He Is the Night, Coocoo Cahchoo

As much as I am an unabashed DC ComicsOne of the two biggest comic publishing companies in the world (and, depending on what big events are going on, the number one company), DC Comics is the home of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and just about every big superhero introduced in the 1930s and 1940s. fan, enjoying their characters and their worlds much more than I ever have Marvel, I have to admit that I wasn’t thrilled by The Batman. The trailers for it didn’t really catch my attention – “oh, another grounded take on BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. after we just got a trilogy of that idea from Christopher Nolan?” – and I didn’t bother seeing it in theaters (which was as much because I was still getting over my issues with going to theaters post-COVID as anything else). Then, when I finally got to the film on home video I was… less than thrilled.

It was dark, it was dour, and it didn’t really feel like it had anything to say about the character or the world that hadn’t already been explored before in other films and media. “It’s Batman starting out, but this time he broods in his cave while listening to Nirvana.” That’s not an unfair take, if you’ve seen the movie, because, damn, Bruce Wayne (as played by Robert “Sparkly Vampire” Pattinson) broods so much in this movie. And we have already seen a lot of media tackling Batman just starting out in his career. Batman Begins was another take on that material. Hell, the cartoon series also named The Batman did it as well. We’d gotten this kind of story a lot, so it felt like we weren’t really hitting new ground.

And, again, this was a dark and dour movie. Watching it that first time it didn’t feel like I was watching a superhero film, despite it starring a dude in bat ears with a long flowing cape. Instead it was a crime drama, a bit of Se7en and a bit of Saw. The one thing missing from it, though, was any kind of fun. It felt to me like the production team, headed up by director Matt Reeves, was averse to the idea of letting Batman have any kind of fun in their film, and then everyone else around him had to be as sad, mopey, and dour as the lead character. It sucked the fun out of the film.

However, while I didn’t like the film, my podcast co-host Ghoul Mike absolutely loves it. We are, in fact, going to discuss the film soon (somewhere between episode 24 and 26 of Season 8, for anyone coming back after and reading this article down the road) and it felt like a good time to go back and watch the film again just to see if my take was right or wrong. I also got my wife to see it this time with me (she skipped it the previous time) so I could get her thoughts as well. And the thing is, while I don’t think my original assessment was entirely wrong, I also get a bit more of Matt Reeves’ vision this time around. It’s imperfect, in my book, but he does at least have something to say about the character, and that’s not nothing.

In case you haven’t seen the film before, or haven’t read my previous review, the film is about Bruce Wayne (Pattinson) still learning the ropes as Batman as he enters his second year stalking the streets as a vigilante. He has a working relationship with GCPD detective James Gordon (Jeffery Wright), and it’s Gordon that tips Batman off to the recent murder, that of Gotham City Mayor Don Mitchell Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones). Gordon brings Batman to the crime scene, while the police are actively investigating, and then he reveals a very important clue: a greeting card, addressed directly to Batman, with a message of more murders to come, along with a coded message.

The killer, who the media and police begin to call The Riddler (Paul Dano), has a series of killings planned, all to support his own mission of vengeance upon the city. While Batman works the case, and starts following the clues, it unravels an entire system of corruption for lowly beat cops all the way up to the highest offices of the city, all with a shadowy puppet master pulling the strings. Gotham is corrupt, and it needs someone to expose the rats and bring them out into the daylight. That could have been Batman… but maybe it could be the Riddler instead. Now Batman has to face villains on both sides as he tries to find a way to save the city before it all burns to the ground (or, really, washes away in a flood).

To be clear, there are things I really liked on the second viewing of the film. For starters, while I didn’t much care for Pattinson’s performance the first time around, I actually got what he was doing with his character the second time around. His performance is understated, with it feeling like most of the time Bruce is just grumpily staring into space, gritting his teeth. “You want me to stand around and talk… to people?” he seems to be saying in every interaction. But I got it more now because this is a Bruce that doesn’t know how to be a hero, who is still learning how to be this image of both a creature of the night for villains, but someone that can shine as a beacon of hope for citizens. It’s not an aspect of the persona he ever thought about, being a weird recluse that hides in his tower, going out at night to beat the shit out of people, and that’s eventually understood by his character by the end of the film.

I was probably also judging the actor harshly the first time around because, at that point, I’d only ever seen him in the Twilight films and, let’s be clear, no one was performing well in those films. But since then I’ve also watched Mickey 17, and he really impressed me as an actor there, so going back to The Batman I was more willing to evaluate his reserved, almost completely reserved performance and not compare it to his sparkly vampire role. There’s more nuance here, even if it’s clear that Bruce is mostly an empty husk right now. You can see this as a starting point for him that, likely, will be more fleshed out, more filled with life (at least when he puts on the persona of billionaire playboy) in a sequel (whenever that comes out).

I do also think the case he’s investigating, as a whole, is interesting. While I do wonder if The Riddler is the best villain to use for this kind of story, which is honestly more Batman: Hush than a normal Batman tale, I like the way that Batman has to play investigator, picking at clues, doing research, using the skills you’d expect from a hero that’s called “The World’s Greatest Detective”. It works. This is a case with enough moving parts to it that you can understand why Gordon would call in Batman, and it’s twisty enough that it keeps Batman working the whole time. It’s the kind of mystery that’s actually suited to the character.

With that said, there are parts of the film that still didn’t click for me. For starters, as much as this film is about Batman taking on the corruption of the city, most of the characters from the city, from the various corrupt cops to the mob land gangsters he interacts with, are surprisingly flat. They’re lifted by good performances, such as Colin Farrel as the Penguin, but the characters themselves remain very basic and shallow. They’re all placeholders here so Batman can go about his work. Hell, the same can be said for Gordon and even Alfred, both of whom are simply there to facilitate Batman’s actions in the film, but rarely do they feel like real characters, at least as far as the story is concerned.

And that’s surprising because this film is three hours long. That’s a full forty minutes longer than Batman Begins, and yet the film struggles to flesh out its characters at all. Batman is great, once you get into what they’re doing with him, and I liked Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle, especially since she’s one of the few characters given any real detail to her character. But most of the time the film throws faces and names at you and you can’t really get invested because the film hasn’t put in the time. Three hours and you’re still only surface level with all the major players. And then when one of these dis characters dies, you forget about them just as quickly as the movie does. It’s not great writing.

On that front, the film is also pretty bad about some of its major details. Batman finds a thumb drive at an active crime scene and he hands it to Gordon who immediately puts it into his work computer. The world's greatest detective and his best cop buddy working together, and neither of them think of even basic internet security? And there’s a time where they find Penguin at a crime scene with a dead girl’s body, Penguin shoots at Batman and Gordon, causes massive carnage on the highway as he tries to escape Batman, and once Batman brings Penguin back to Gordon so they can have a chat, the interrogate him and then just… let him go. Like, really? Shouldn’t you arrest him for anything that just happened?

So yeah, I still have issues with this film. I do think I better understand the moody, dark, unrelenting tone, a tone that turned me off the first time around. It would be nice to see the film have any fun at all, but beyond a couple of sarcastic line readings, and one very dark bit of prop humor, the film wants to be as dark and dour as its lead character. This is a movie about a guy dressing as a bat to get vengeance against the criminal underworld. While it doesn’t have to be upbeat all the time, a little fun would go a long way. But hey, maybe that comes in the sequel. Maybe…