The Batman: ‘Cinematic’ but ‘sluggish’
How gloomy can a Batman film possibly get? Back in the 1960s, the caped crusader’s adventures embodied camp, underpants-over-tights silliness, but then Tim Burton showed that they could be gothic and moody, Christopher Nolan proved that they could be political and contemporary, and Zack Snyder went all-out apocalyptic. The Batman, directed and co-written by Matt Reeves, is the gloomiest of the lot. After all, it’s got an extra “the” in the title – and, as the makers of The Wolverine and Joker will tell you, if you want to prove that your superhero movie is serious, adding or subtracting a “the” is the way to go.
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This is a film in which humour is strictly forbidden. There’s so little colour that it might as well be in black and white. And in place of Neal Hefti’s singalong “Batman” jingle, the music consists of Nirvana’s Something in The Way, Schubert’s Ave Maria, and a funereal four-note riff, by composer Michael Giacchino, which is reminiscent of both Jaws and Darth Vader.
Don’t expect any levity from Batman – sorry The Batman – either. Making another of his admirably bold acting choices, Robert Pattinson appears to be even more uncomfortable, exhausted and nauseous than he was in Twilight, his eyes half-closed and his voice a murmur, as if he is slowly recovering from a weekend of food poisoning. When Batman is snooping around Gotham’s underworld with Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright, effectively playing Felix Leiter again, as he did in Daniel Craig’s Bond films), he looks as if he would rather be at home. And when he is at home as Bruce Wayne, he’s a sullen, pallid recluse who doesn’t even have a kind word for his scarred, limping butler Alfred (Andy Serkis). In his opening voiceover, Wayne says that “fear is a tool”, but there’s nothing very frightening about a crime-fighter who always seems as if he’d rather be under the duvet with a hot water bottle and a mug of cocoa.
Still, maybe that’s what life in Gotham City does to you. Aside from some dodgy districts here and there, Gotham was a thriving metropolis in Nolan’s Batman films, but here it is a dingy, desperate urban jungle, riddled with vice and corruption from its sleazy officials down to its thuggish street gangs. It’s always raining, the sky is always grey, and even indoors the lamps are too feeble to dispel the shadows.
This could be the best, most atmospheric cinematic interpretation of Gotham City so far – you can certainly see why the place is in need of Batman’s ministrations – but it’s not the most original. The obvious inspiration is David Fincher’s Se7en, another film set in an alternate reality where 100-watt bulbs haven’t been invented. Batman’s voiceover may echo Rorschach’s diary from the Watchmen comics, and there are inevitable similarities to previous Bat-films, but The Batman borrows so much from Se7en that it barely qualifies as a superhero movie. It’s more a sombre, low-key serial-killer mystery in which one of the detectives is in fancy dress for no particular reason.
The Riddler (Paul Dano) isn’t a flamboyant goofball in a bowler hat and a bright green unitard, he’s a bespectacled, raincoated sadist straight from the Saw franchise. The Penguin (Colin Farrell, unrecognisable under his prosthetic make-up) has yet to adopt his trademark monocle, top hat and umbrella, so he is more of a would-be Al Capone than a cackling supervillain. And Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), a tough, streetwise waitress with a sideline in burglary, is nothing like the purring theatrical seductresses played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway. As for the plot, I’m not sure I followed all of it, but it’s got something to do with the Riddler’s vendetta against the great and the good of Gotham, and something to do with a drug sting that happened years earlier and involved a mafia boss called Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). In other words, we’ve come a long way from the days when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze was turning Gotham City into a giant ice sculpture.
It’s safe to say that The Batman is not going to sell as many tickets as the crowd-pleasing Spider-Man: No Way Home. Most of the action is sluggish, the twists aren’t exactly shocking, and the Riddler is nowhere near as terrifying or as ingenious as Heath Ledger’s Joker was. But, in its own way, The Batman is still impressive. As grim as the Burton, Nolan and Snyder films were, Reeves and his team have fashioned their own distinctive and stylish variety of grimness, and they commit to it for three whole hours. Frankly, it’s amazing that they got away with it.
Besides, Reeves’ determinedly dour approach is strangely soothing. At a time when the standard superhero blockbuster features omnipotent aliens threatening the Earth, the Universe, and even the multiverse with obliteration, it’s a relief to immerse yourself in a noirish pulp fantasy that’s closer in scale and tone to an episode of a prestigious TV cop show. This is very much a low-stakes Batman tale, with no significant danger posed to Gotham City, let alone the rest of the world. All our hero has to do is solve some simple puzzles and beat up some muggers and nightclub bouncers, and so, despite the ominous atmosphere, you never have to worry that he might fail. You can just relax and let him get on with it.
The film does have a few glimmers of fun in the murk, too. Kravitz’s spiky Catwoman and Farrell’s boisterous Penguin are both lively enough to counterbalance Batman’s melancholy; it’s a shame they don’t have more to do. There are some clever nods to the character’s history, and the dialogue has some pithy lines about class privilege and the differences between a vigilante and a hero. The story also ends on a touchingly optimistic note, which is unusual for a Batman film. Who knows, maybe the next one won’t be quite as gloomy. Pattinson might even crack a smile. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
★★★☆☆
The Batman is released in cinemas on 4 March internationally
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