Nearing the eve of the mayoral election, Gotham City’s politics are upended when incumbent candidate Don Mitchell Jr (Rupert Penry-Jones) is found dead in his home. He will be the first victim in a string of serial murders of many of Gotham’s public figures by the mysterious Riddler (Paul Dano). Each inventive and gruesome scene has a message left “for the Batman” (Robert Pattinson) drawing the caped vigilante into the center of this violent crime spree and jeopardizing his already troubled reputation in the eyes of the citizens. 

Matt Reeves directs the latest iteration of the eighty-year-old comic character with a script co-written by Peter Craig. Without question, Batman is one of the most iconic heroes we have so Reeves and his team had a lot to figure out given the character’s beloved status as well as his storied history on the screen. The Batman, thankfully given its one-hundred-seventy-five-minute runtime, does not return to the well the previous films had pulled from and instead shows a Batman that is still unsure of his own identity, a Batman who is still in between mourning the death of his parents and enacting his vengeance on the scum of the city. Pattinson, continuing his return to blockbuster filmmaking, delivers a very simmering performance as Batman, and in a bold choice by Reeves and Craig, we see very little Bruce Wayne in this film. 

The production design in The Batman, led by James Chinlund, is uniformly wet, dark, and seedy. While modern DC films released under the Warner Brothers umbrella are often ridiculed for their darker turn when compared to the popping colors of the Marvel films, color simply does not belong in this version of Gotham. The story is reminiscent of the crime noirs of old as it finds Batman more of a gumshoe instead of a tech-riddled crime fighter. At its heart, The Batman is a detective story that makes it widely accessible to audiences that are not shaken by the run time. Thankfully, the mystery moves along, and the pacing is well done so that there is very little downtime in the narrative to feel bored or overwhelmed by the length. 

In the lead of the film is Pattinson, an actor who made a splash in the Twilight series and wasted no time upon its conclusion to redefine his image by taking a number of confounding and complicated roles led by some of today’s best auteurs. This role seems to be a coming together of both sides of his career in that it has the money of a big-budget blockbuster behind it, but it focuses on the more complex emotions that come with being a beacon of hope for a troubled community. His version of Batman is incredibly brooding, and while we are spared yet another trotting out of his origin story, Reeves helps to redefine and recontextualize the lasting impact of that fateful night for both young Bruce, and Gotham City. Even though the film almost totally ignores the dual identity of Batman and Bruce Wayne, the film still focuses almost entirely on the human aspect of the character. 

Working in tandem with Batman is Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). As one of the few more public supporters of this new form of vengeance that helps keep order in the city, Gordon is quickly losing allies as suspicions grow that Batman may be involved with the crime spree. Wright brings his typical warm and welcoming energy to the screen and it is impossible not to fall under his kind spell given how rotten the rest of the police department and other public servants reveal themselves to be. Wright remains the voice of reason throughout the film, despite all odds, but he has resolve behind his words and his actions so that he is never seen as a punching bag despite his dedication to Batman. Perhaps even more so than Batman, Gordon here is the hero of Gotham because he is that voice of reason and of justice – not vengeance – and Wright plays that quality so well and so pure throughout. 

Working against the pair is Riddler, a seemingly deranged man who is working to enact his own idea of justice. It makes for a compelling antagonist because, in his mind, he is a hero in his own right. The elaborate crimes and cryptic taunting are reminiscent of David Fincher’s Se7en (1995) and given the detective nature of the film, it works very well. Dano brings some strange and manic energy to the film, but the performance is tempered enough, and the script is eerily realistic – almost too much at times – that despite the names and the costumes, everything feels grounded in reality. Another actor with a very unique trajectory, Dano’s performance gets off to a rocky start but grows in stature. He becomes a truly menacing presence and orchestrates grand destruction across the city that he views has wronged him. He never crosses into the realm of anti-hero – if anything that title applies more to Batman in this film – but his actions are justified as he seeks to bring the corruption that courses through the streets of Gotham to light by taking out the political heads who are paid to turn a blind eye. In that sense, it takes all the exciting elements of a political thriller and uses them to its advantage to create an uncomfortably timely film in how it handles that widespread corruption and political climate we currently live in. 

Our doorway into that seedy underbelly comes in the form of Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) who is searching for her friend, Annika (Hana Hrzic), who has gone missing at the hands of the mob. She is our second entry point into the criminal underworld as she works as a waitress at the Iceberg Lounge where all the top criminals and politicians hang out. Kravitz has an almost impossible role given her involvement in the plot, her work as Catwoman, and strange romantic interest for Batman. Even Reeves seems a little unsure of how to handle the multiple facets of her character, but Kravitz takes it all in stride, and as such Selina is a highly effective accomplice for Batman. Other than her long, pointed fingernails and drinking a glass of milk, she does not have much to do as Catwoman so when she does fill that role it seems a little off compared to the rest of the film. Further, she does lean in a little more to the comic book elements than the other characters, even with their own moments of camp considered. The espionage elements, though, are where Kravitz excels and thankfully there is plenty of that. She is a bit of a loose cannon was her own allegiances are totally disinterested and disenfranchised by the powers that be at Gotham, so she is able to bring an element of surprise to how the story unfolds because as Batman and Gordon inch closer to uncovering the motivations of Riddler through Selina’s work, she inches ever closer to solving the kidnapping of her friend and that relationship is her key motivation.  

While The Batman does remain grounded, there are still many of the exciting elements that come with action and comic book films. In this, the first major set-piece is the car chase through the streets of Gotham and the unveiling of the newest version of the Batmobile. To say it is exhilarating is an understatement as Batman chases Oz (Colin Farrell) through the alleys and bridges leaving behind a fiery trail of destruction. In the finale of the chase, Reeves continues his creative camera placement that puts us in the midst of the action as Michael Giacchino’s score picks up and the theme begins to swell louder and louder until it is rumbling inside of us giving us the same feeling of simmering rage that is quickly coming to a head inside of Batman.  

One of the most perversely admirable things about The Batman is that the scope of the damage to the city in the film is massive and this car chase is just the tip of the iceberg. It adds to the complexity of Batman’s morality – he is seeking to save the city but at what cost. Reeves is building to a catastrophic finale for the film and while it is a terror plot hatched and executed by Riddler, we cannot help but agree with his taunts that maybe Batman is not as smart as he was being made out to be in his failure to prevent the mass tragedy. The clues were all there and there is added guilt on to Batman’s conscience that he was too late to stop it. In Pattinson’s portrayal, there is an eruption of rage – or rather vengeance – and it becomes very clear that this version of Batman is a deeply flawed and conflicted individual. While he still holds true to his self-given oath of not using guns and not to kill, Batman, as presented here, walks the very thin moral line and it is that complexity of character and philosophy that makes The Batman such a captivating story of a man who is trying to good but maybe not always going about it in the best way. 

The Batman is a truly inspired vision of what a superhero movie can be. While Marvel has been incredibly successful for creating an extended narrative across multiple sub-franchisees, they have found themselves beholden to their greater narrative and not always able to fully explore or lean into the auxiliary genre elements of the stories. The Marvel formula does not allow for James Mangold’s Logan (2017), Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019), or Reeves’ The Batman. Being able to stand by itself and embrace the detective roots of its character, The Batman does not need to sacrifice the soul of its narrative to fit into a larger arc. While it does tease at further installments, by and large, The Batman is more focused on telling its own story and is not tethered down by overwhelming studio involvement. What results is a truly complex and complicated film that, even though the main character is almost only ever seen wearing a cape and bat ears, is an incredibly dark mystery and a singular vision from a creative team locked into an engaging story that runs parallel to aspects of our own unfortunate current events.