We are exactly a week away from Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” being released in theatres. The review embargo lifts on Monday, ditto social media comments. You will have some critics hailing this one as an ambitious tackling of the caped crusader, and that it is. And yet, you can still feel the 3-hour runtime, not to mention the sharply polished visual storytelling. Pattinson is rather excellent though.
Reeves is a filmmaker I’ve admired ever since 2008’s “Cloverfield.” His Planet of the Apes trilogy was also incredibly well-crafted. However, does a Batman movie really need this much CGI? The overusage of effects here is rather numbing and distracts from the grounded reality a Batman movie is supposed to exude in its atmosphere.
Uproxx’s Mike Ryan loved the film and has this to say about Reeves’s “The Batman”:
“[It] both somehow feels old and new at the same time. The whole concept of a superhero just trying to solve a mystery within the confines of his own story feels so old now that it does play as a new and refreshing concept. The Bruce Wayne we meet here (played by Robert Pattinson, who is great) is a younger Batman than we are used to. (Technically, yes, Christian Bale was younger when he played Batman, but this Bruce is portrayed as younger.)
“We don’t see Pattinson’s Bruce train to become Batman, he’s just Batman when the movie starts and Batman is without a doubt the main character. (In two of the three Nolan Batman movies, Batman is not in large chunks of those. That is not the case in The Batman.) The Riddler (Paul Dano, dressed like the Zodiac) is killing city officials, leaving clues along the way for Batman to solve. The Riddler is nuts, but he also may be trying to expose something bigger. Watching The Batman is more like watching Se7en or LA Confidential than it is like watching, say, an Avengers movie.”
“Look, I love Marvel movies. I loved the new Spider-Man. But what really hit me during this movie was I wasn’t sitting there wondering what mystery character might show up. I was riveted by the story. It’s a mystery and he’s got to figure it out. I kept thinking about movies like Se7en and LA Confidential while watching it.”
Ryan isn’t wrong. Except the aforementioned story/plot is highly convoluted. Yes, Reeves probably delivers the most “faithful” Batman adaptation to date, a pitch-black pop culture artifact enhanced by DP Greig Fraser’s artificially ultra-slick lens. However, unlike the Nolan trilogy, this one feels less grounded in reality and more like a comic book splattered on-screen.
“Hope,” Na’s first film in ten years — his last one being the exemplary “The Wailing” —is a gloriously messy, blood-soaked sci-fi epic that may become a cult classic despite—or because of—its polarizing nature.