing Paul Dano ) emerges to expose/dispose of the white-collar scoundrels embedded at the highest levels of power. Both men are vigilantes, though one is preoccupied with helping the police, while the other targets the systemic corruption that undermines our faith in such institutions — in Gotham City, for sure, but off screen as well.

In ways far more unsettling than most audiences might expect, “The Batman” channels the fears and frustrations of our current political climate, presenting a meaty, full-course crime saga that blends elements of the classic gangster film with cutting-edge commentary about challenges facing the modern world. It’s a hugely ambitious undertaking and one that’s strong enough to work even without Batman’s presence, not that it would have any reason to exist without him. But by incorporating the character and so many of the franchise’s trademarks — Catwoman (a slinky Zoë Kravitz), the Penguin (Colin Farrell, all but unrecognizable), loyal butler Alfred (Andy Serkis, fully analog) and an epic car chase involving the latest iteration of the Batmobile — Reeves electrifies the dense, ultra-dark proceedings with an added level of excitement that justifies the film’s relatively demanding running time.

From the beginning, the director breaks from the stylistic influences of the genre, establishing a tone that almost never feels derivative of other comic book movies. That said, one could certainly point to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s killer serial “The Long Halloween” as a common thematic influence between this and “The Dark Knight.” That’s where crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) comes from, though practical action sequences hew closer to Korean films (like “Old Boy”) than Nolan’s nouveau-’70s style.

“NO MORE LIES,” reads the blood-red indictment scrawled across the face of the Riddler’s first victim, no less a figure than Gotham’s unsavory mayor (Rupert Penry-Jones). That’s just one of several grisly murders perpetrated by this maniacal avenger, who’s as twisted and self-righteous as that sicko from the “Saw” movies. Edward Nashton, aka the Riddler, wears greasy Coke-bottle glasses and what looks like a leather fetish hood (it turns out to be a winter combat mask), livestreaming his mind games on a message board for conspiracy crackpots. But here’s the twist: There really is a conspiracy among Gotham’s most powerful, one that traces back to the Wayne family, and it falls to Bruce to untangle it before it tears the city apart. Why him? The Riddler has drawn Batman in, leaving handmade cards loaded with ciphers and other puzzles at each of his crime scenes.

Part of the film‘s “reality” is to avoid calling comic-book characters by their traditional names. You no doubt noticed the “the” in the title of “The Batman” and asked yourself what it’s meant to signify. In using the definite article, Reeves isn’t necessarily trying to say that he’s created “the” definitive screen incarnation of the character. If anything, that tiny extra word casts an air of existential mystery around its masked and anonymous hero, who doesn’t even know what to call himself early on. When the imposing leader of a violent street gang taunts, “The hell are you supposed to be?” the bat-clad vigilante growls back, “I’m Vengeance.”

That’s how Bruce Wayne thinks of himself when we first meet this version of the character — no origin story, but rather, in medias res — two years into defending Gotham from the brink of anarchy. Ravaged by a major narcotics epidemic, courtesy of a street drug called “drops,” the city finds itself facing a level of disorder somewhere between a pre-Giuliani Manhattan and the final minutes of Todd Phillips’ “The Joker,” though the two films exist in different dimensions of the same Gotham multiverse. Reuniting with production designer James Chinlund (with whom he worked on the “Planet of the Apes” sequels), Reeves presents the most robust version of Gotham we’ve seen since Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman.”

Clearly modeled on New York City, amplified through set extensions and stunning CGI, this seedy metropolis plunges us into the Big Apple’s rotten core: The midtown equivalent of Times Square is illuminated by even more giant digital screens, a black cluster of buildings looms where lower Manhattan would be, and you don’t want to go anywhere near the Madison Square Garden-like arena where the finale takes place. At times, Batman surveys the city from an upper floor of a half-built skyscraper. Otherwise, he zooms around at street level on his Batcycle, eventually upgrading to a souped-up muscle car (the unveiling of which is one of the film’s big thrills).

Except for hidden-camera contact lenses, his technology is mostly realistic, and unless one counts a rooftop BASE jump, he can’t fly. Unlike so many DC comic book heroes, Batman is neither a god nor an alien; he has no fantastical abilities. Bruce Wayne’s superpower is his billion-dollar fortune, but the guy behind the mask breaks and bleeds just like anybody else — a point Reeves reminds us of with a shot of Pattinson’s bare back, covered in scars. Rather than leaning on a theme, Michael Giacchino’s score surprises, ranging from tense tribal drums to Nirvana to opera, while editors William Hoy and Tyler Nelson avoid obvious angles, leaving quiet spaces for audiences to process (and question) what’s happening.

As the Batman or Vengeance or whatever he’s called, Pattinson is the most sullen of the actors to have played the character, which reads as a kind of daredevil nihilism whenever he’s in costume: He doesn’t seem fearless so much as ambivalent about whether he lives or dies. Once the cowl comes off, however, Pattinson’s interpretation gets more intriguing: Brooding and withdrawn, he’s a damaged loner with unresolved daddy issues, saddled with all kinds of complicated emotional trauma. It’s tough to see a hero hurting so much, and yet, his troubled past informs every relationship, including the one with a lunatic who counts Bruce Wayne among his targets.

The Riddler’s schemes are genuinely scary, far more than seems reasonable for a PG-13-rated movie (like the remote-controlled exploding collar clamped on Peter Sarsgaard’s drugged-out district attorney, Gil Colson). The idea here is that some of Gotham’s top-ranking officials — plus cat burglar-cum-cocktail waitress Selina Kyle (Kravitz) — are somehow mixed up with Falcone, and the Riddler has taken it upon himself to purge the system of such elements. The “Chinatown”-intricate specifics of just how intertwined city government is with organized crime can make your head spin, though Reeves lays it out relatively elegantly, such that audiences can follow the many twists of Batman’s investigation.

This is first and foremost a detective story, unsentimental as they come — one half-expects Gwyneth Paltrow’s head to show up in a box at some point — and though the authorities take the Riddler into custody well before the end, the movie’s most shocking stretch is still to come, just when Gotham seems ready to celebrate its next chapter. It’s hard to imagine how Reeves (who was shooting “The Batman” during the early days of the pandemic) could have anticipated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and yet, the signs must have been there all along, for the film’s chilling climax hinges on activating susceptible citizens to conduct a mass terrorist attack. In “The Dark Knight,” Heath Ledger’s anarchist Joker felt like he’d stepped right out of your nightmares, but there’s something even more intimidating about the way the Riddler operates. He literally triggers others to become vigilantes as well — and judging by the real-world copycats previous Batman movies inspired (such as the Aurora, Colo., shooting), that could have consequences.

A movie like this will inspire countless debates: Does “The Batman” really need to be this dark? Can it hold a candle to Nolan’s trilogy? There’s room enough for both to exist, and space for sequels to build on this foundation, which assumes a certain familiarity with the character’s mythology. That’s the beauty of Batman, who transcends all the other heroes in the DC Comics stable: Like Dracula or Hamlet, this iconic antihero stands up to endless reinvention. Whether campy or pop, self-questioning or complicit, he tells us something new about ourselves every time he steps out of the shadows.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, Feb. 17, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 176 MIN.

Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation of a 6th & Idaho, Dylan Clark Prods. production. Producers: Dylan Clark, Matt Reeves. Executive producers: Michael E. Uslan, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo, Simon Emanuel.
Crew: Director: Matt Reeves. Screenplay: Matt Reeves & Peter Craig; Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, based on characters from DC. Camera: Greig Fraser. Editors: William Hoy, Tyler Nelson. Music: Michael Giacchino. Music supervisor: George Drakoulias.
With: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson.

More From Our Brands

The 12 best-smelling laundry detergents of 2024, from dedcool to glamorous wash, a ‘shark tank’ star’s sky-high n.y.c. penthouse seeks $38 million, shohei ohtani could be cleared by a mizuhara guilty plea, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, ahs: delicate turns back the clock, unmasking another familiar foe, verify it's you, please log in.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Confident and mature yet dark, violent Batman reboot.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Ponders the nature and cost of vengeance and what

Batman is a troubling character, as he uses violen

Several iconic Batman characters, including Selina

Characters are killed, dead bodies are seen. Guns

Kissing. Woman seen in underwear while dressing. B

Sporadic use of "s--t," "a--hole," "ass," "d--k,"

Part of a long-running and massive superhero franc

Part of the plot revolves around a fictitious drug

Positive Messages

Ponders the nature and cost of vengeance and what it means to genuinely help people (i.e., "Am I doing this for myself, or for others?"). Also touches on how social media can spread misinformation (and, subsequently, violence), the idea that power corrupts, and what it takes to remain a good person.

Positive Role Models

Batman is a troubling character, as he uses violence to solve problems, but he also uses his head, and he learns the difference between vengeance and trying to do good in the world. Lt. Gordon is also a great character here, remaining decent and law-abiding within a deeply corrupt system.

Diverse Representations

Several iconic Batman characters, including Selina Kyle and Lt. Gordon, are Black, as is a woman named Bella Reál, who's running for mayor of Gotham. It's implied that Selina is in a romantic relationship with a woman (she calls her "baby"); Selina also kisses Batman. Other people of color are seen in small roles or in background.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Characters are killed, dead bodies are seen. Guns and shooting. Brutal beating with a metallic tool. Characters in death traps. Heavy punching, kicking, beating, martial arts fighting. A woman is hit with a pool cue and choked. Taser. Hitting with baseball bat. Severed thumb. Explosions. Car chase with multiple crashes. Sounds of woman being killed on a recording (screaming). Major flooding. Minor blood spatters, scratches. Corner store holdup. Building set on fire. Crime scene photos. A child is said to have found his dead father's body. Dialogue about 12-year-old orphans becoming "dropheads," rats chewing on fingers, babies dying of cold, etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing. Woman seen in underwear while dressing. Brief sex-related dialogue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sporadic use of "s--t," "a--hole," "ass," "d--k," "pr--k," "goddamn," "son of a bitch," "oh my God," "scumbag," and "freakin'." "Christ" and "Jesus" used as exclamations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Part of a long-running and massive superhero franchise. Oreo cookies are mentioned in end credits but not prominently featured in movie. (Oreo is releasing a limited edition, movie tie-in Batman cookie.)

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Part of the plot revolves around a fictitious drug business; the drug consists of drops placed in people's eyes. Addicts, called "dropheads," are shown. Minor drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Batman is a new/rebooted take on the iconic superhero. This Batman ( Robert Pattinson ) is conflicted and violent but also uses his head and learns as he goes along. The movie's action violence is intense, with killings and dead bodies, guns and shooting, explosions and crashes, lots of fighting (punching, kicking, hitting with objects, choking, etc.), a severed thumb, violence against women, descriptions of upsetting events, and more. Language isn't constant but includes several uses of "s--t," "son of a bitch," "goddamn," and more. Characters kiss, there's sex-related dialogue, and a woman is seen in her underwear as she dresses. Part of the plot revolves around a fictitious drug business; the drug consists of drops placed in the eyes (addicts are called "dropheads"). The movie is more diverse than previous takes on the Dark Knight, deals thoughtfully with the nature and cost of vengeance, touches on how social media can spread misinformation, and, even with a 175-minute runtime, is one of the best Batman movies to date. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (70)
Kids say (183)

Based on 70 parent reviews

"The Batman" Isn't Meant for kids, It's meant for those who understand Batman

Read this for a accurate age review for the batman.., what's the story.

In THE BATMAN, it's Halloween night, and the mayor of Gotham City is brutally murdered. The killer leaves a clue behind for the Batman ( Robert Pattinson ), who's still in the early years of his superhero career. The clue is a riddle that reveals the fact that the mayor had a secret mistress. Batman finds out that the woman is under the protection of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman ( Zoë Kravitz ) -- but she still gets kidnapped. To try to find her, Selina helps Batman infiltrate a secret nightclub where politicians and criminals are entertained. There, Selina catches the attention of the district attorney ( Peter Sarsgaard ). Then the mayor's killer, known as the Riddler ( Paul Dano ), strikes again, killing the D.A. and leaving more clues for Batman and Lt. Gordon ( Jeffrey Wright ). They learn they must find "the rat" -- i.e., someone who has been leaking sensitive information. But even when this mystery is solved, can The Riddler be trusted?

Is It Any Good?

This riveting take on Batman is, refreshingly, more of a detective story than an action spectacle -- although it does offer that element, too, as well as complex characters and relevant themes. Directed by Matt Reeves , The Batman makes wise adjustments in just about every respect, finding a solution for Christian Bale 's aggravating growl/whisper line delivery (Pattinson speaks softly, but he never strains) and for the soulless, gray color scheme of the Zack Snyder movies. Reeves' movie is dark (and often rainy), but he bathes the images in a warmer brown tone, with orange and yellow highlights, bringing a weariness and a desperation to the proceedings. And, while there are many villains here, the film -- unlike the 1990s sequels -- never feels cluttered. The Riddler, Catwoman, Penguin (a completely disguised Colin Farrell ), etc., each occupy their own space in the story.

Moreover, Batman is more human and vulnerable here, "oofing" at the impact of blows and occasionally getting winded. Blessed with Pattinson's wounded, armored performance, this is arguably the most interesting character arc we've seen in a Batman movie. At the start, he sees himself as an avenging angel, but as the story goes on, he learns that things aren't that simple, that there are gray areas. There are consequences. A third-act climax touches on the dangers of misinformation and social media, paralleling certain terrifying real-life events. Reeves needed a lot of time to lay all this out, as well as some much-needed downtime to build characters and relationships; the result is that The Batman clocks in at a jaw-dropping 2 hours and 55 minutes. But it honestly never feels too long. It's arguably the most confident and mature Batman film to date and one of the best.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Batman 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

How are drugs depicted? What do the drops appear to do? Are they glamorized? Does the movie focus more on the effects of the drug or on the business around it?

What does Bruce/Batman learn over the course of the movie about vengeance?

The Riddler is able to summon up an army via his social media posts. How does this reflect real life? What can be done to avoid the potential negative effects of social media?

Did you notice diverse representations in the movie? Do you consider any of the characters to be role models ?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 4, 2022
On DVD or streaming : May 24, 2022
Cast : Robert Pattinson , Zoe Kravitz , Peter Sarsgaard , Paul Dano
Director : Matt Reeves
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Superheroes
Run time : 175 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : strong violent and disturbing content, drug content, strong language, and some suggestive material
Last updated : April 6, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Dark Knight Rises

Want personalized picks for your kids' age and interests?

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One

Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two

Batman Returns

The Lego Batman Movie

Best superhero movies for kids, best superhero tv shows, related topics.

Superheroes

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

“The Batman” Is a Waste of Robert Pattinson

By Anthony Lane

An illustration of Batman surrounded by clouds of smoke.

I’m gonna wash Batman right outa my hair. That was my plan, at any rate, after watching as much of “ Zack Snyder’s Justice League ” (2021) as I could take; even the most loyal fans of the Caped Crusader must have wondered, over the decades, if the crusading would ever end. Is there not a lingering suspicion that this most enigmatic of superheroes might merely, in fact, be the dullest? How much dramatic juice remains to be squeezed from Bruce Wayne, the chumless billionaire, brooding over his man cave and his gaggle of gizmos? The catalogue of squeezers runs from Adam West to Ben Affleck, taking in actors as skilled as Michael Keaton, George Clooney , and Christian Bale. Now Robert Pattinson joins the list.

The film in question, directed by Matt Reeves, is called “The Batman,” the big news being that the principal character has acquired not only a new car, a new motorbike, and a new butler but also—holy grammarians!—a definite article. This guy isn’t just any old Batman; he is the Batman, and you should be wary of cheap imitations. (Any word, you may ask, from the Robin? Nothing. Not a tweet.) In another unusual development, this Batman has developed bruise-like circles around his eyes, which, when combined with his gnomic mottoes, such as “I’m vengeance,” and his preference for unarmed combat over lethal weapons, give the distinct, though surely unintended, impression that we are watching the latest adventures of Kung Fu Panda.

And the plot? Same as it ever was. Rich kid, orphaned in his youth, vows to clean up the dirty metropolis—a mission that he shares, incidentally, with Travis Bickle, in “ Taxi Driver ” (1976), the difference being that Travis is not too proud to crack a smile. Notice that the cleaning is never literal; although the streets of Gotham, in “The Batman,” are squalid and strewn with trash, not once is it proposed that Bruce might care to divert the Wayne family wealth into sanitation or garbage collection. “It’s a big city,” he says, a little plaintively. “I can’t be everywhere.” No, but what is solved by confronting a lone band of subway muggers and giving them a thoroughly good hiding, as our hero does in an early scene? Even if he sends them off to bed without their supper, how much safer will Gotham really be? One could argue that the hard work of everyday governance makes for stale viewing (though admirers of “Parks and Recreation” would disagree), yet there are times in “The Batman” when a short disquisition on, say, steam-based graffiti removal would come as a relief.

If the job of the Bat is to round up the rats, then the director needs to supply high-quality vermin. Hence the baddies who thronged Christopher Nolan’s “ Dark Knight ” trilogy, and hence, likewise, the cast that has been convened by Reeves. We have John Turturro as a mob boss; Peter Sarsgaard, at his most sleepy-sleazy, as the local D.A.; Colin Farrell, larded with prosthetics, as the Penguin; and Paul Dano as the Riddler, a villain so mystifying that he leaves a question mark in the froth atop his cappuccino. The opposing team includes Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, a rare incorruptible cop, and, hovering in the middle, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle—jewel thief, part-time Catwoman, and, fitfully, the movie’s voice of social conscience. She derides the sins of “white privileged assholes” and, in the closing stretch, suggests that she and the Batman “knock off some C.E.O. hedge-fund types.” She adds, “It’s going to be fun.”

Leaving aside the question of whether Bruce Wayne, who is chalk white and super-privileged, has himself invested in hedge funds, and how they may have bankrolled his sterling defense of the law, one has to ask: what is this “fun” of which Selina speaks? It’s certainly not a concept that “The Batman,” dropsical with self-importance, and setting a bold new standard in joylessness, has much use for. Reeves bows down to the atmospheric laws that now govern American gothic—namely, that the darker and wetter a film becomes, and the growlier the vocal pitch of its characters, the more seriously we must take it. Thus, the highlight of the action, a car chase, has to be set at night and soaked in rain. To be fair, I did enjoy the sight of one vehicle emerging from a fireball in pursuit of another, yet somehow, thanks to the frenzied editing and the hammer blows of the musical score, I saw it coming. For an altogether more surprising combustion of the senses, check out “ Mad Max: Fury Road ” (2015). That has great balls of fire.

Having once sat through a Dutch film of Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves,” and survived, I consider myself no stranger to cinematic fatigue. Clocking in at nearly three hours, however, “The Batman” is designed to try the patience of the toughest fan. What’s weird, despite the narrative expanse, is how much of the story feels rushed. When Anne Hathaway played Selina Kyle, in “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012), her thievery was a pleasure, whereas almost the only thing stolen by the new Selina is a passport; similarly, when the Riddler leaves a cypher at a crime scene, the solution is arrived at in haste, with minimal thrills—far fewer than David Fincher provided in “Zodiac” (2007), a puzzle-stuffed movie that took full advantage of its running time. You begin to wonder what the point of “The Batman” is, beyond the sustaining of its gloomy mood.

For most Batmaniacs, I guess, the point will be a simple one: a chance to fix their gaze on Robert Pattinson—on his gaze, that is, smoldering under his mask. Now and then, he doffs it, showing his naked despondency and allowing his hair to fall artfully across his brow, as if he once failed an audition for a boy band and never got over the disappointment. Such is the media’s obsession with Pattinson, since he left the “Twilight” zone, that this new role is naturally seen as crowning his career; for an actor who has worked with David Cronenberg , the Safdie brothers , and Claire Denis , though, portraying the Batman is not a coronation. It’s a comedown.

Pattinson’s allure, before which I am as helpless as anyone else, springs from the fact that, in keeping with his godlike exterior, he is a light knight as well as a dark one; what he brought to Nolan’s “ Tenet ,” in 2020, was not just fine tailoring but a casual comic élan. (“Don’t be so dramatic ,” he said, when planning a plane crash.) “The Batman,” to its shame, and to the deep detriment of its leading man, turns out the light. It demands that the hero be nothing but dramatic, all the time. “They think I am hiding in the shadows,” he declares. “I am the shadows.” Hogwash. What the Batman cannot admit is that, were a nice day ever to dawn in Gotham, he would be revealed for what he is: a fantasist, too old for his teen-age doominess, with zero social life, a suit of armor that makes it impossible to go to the bathroom, and not enough to do.

More nocturnal trouble, and more rain. Under stormy conditions, at the start of Rob Schroeder’s “Ultrasound,” a motorist named Glen (Vincent Kartheiser) gets a flat tire. He seeks aid at the nearest dwelling—the home of Art (Bob Stephenson) and his young wife, Cyndi (Chelsea Lopez), who kindly offer Glen a bed. To be precise: Art, who claims to have failed as a husband, offers his own bed to Glen, with Cyndi in it. Art will sleep elsewhere.

As you watch the opening of the film, plus the scene in which Art shows up at Glen’s apartment to announce that Cyndi is pregnant, you get a pretty firm idea of this sad-sack tale. Just one of those domestic downers, right? Wrong. There is so much more here, wriggling around in the sack. Who, for example, is the red-headed woman who, with neither warning nor introduction, rehearses a passage of dialogue that we then hear on the lips of Cyndi? An actress, perhaps? Could this be a meta-theatrical fable of some sort? Wrong again. The redhead is Shannon (Breeda Wool), and she’s employed in an experimental laboratory. There she observes Cyndi, who wears a cap covered in electrodes, and Glen, who for some reason is now in a wheelchair. “It’ll all make sense as we go along, I promise,” Shannon says. Wrong and wronger.

“Ultrasound” is adapted by Conor Stechschulte from his own four-volume graphic novel, and it’s the kind of brain bender that, like “The Shining” (1980) and “Barton Fink” (1991), persuades you that a hotel corridor is the most worrying place in the world. Set beside “The Batman,” Schroeder’s film offers an alternative path for modern gothic: not heavy underfoot but twisty and looping, with no hint of a moral quest. The electronic score, by Zak Engel, deceives rather than bombards the ear, using chirrups, clicks, and skirls. As in Gotham, you detect the hand of fate, but who is dealing that hand is another matter. My money is on Art, who, in a scarily gauged performance from Stephenson, begins as a cuckold, overweight and under-happy, and winds up as a grinning magician with a frilled shirt and a talent for extreme hypnosis. He happens to resemble the Wizard of Oz, but here’s the thing: Art is really a very good wizard. He’s just a very bad man. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

Searching for the cause of a catastrophic plane crash .

The man who spent forty-two years at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool .

Gloria Steinem’s life on the feminist frontier .

Where the Amish go on vacation .

How Colonel Sanders built his Kentucky-fried fortune .

What does procrastination tell us about ourselves ?

Fiction by Patricia Highsmith: “The Trouble with Mrs. Blynn, the Trouble with the World”

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Kyle Chayka

The Ex-N.Y.P.D. Official Trying to Tame New York’s Trash

By Eric Lach

Maggie Rogers’s Journey from Viral Fame to Religious Studies

By Amanda Petrusich

Watching the Eclipse from the Highest Mountain in Vermont

By Nick Paumgarten

Tickets & Showtimes
Trending on RT

Everything We Know

Everything we know about the batman, a new trailer released at dc fandome 2021 reveals a demented riddler who might be at the heart of batman's troubles, as well as a mysterious catwoman and thuggish penguin..

TAGGED AS: Comic Book , comics , DC Comics , DC Universe , Superheroes

The Batman took a long time to take shape, but fans are finally starting to get the full picture of director Matt Reeves’ take on the character. And, soon, the full extent of The Batman will be known to all, as the film is less than a month away from release.

But at 2021’s DC FanDome event, fans of the oft-rebooted movie hero got a nice glimpse of what to expect from the film thanks to a new trailer. In it, the Riddler (Paul Dano) is taken into custody by the Gotham City Police. But that seems to have little effect on his bigger plan, which involves the Batman (Robert Pattinson), Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz), and local mobster Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell). Its mix of Batman ’89 theatrics and Batman Begins realism may yet prove to be the right mix for this next iteration of the Caped Crusader.”

One year earlier, at 2020’s DC FanDome, Reeves revealed the movie will take place in year two of Batman’s crime-fighting career — an assertion backed up in the trailer by the reveal of a Batsignal — a period in which he is adjusting to his new life and Gotham is adjusting to him. An HBO Max series tentatively titled Gotham P.D. will focus on Batman’s year one, and follow corrupt cops in the city’s police department.

Let’s take a look at more of what we know about the movie from earlier reveals as well as the history of how the project came together.

[Updated on October 16, 2021]

How The Batman Became Untangled from the DCEU

(Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures)

Plans for the film began in 2014, when Warner Bros. had a massive, Marvel-style DC film universe in mind. An important pillar of that concept was Ben Affleck behind the cowl of the Dark Knight and in the director’s chair for a film called The Batman . It was to tie in to the character as he played it in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League and would follow the events of both films. Affleck teased the arrival of the DC Comics villain Deathstroke to his tale by posting a costume test with actor Joe Manganiello under the mask. The actor was later set to play the character in the film and made a brief appearance in the Justice League stinger scene. Some reports suggest the film would have taken place inside Arkham Asylum.

But then things began to unravel. Despite commercial success, Batman v Superman was perceived as a creative misfire even as cameras began to roll on Justice League – leading to a rethink of the film’s plot. Warner Bros. asked Affleck to re-write his script for The Batman as the shape of the film universe changed alongside Justice League . In January of 2017, he had stepped down as director with Matt Reeves soon taking over. He also eventually handed script duties over to Reeves and Mattson Tomlin, leaving many to wonder if Affleck would even star in the picture.

Almost a full year of speculation followed until Affleck, then dealing with a number of personal problems, set the record straight in January of 2019, announcing his complete departure from the project. And with that, the original vision for The Batman gave way to Reeves’ new take.

The New Players: Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano, Zoe Kravitz, and More

(Photo by Dee Cercone/Everett Collection)

Even before Affleck’s departure was confirmed, many began to speculate about the seventh person to wear the cowl in a theatrically released, live-action film. Rumors began to circle around The Lighthouse star Robert Pattinson , who emerged as the favorite and eventually took the role in May of 2019.

Over the course of the following months, a cast list began to emerge, including Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle (a.k.a. Catwoman), Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, and Paul Dano as the Riddler, whose civilian identity in the film, “Edward Nashton,” is a one of his known aliases in the pages of DC comics. Over the Fall of 2019, Colin Farrell signed on as Oswald Cobblepot and Andy Serkis also stepped up to take over as Alfred Pennyworth from Jeremy Irons , who had played the character for Affleck’s Batman. Other cast members include John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as District Attorney Gil Colson, Con O’Neill as Chief Macheknize Bock, Alex Ferns as police commissioner Peter Savage, and Jayme Lawson as Bella Reál. Teen Wolf ’s Max Carver and Charlie Carver also joined the cast, leading some to suggest they may play Batman rogues Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Lastly, Eternals’ Barry Keoghan is listed among the cast as playing Officer Stanley Merkel; in DC Comics lore, Merkel was Jim Gordon’s first partner, though that may not be the role he plays here.

Behind the camera, Reeves’ crew includes director of photography Greig Fraser, editors William Hoy and Tyler Nelson, production designer James Chinlund and costume designer Jacqueline Durran. Reeves is producing the film alongside Dylan Clark while Simon Emanuel, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong, and Michael Uslan serve as executive producers. Michael Giacchino scored the film, making both the Batman and Riddler themes available to fans during the early days of 2022.

At DC FanDome 2020, Reeves teased that, just as Batman is still finding himself in the movie, so too are the “rogues gallery” of villains we meet. As seen in the trailer, when we first encounter Selina Kyle, she’s not Catwoman; ditto Farrell’s Oswald Cobblepot, who’s destined to be crime kingpin, the Penguin.

From that list of cast and crew, a sense of The Batman began to emerge… as did a potential source of its story.

The Long Halloween: A Serial Killer Stalks Batman and Gotham

(Photo by DC Comics)

Though Reeves referred to the plot as an “original story” from the moment he began answering questions about the film, the number of villains and supporting characters in the cast left many to wonder if it might be taking inspiration from Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

Set after the events of the seminal Batman: Year One storyline, it sees Batman attempting to learn the identity of a serial killer known as Holiday. It also accomplishes a few other things, like chronicling the year mobsters lost control of Gotham City to the costumed supervillains. The 13-issue miniseries was followed up by Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome , which saw Loeb and Sale return to some of The Long Halloween ’s ideas, including the continuing deterioration of Gotham’s organized crime families.

But the key to The Long Halloween was its expansive cast and Batman encountering a mystery he could not easily crack.

Early on, Reeves said he wanted to emphasize Batman as the world’s greatest detective – an element of the character generally downplayed in the more action-oriented Batman and Dark Knight film cycles – while also playing up the noirish elements inherent in the concept. Reeves said at DC FanDome 2020 that noirs like Chinatown have been a big inspiration for his approach to the material. Additionally, the costume test video of Pattinson in the batsuit and the Batmobile pictures clearly illustrate Batman during an early part of of his career, making the case for The Long Halloween as a primary source stronger.

(Photo by Warner Bros.)

It would not be the first time, though, the book was called upon as a source of inspiration or, indeed, the first time a Batman film used one of the better-known Batman stories in its development. The Dark Knight used one or two elements from the story while also grabbing from The Killing Joke . The Dark Knight Rises also pulled from the “No Man’s Land” story. But this should not suggest The Batman is a straight adaptation of The Long Halloween , as someone key to that story is missing from the film: Harvey Dent.

The Long Halloween is also a Two-Face origin story that sees him promoted to Gotham City DA near the start of the story and, well, somewhere else by its conclusion. In lieu of Harvey, Sarsgaard plays Gil Colson, an original character for the film. Curiously, before Sarsgaard’s role was confirmed, some suggested he might be playing Harvey Dent, while yet others noted the character’s name bares a resemblance to that of a corrupt Gotham Police officer who helped Two-Face in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series . For the moment, we’re inclined to believe Sarsgaard is, in fact, playing a wholly new character with no ties to Gotham’s most famous lawyer.

This suspicion also extends to Lawson’s Bella Reál, another new character said to be running for mayor in the film. As with DA Colson, we’re willing to accept this as the truth until presented with evidence that she is really Barbara Gordon or Poison Ivy.

Making these obscure ties less likely, though, is the trailer released during the 2021 edition of DC FanDome. Based on the story hooks teased in the newer preview, the mystery plaguing the Batman is engineered solely by the Riddler, making him the key villain in a Batman film for the first time since 1995’s Batman Forever ., in which he was portrayed by Jim Carrey . Granted, he shared his murderous plot in that film with Two-Face ( Tommy Lee Jones ). Nevertheless, it seems more likely The Batman will take thematic ideas from The Long Halloween and leave most of its plot within its pages.

The Look Of The Batman

As with Joker , Warner Bros. made the choice to debut The Batman ’s key costume in a short video before any paparazzi had a chance to shoots pictures of it on location. Seen through darkness and red light, the suit seems to employ a more bare-bones, off-the-shelf aesthetic. The body armor continues Batman ‘89 ’s basic design choice, but a cowl made of fabric sets it apart from all other cinematic Batmen. Some have also speculated the bat symbol is made of the gun Joe Chill used to kill the Waynes. It’s all pretty interesting even if the video makes it look a little too much like Daredevil’s costume . Subsequent set pics also offered a better look at the cowl, which may be inspired by Silver Age comic book artists like Dick Sprang and Carmine Infantino.

At DC FanDome 2020, Reeves said that the fact this is only year two of Batman’s career heavily influenced the design of the costume: Wayne built it himself, he’s making adjustments, you can see the gashes from his scuffles on the suit.

In March of 2020, Reeves unveiled the first look at the Batmobile . Eschewing the more outlandish design conventions established in Batman ’89, this car is, in fact, a muscle car with some obvious modifications. Long-time readers of Batman comics may even recognize the broad strokes of the design as the one Batman used through most of the 1980s and into the 1990s. The new Batmobile design continues the notion that Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne merely modified existing gear instead of inventing Bat-gadgets from whole cloth and, if nothing else, is an interesting departure from the previous Batman film cycles, particularly the tankish Tumbler and Justice League Batmobile.

Ahead of the DC FanDome event in 2020 , Reeves revealed even more in a Twitter post debuting the film’s logo and FanDome-specific artwork:

Excited to share the very first look at our official #TheBatman logo, and some very cool additional #DCFanDome artwork by the amazing @jimlee — see more of #TheBatman at the #DCFanDome global event in the Hall of Heroes this Saturday, 8/22! #TheBatman #DCFanDome #ForTheFans pic.twitter.com/ApfngNbyor — Matt Reeves (@mattreevesLA) August 20, 2020

Its Place In The DC Film Universe

Niko Tavernise/© 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. TM & © DC Comics

Despite all the tell-tale markings of a reboot, The Batman ’s place in the loose continuity of Warner Bros’s DC film slate is still up for debate. During the early phases of development, Reeves suggested it could take place out of continuity like Joker , but quickly backpedaled to say it will have some ties and maybe even a cameo or two. At the same time, recasting Jim Gordon, who was played by J.K. Simmons in Justice League , with Wright also suggests the film is in a world all its own. But then again, the DC Universe is a place where world-changing events create convenient retcons. Pattinson could simply replace Affleck’s Batman in the new DC film reality where Wonder Woman ( Gal Gadot ) co-exists with Harley Quinn ( Margot Robbie ) and the Suicide Squad of 2021. Is all depends on whether or not Reeves would be interested in utilizing any of those ideas or, indeed, if Pattinson would want to bring his Batman to play with the other DC film heroes.

The film will be released at the beginning of a full roster for the DC film universe, which includes The Flash , Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom , and Black Adam . We wouldn’t put it past Warner Bros. to try to connect them all to The Batman , but we won’t be disappointed if they remain separate. In the meantime, though, the principal cast is expected to return for at least two sequels to The Batman .

The Batman is currently scheduled for release on March 4, 2022.

Thumbnail image by Warner Bros. Pictures

On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News .

Related News

Marvel TV Ranked by Tomatometer

37 Worst Superhero Movies of All Time

Deadpool & Wolverine : Release Date, Trailer, Cast & More

More Everything We Know

FX’s Alien Series: Premiere Date, Trailer, Cast & More

Star Wars: The Acolyte : Premiere Date, Trailer, Cast & More

Kate Winslet’s The Regime : Premiere Date, Trailer, Cast & More

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

CinemaCon 2024: Day 2 – Universal Showcases Nosferatu , Twisters , Wicked , and More

April 10, 2024

Fallout First Reviews: A ‘Violent, Fun, Emotional, Epic’ Video Game Adaptation, Critics Say

TV Premiere Dates 2024

April 9, 2024

Weekend Box Office Results: Godzilla x Kong Holds Strong

April 8, 2024

Top Headlines

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now –
25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming –
30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming –
Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked – New Scary Movies to Watch –
Box Office 2024: Top 10 Movies of the Year –
Best TV Shows of 2024: Best New Series to Watch Now –

Lady Gaga’s ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Trailer Is Spectacular

WHY SO SERIOUS

Never in a million years did we think this Batman-meets-La La Land sequel to 2019’s “Joker” would look this good. Check out the newly released first trailer.

Coleman Spilde

Entertainment Critic

Warner Bros.

Fine, I’ll admit it: I was dead wrong.

Let me clarify. There was a time, not too long ago, when Lady Gaga signing onto a Joker sequel was unfathomable. Years of fighting to prove her talent and worth to the general public culminated in the musician and actor being nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in 2018’s A Star Is Born . (She missed out on the statuette, only to pick up the Best Original Song trophy later that evening.) After Gaga’s silver screen follow-up, House of Gucci , turned out to be a less-than-ideal vehicle for her star power, joining another big Hollywood production could be a risk. And when rumors about her joining the sequel to 2019’s controversial standalone Joker film began to swirl, many people–including myself—thought Gaga’s participation was incomprehensible. It was so strange and unlikely to me that I even wrote an open letter back in 2022, half-jokingly begging her not to take the role. With the amount of contention surrounding the first Joker film, it seemed unwise for Gaga to associate herself with the franchise.

But time is a funny thing. In the two years since it was announced Gaga would join Joaquin Phoenix in the Joker sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux , Gaga has done quite a few things I wouldn’t have expected. The first and foremost would be teaming up with pharmaceutical overlords Pfizer to hock migraine pills, which I used to think was something relegated to Khloé Kardashian . Gaga, ever the LGBTQ+ activist, also spent most of last summer quiet after a season of legislative attacks on trans and gender-nonconforming people put the health and safety of the queer community at jeopardy—a silence she later ( vaguely ) apologized for. While these haven’t been my favorite surprises that Gaga has pulled on the public in her long career, she certainly keeps us on her toes. That much has once again been proven too with the release of the first trailer for Joker: Folie à Deux . I’ll say it because I mean it: This movie looks really damn good.

In the trailer, we once again meet Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, now locked away in Arkham Asylum after his murderous rampage ignited Gotham City’s underbelly of criminals and sent them into the streets. It’s at Arkham where Joker meets Gaga’s Harley Quinn who, blessedly, is not doing Harley’s typical bratty-by-way-of-Long Island accent. “I’m nobody,” Harley says to the Joker in a voiceover, while a shot of her putting a finger gun to her head and pulling the trigger, laughing, plays. “I haven’t done anything with my life like you have.” What follows is a montage of staggeringly constructed shots, far from the dimly lit greens and browns that filled the first film. Four colorful umbrellas flank Arthur at Arkham, a clear nod to 1964’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg , and that’s only the first of several cinematic references.

The montage appears to jump between Joker and Harley’s delusions. As they tango in the real-life Gotham city streets, they envision themselves twirling together on rooftops lit by the night sky. They’re lit on a massive show stage, with lights reading “JOKER & HARLEY”—apparently, after assassinating Robert de Niro’s talk-show host character in the first film, Joker has made a King of Comedy -like twist and secured his own variety hour (at least in his head). “I’ll tell you what’s changed,” Arthur tells his clinical psychologist in a scene set before he and Harley ostensibly escape. “I’m not alone anymore.”

Amidst all of it, there’s Gaga, holding each shot of the trailer that she’s in with as much gravity as she’s held her first two big screen ventures. Her Harley looks defiant and self-assured, bolstered by Joker encouraging her maddest side. She stomps up courthouse steps to throngs of cheering fans, smirking in her clown makeup. She smears lipstick on her face, dances in a sequined fringe dress, twirls down the twisting aisle toward her nuptials, and keeps a gun drawn at her new boyfriend. Unlike the typical Joker-Harley dynamic, this looks to be a marriage of equally demented minds, with each one holding their own twisted power.

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix

“I want to see the real you,” Gaga’s Harley says at the end of the teaser, before drawing a lipstick smile on the glass that separates her from Joker inside Arkham. Joker leans to his right, aligns his mouth with the smile, and pairs it with his own perturbing grin. It’s a beautifully blocked shot, a memorable kicker for a surprisingly excellent trailer. Joker: Folie à Deux looks far better than anyone could have expected when we initially heard that Lady Gaga might be throwing herself into a Joker sequel.

What’s more, it seems like an ambitious new take, and not just a simple continuation. Joker was was very much the watered-down sum of its parts; Taxi Driver meets Batman was never going to be a particularly novel concept. Folie à Deux , a jukebox musical that reportedly has at least 15 musical numbers, recycles this, giving us La La Land meets Batman . (Or, maybe in Joker’s case, Ha Ha Land ). There is, however, already so much more to chew on in this teaser trailer alone. The sequel looks like a grand spectacle that could take this story to new and fascinating heights for the first time, And with Gaga’s powerhouse voice—and sure to be wackadoo press tour —ahead of us, maybe us doubters will be the ones looking like clowns when Joker: Folie à Deux lands in theaters Oct. 4, 2024.

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here .

READ THIS LIST

Screen Rant

The people's joker review: dark comedy superhero masterpiece is the batman parody the world needs.

Vera Drew's parody superhero film The People's Joker is unlike anything in the exasperated genre and is a unique take on the classic DC story.

The People's Joker is a hilarious superhero parody film that incorporates dark humor and compelling character development.
The film uses a mix of live-action, animation, and special effects to create a unique and captivating visual experience.
While heavy-handed with DC Comics references, The People's Joker stands out in the superhero genre as a fresh, significant, and entertaining addition.

The People's Joker is unlike any other superhero film (or any movie in general), and its strengths lie in its differences, dark humor, and intriguing and thoughtful character development. The superhero parody film is directed and co-written by Vera Drew, who also stars as the titular character — Joker the Harlequin — with Bri LeRose also co-writing. While on the outside it might look like another live-action version of the Joker (and Harley Quinn), The People's Joker is able to stand out from the rest.

The People's Joker is a parody DC movie from director/writer Vera Drew and writer Bri LeRose. Vera Drew stars as Joker the Harlequin, an aspiring clown who is navigating their gender identity while fighting Batman in Gotham City. The film originally premiered in 2022, but was delayed due to rights issues.

The film's visuals are fantastic, a combination of live-action and animation
The People's Joker's parody is top tier, surpassing others in the genre
The film is not only funny but has great characters and story
The DC references can get a bit heavy-handed

Aside from Drew as Joker the Harlequin, the cast of The People's Joker includes, Kane Distler as Mr. J, and Phil Braun as Batman. Many other actors portray various parodies of iconic DC Comics heroes and villains (especially in the world of Batman ). But these are the most memorable and present characters throughout the movie. Drew undoubtedly gives the dark comedy's standout performance as Joker the Harlequin, since she is the protagonist and has the most character development in the unique story. However, the talented cast's achievements are only one of the highlights of The People's Joker .

The People's Joker Is A Hilarious (Yet Heartbreaking) Take On DC Comics

Vera drew's superhero film is parody at its best.

One of the best (and often overlooked) corners of Hollywood is the superhero parody genre. Given the apparent superhero movie fatigue in audiences in the 2020s , satire of these movies is warmly welcomed. As a result, The People's Joker is an exciting and fresh addition to the superhero parody genre that delivers numerous laughs by poking fun at various renditions of Batman, the Joker, Penguin, and other DC Comics characters that have plagued the media for decades.

While it rarely takes itself seriously, the dark comedy seamlessly weaves heartbreaking tales (like Joker the Harlequin's turbulent relationship with her mother and the abusive and toxic romance between Joker the Harlequin and Mr. J ) throughout the movie. A viewer could be crying from laughter during one scene and tearing up due to Joker the Harlequin's harrowing journey in the next. Thankfully, The People's Joker has a (somewhat) hopeful and content ending.

[ The People's Joker ] incorporates live-action, animation, and other special effects to capitalize on the satire the story relies on, which is significantly effective.

Of course, DC isn't the only element being parodied in The People's Joker — Drew also incorporates a satirized version of the NBC sketch comedy variety series Saturday Night Live (titled UCB Live in the film). A caricature of Lorne Michaels, the famous creator of Saturday Night Live , is also featured in the dark comedy. No one and nothing is safe from the parody's criticism, and although it can't be described as "on the nose," the meaning behind the satire is difficult to miss.

The People's Joker Director Explains Legality of Unauthorized DC Movie

The visuals in the people's joker are fun & unique, the coming-of-age movie incorporates a mix of live-action and animation (and other trippy mediums).

It's hard to talk about The People's Joker without discussing the various mediums and visuals it uses throughout its 92-minute runtime. The coming-of-age movie incorporates live-action, animation, and other special effects to capitalize on the satire the story relies on, which is significantly effective. The use of different visual aids distinguishes it from other superhero parodies, but it's also just a smart way to keep us glued to the screen from beginning to end.

The People's Joker isn't perfect, and one of its faults is how heavy-handed it is with the references to Batman characters and DC Comics.

Needless to say, the entertaining story is captivating in and of itself, but the mixture of multiple mediums takes The People's Joker to another level. Some aspects of the special effects could be cleaned up and sharpened, but the roughness adds to the movie's charm, so it's futile to complain about the quality.

The People's Joker (2024)

The people's joker is a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre, the film is unlike anything anyone has done before.

The People's Joker not only separates itself from other movies in the superhero genre but also from superhero parodies. It's not comparable to The Boys , Invincible , or Kick-Ass , due to its distinguished and important story revolving around a transgender woman in Gotham. It's hilarious, heartbreaking, distinctive, significant, and just what Hollywood needs after countless DC and Marvel projects (including the upcoming Joker sequel Joker: Folie à Deux ). This superhero parody is just as good as Marvel and DC films (it may even be better than most of them).

Of course, The People's Joker isn't perfect, and one of its faults is how heavy-handed it is with the references to Batman characters and DC Comics. It's overkill at times, as if the DC lore is constantly being shoved down our throats. While the references are fun at first, they get tiring and overwhelming by the film's end. However, if the excessive mention of DC characters and storylines is the only problem with the parody, it's still a success. Ultimately, it's evident that the world needs The People's Joker .

The People's Joker premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and is playing in US theaters.

10 Harsh Realities Already Facing The DCU's New Batman

Realism won't work for new DCU Batman with fantastical heroes already in place.
Introducing an older Batman risks skipping iconic stories and character development.
New DCU Batman will face endless comparisons to past versions, making success challenging.

With the DCU set to introduce its own Batman into the new movie continuity, there are already several harsh realities about the hero's place in the franchise. Following the death of the DCEU and its entire continuity, the heroes and villains of DC Comics are set to find a new home in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe. The iconic vigilante Batman will be rebooted in Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ s story , which will adapt the comic of the same name and introduce an older Batman alongside his son, Damian Wayne.

Though anticipation for the new continuity is high, there are certain obstacles the DCU will have to clear. When it comes to a hero with as many movies as Batman , these issues become more complex, leading to a number of less-than-ideal truths about the impending reboot. With that in mind, here are 10 harsh realities already facing the DCU’s new Batman.

Every Upcoming DC Movie In 2024 And Beyond

Realism isn’t going to work in the dcu, dc's wider universe isn't compatible with popular batman ideas.

The DCU is set to officially begin with the release of James Gunn’s Superman in 2025. The film will introduce not just the titular hero but also the likes of Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and other characters from across the DC Comics pantheon. However, this will present a specific challenge to the DCU’s Batman, particularly where it pertains to realism.

Many of the most popular Batman movies have been decidedly grounded and markedly realistic in their approach. The likes of The Batman and The Dark Knight are prime examples, but realism will be all but impossible for the DCU’s Batman. His introduction following on from the likes of Superman, Green Lantern, and Hawkgirl will render any attempts at a more grounded story entirely moot, as the DC Universe will already be populated with fantastical heroes and metahumans. Simply put, the DCU’s Batman will already face a conceptual challenge long before he makes his debut.

The DCU’s Timeline Choice Is A Risk For Batman

Skipping iconic stories could be a challenge.

Another harsh reality already facing the DCU’s Batman ahead of his introduction is directly linked to the choice of story his franchise arc will begin with. Adapting The Brave and the Bold is an interesting choice, as it has not previously been attempted in live-action, but it also comes with a potential risk. Coming as the story does later in Batman’s personal hero timeline, the DCU is taking a significant gamble.

Introducing an older Batman so early in the DCU’s timeline minimizes the potential narrative development of Bruce Wayne. Should The Brave and the Bold be a traditional adaptation, the DCU’s timeline will have skipped over many iconic Batman stories , including the development of supporting characters such as Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake. Though The Brave and the Bold in live-action is an enticing prospect, it’s not without its risks.

Robin’s Cinematic Track Record Is Troubling

Robin is not a reliable movie hero.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold will reportedly feature Damian Wayne, the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul. In the comics, Damian goes on to become Robin, serving as a sidekick to the Dark Knight and making use of his training received courtesy of the League of Shadows. Though Damian Wayne has not yet been adapted into live-action, the character of Robin has, with markedly mixed results.

The harsh reality is that for the character to work, the DCU’s Robin will need to fix past mistakes of previous movies and TV shows. There are clearly many challenges with getting Robin to work within a Batman movie, and the DCU’s iteration of the character will need to walk a fine line to achieve success. Though it’s far from impossible, there will be much difficulty in bringing Robin to life on the big screen.

The DCEU’s Batman Set A Tricky Precedent

Batman's previous franchise appearance makes the dcu's task harder.

Considering the short span of time between the DCEU’s demise and the DCU’s debut, the two continuities will undoubtedly face comparisons. When it comes to Batman, the DCEU’s own Caped Crusader was initially considered controversial, with many later coming around to Ben Affleck’s portrayal of the Dark Knight. In many ways, Affleck’s Batman set a strong precedent for how the hero can work in a shared universe alongside other powerful heroes.

In a sense, the DCU can learn many lessons from Ben Affleck’s Batman and the DCEU’s approach to the hero. However, taking the time frame into consideration, it’s likely a wiser choice to distance the DCU’s iteration of Batman from that of the DCEU , despite how helpful its example might be. Though the DCEU established something of a template for success with Batman’s role in a wider universe, the DCU will largely be unable to directly borrow any ideas or concepts.

Batman Has Historically Worked Better Alone

Self-contained batman stories have worked better than shared universes.

Another harsh reality facing the DCU’s Batman is directly linked to his place within a shared universe. Considering Batman’s movie history, past attempts to establish the hero within a wider continuity have met with mixed success. In fact, many of the Batman movies considered to be the best involve a self-contained narrative within a more isolated setting , rather than those that tie him to other heroes and a wider universe.

The problem this creates for the DCU’s Batman is largely a tonal one. Establishing a story and multiple characters within Gotham City is relatively simple, but enabling those characters to also function as part of a much bigger cinematic universe complicates matters. Creating a version of Batman that functions equally well in both environments will be incredibly difficult and has never before been fully achieved in live-action.

A New Batman Will Face Endless Comparisons

Another new version of the character will be compared to other batmen.

Perhaps one of the most substantial challenges facing the DCU’s Batman is entirely unavoidable. As Batman is one of the most iconic superheroes in pop culture, there have been numerous iterations of the character across many mediums. Even examining movies and TV shows alone, several actors have played Batman in live-action , and so any new version of the hero will inevitably be compared to previous incarnations.

The challenge this presents is that the DCU’s Batman will face endless comparisons, each subject to various opinions on previous versions of the character. In essence, the DCU’s Batman will have to learn from each previous adaptation , addressing commonly perceived issues and incorporating more popular aspects to deliver a new and exciting take on the character. Considering the wealth of Batman’s movie history, this creates a considerable hurdle for the DCU’s Batman to clear to achieve success.

Many Of Batman's Best Supporting Characters Have Already Been Explored

Some of the dark knight's most interesting characters have already been used.

As one of DC’s most beloved characters, Batman’s stories feature a number of well-known elements significant to wider pop culture. One of the key aspects of Batman stories is the hero’s supporting characters, who often play an important role in his narrative arcs. The likes of Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, Catwoman, and numerous Batman villains regularly factor in to the Dark Knight’s best stories , but the DCU may find it difficult to make use of them.

Previous Batman movies have already introduced and explored many of Batman’s most important supporting characters. In fact, some, such as Alfred or Catwoman, have seen numerous incarnations over Batman’s cinematic past, and as such have already been afforded multiple opportunities on the big screen. As such, the DCU’s Batman will have to move away from these characters in order to break new ground, or potentially risk seeming as though it’s retreading previously explored narrative avenues.

There Are Already DCU Parallels To The DCEU

The dcu is already following in the dceu's footsteps.

The end of the DCEU may have made way for the beginning of the DCU, but there are already interesting parallels between the franchises . With regard to the DCEU’s movie timeline , the franchise began with Man of Steel , introducing Superman, followed by another, Batman v Superman , involving Batman. Throughout these early entries, other heroes were also introduced as supporting characters, later going on to play a role in the wider franchise.

Interestingly, the DCU’s plans strike a startling resemblance: first 2025’s Superman will introduce the Man of Steel, then Batman: The Brave and the Bold will bring in the Dark Knight. Along the way, other heroes will be introduced in supporting roles. The potential issue is that the DCEU was largely unsuccessful, and the similarities in timelines could present problems for the DCU down the line. However, by treating the DCEU as a cautionary tale and adopting a careful approach to the characters and their place in the franchise, the DCU will hopefully come off much better than its predecessor.

Batman's DC History Sets Up An Overuse Problem For The DCU

The dcu could risk overexposing batman.

When it comes to superhero movies, few characters have enjoyed the lasting popularity of Batman. Dating back multiple decades, Batman is one of the very few heroes to have enjoyed consistent success in both animation and live-action, including the lasting appeal of his comic book appearances. As one of the most recognizable figures in pop culture, Batman seems to be a safe bet for the DCU, but that in itself could pose a problem .

Batman’s long and storied movie history speaks to his widespread popularity, but it also risks overexposing the hero. Compared to others in the DC pantheon, Batman has been given far more opportunity to thrive on the big screen, even after movies derided as complete failures. The harsh reality is that Batman’s history of big-screen opportunities may begin to go against him , especially if The Brave and the Bold isn’t able to offer something new or exciting about the hero.

Gunn’s Comedic Inclination Has A Major Challenge With Batman

James gunn's own style may not fit batman's tone.

James Gunn’s role as co-head of DC Studios is interesting, but it could backfire when it comes to The Brave and the Bold . Gunn’s previous success with comic book movies came in the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad , both ensemble movies with a decided comedic angle. However, Gunn’s irreverent takes and persistent use of humor may not work with Batman.

Batman has never been a funny hero, nor have his stories ever given way to much levity. He’s one of comic books’ most serious protagonists, and James Gunn might simply be the wrong filmmaker for The Brave and Bold . An irreverent take on the Dark Knight is more likely to flop with fans, and Gunn’s comedic style is unlikely to gel with the Caped Crusader’s story. In essence, James Gunn himself might be the wrong choice for The Brave and the Bold , and could prove one of the harshest realities for the DCU’s Batman .

The Brave and the Bold

Director Andy Muschietti

Studio(s) Warner Bros. Discovery, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros.

Franchise(s) DC Universe

Key Release Dates

Superman (2025), the batman part ii.

10 Harsh Realities Already Facing The DCU's New Batman

Batman's Reboot Movie Gets Concerning Development Update from Director

After being announced by James Gunn in 2023, the upcoming Batman reboot, The Brave and The Bold , has received a concerning update.

During the DC Studios slate announcement at the end of January 2023 , co-President James Gunn announced The Brave and The Bold , a Batman tale focusing on Bruce's son Damian Wayne.

Based on Grant Morrison's comics, many fans were excited about the idea of embracing the Bat-Family in live-action. Anticipation only rose when director Andy Muschietti was attached to direct in June 2023 .

However, there have been few updates since then, and Matt Reeves' Elseworlds movie The Batman: Part II being delayed a year will make many DC fans worried about the studio's theatrical timeline.

Batman Reboot Development Update

A recent article from The Hollywood Reporter focusing on Andy and Barbara Muschietti confirmed that the filmmaking duo hasn't committed to the next movie they'll be making.

This update suggests that The Brave and the Bold may not be director Andy Muschietti's next project. This news comes as a concern to fans who are eager for the DCU's first Batman flick to ramp up its development and coming production.

Despite the initial announcement in June 2023, indicating that the project would soon take on their full attention, this movie possibly not being Muschietti's next project implies a longer timeline for its filming start date.

For clarity, The Brave and the Bold was never given a release date, but few DC Studios' films have been linked to a director. Only Superman (James Gunn) and Swamp Thing (James Mangold) have directors attached in the upcoming DC slate.

Some fans may not find this a surprise as Gunn confirmed back in November 2023 that The Brave and The Bold did not "even have a script yet."

The inverse of this is also happening at DC Studios, with Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 's script being complete and the leading actress already being cast.

Soon, Gunn and co-President Peter Safran will need to update fans on when to expect announced projects, but it's safe to say The Brave and The Bold is nowhere near releasing in theaters.

When Will The Brave and The Bold Release?

DC fans who are excited about the upcoming rebooted universe, starting with Creature Commandos and Superman , will need to exercise patience on other projects.

The Brave and The Bold is coming, reinforced by the reported Teen Titans movie, but Muschietti may not be committing it as his next movie because it's not ready.

Considering The Batman sequel won't release until October 2026, it's most likely that the next Batman reboot won't hit theaters until at least 2027.

The reasoning is that The Batman: Part II has been in development for years, with a full cast and crew in place, but was thwarted by the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

During this catch-up period, every major studio will be racing to film and distribute long-planned content, further pushing The Brave and The Bold down the conveyor belt.

The other factor that DC Studios has to navigate is developing two separate Batman films simultaneously.

While Gunn has confirmed that the DCU's Batman film can be released before the end of Matt Reeves' trilogy , audience confusion should be considered.

For the sake of not overextending the character's popularity, Warner Bros. may determine that the two films shouldn't be released anytime near each other.

The Brave and The Bold is set to be directed by Andy Muschietti with no current release date.

LATEST NEWS

Who Is Xelia Mendes-Jones? 5 Things to Know About Fallout Actor

The Story of Batman: Hush - Part One | A Mysterious New Villain

Podcast Episode

Add a plot in your language

User reviews

March 30, 2024 (United Kingdom)
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime 35 minutes