A hot mess.
This movie looks and sounds amazing, but its storytelling is somehow both overloaded and undercooked.
Who needed another Batman movie? This one being helmed by the director of the beautiful and ultimately moving War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) was at least promising. And certainly, The Batman proves that Matt Reeves‘ painterly eye is a perfect match for both cinematographer Greig Fraser‘s low-key backlighting and Zoë Kravitz‘s diamond-cutter cheekbones. The degree of abstraction in both sight and sound almost situates this superhero film in art house territory.
I want to be blown away by The Batman, but somehow all I can see are its component parts. The three-hour whole feels somehow lesser than its sum, and, aesthetically at the very least, maybe 25 years too late.
The visuals are striking. The storytelling, however… woof.
The Batman‘s hushed tone is an interesting point of difference from Nolan’s and certainly Burton’s, Schumacher’s, and Snyder’s visions before it. This iteration is neither lofty in its thematic moralising nor romanticising its action or violence. Instead, The Batman is enamoured with gestures and details. Its languidly ponderous and contemplative pace is at first disarmingly novel, yet eventually only highlights how little beyond its cinematography, art direction, and sound design it offers to ponder or contemplate.
The Batman is a tossed salad of references to films like, most obviously, David Fincher‘s Se7en (1995) and Zodiac (2007). It’s a pastiche of pastiches, which shoplifts the vibes without the intentionality, a copy of a copy too diffuse to be substantive. There’s less setup or follow-through, less thematic or narrative substance, and no cumulative statement. And while Reeves & co may have nailed the grungy aesthetics and bleak tones of those forebears (thankfully minus the mean-spirited nihilism), they’ve unfortunately also imported some of their less desirable features.
It’s arresting, if unclear as to how deliberate it is, that The Batman is willing to show its title character in (perhaps occasionally unintentionally) laughable moments. From his flying rat taking a tumble (an unpredictably arresting sequence featuring a bold Batcowl-Cam), to Mr “I am Vengeance” just kind of walking around mundanely in a weird suit, in clear and unmysterious view, a stark choice given the underlit palette of the entire city around him. Interestingly, this Batman is impulsive, messy, and maybe not that bright. The question I’m left pondering:
is the film any brighter than its protagonist?
The first-draft dialogue does’t trust the viewer to follow a narrative that is both overly simple and needlessly bloated. The Riddler (Paul Dano) is given a timely and potentially interesting character detail in being propelled by his 4chan-celebrity-status. But this is cancelled out by Batman (Robert Pattinson) and Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) solving clues with all the campy ‘logic’ of the Batman ’66 TV series, only with ASMR delivery. Loving reference, or embarrassing pseudo-intellectualism?
This may sound nitpicky, but I think it serves as a neat microcosm of how unserious The Batman is. The Riddler’s greeting cards make no sense. Each appears to be cards a store-bought card with a printed message, onto which he hand writes an additional message:
However, each card’s printed message is already dark and creepy, and already eerily specific to each scenario Riddler has concocted. So Riddler’s additional message is superfluous and subverts nothing. Were that thematic, it would be clever. But we’re given no such indication. Which means: this is a world where unsettling, unhinged greeting cards are a thing?
Zooming out, the same goes for the overall plot and structure of The Batman. The film as a whole is similarly tautological and humourless (except for when it’s unintentionally chucklesome). By the end: what was the Riddler’s plan, and how was it thwarted? How is flooding the city supposed to topple the exposed elite class – especially when the people most affected live in the poorest neighbourhoods? Did Batman really go from weirdo vigilante to a beacon of hope by… literally carrying a beacon? (That said: I very much appreciate this as The Batman‘s version of the beam-of-light-in-the-sky finale typical of superhero films.)
The soundtrack oscillates between Michael Giacchino‘s score (which may literally owe money to John Williams‘ Imperial March and Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola’s score from The Godfather), and needle-drops from Nirvana – both ends of a spectrum which pulled this viewer, at least, right out of the film. The ’90s emo-grunge vibe extends to this interpretation of Bruce Wayne, whose mopey ‘Dear Diary’ voiceover narration is matched by his long floppy black hair and grease-painted eyes, and who at one point literally whines, “You’re not my father”. It’s a surprisingly unflattering iteration, and a novel angle on the well-worn ‘grounded realism’ approach to the character. Like its emo teenager protagonist, The Batman seems to be earnest, and to show an awareness of at least its lineage, but perhaps not of itself.
And on that voiceover: i can imagine a version of this film where it’s more integral to either the action or the character-building. However, the voiceover in this version is my least favourite kind: it says nothing we don’t literally see on the screen; it misses opportunities to enhance or supplement what we’re looking at, or tell us things we couldn’t learn otherwise; and it just isn’t particularly well written. I wonder if, as with Blade Runner (1982), another of this film’s rain-soaked influences, removing the voiceover altogether might improve the film, and allow more space for the visuals, sound design, and music to fulfil the vibe quota?
Genuine question: is The Batman (2022) basically Incredibles 2 (2018)?
Oh yes and Colin Farrell doesn’t look or sound like Colin Farrell – but his Penguin also doesn’t look or sound like he belongs in the same movie with everyone else. Good thing that he got his own miniseries – and that it’s actually fantastic.
It’s not that the beauty of The Batman distracts from its story – quite the opposite: its visuals lend cohesion to a story struggling to articulate what little it has to say, and which it takes so. bloody. long to say.
The Batman‘s deleted scene, in which the Dark Knight interviews an unnamed Joker (Barry Keoghan) in Arkham Asylum, is a microcosm of the film itself. It looks dark and mysterious, and clearly references better films like The Silence of the Lambs (1991), but, like its villain, takes a long time to say nothing at all:
Further Viewing
While The Batman‘s plotting may be messy, its audiovisual storytelling is often stunningly expressive. Thomas Flight demonstrates how sound design can be used to express character perspective or an impression of reality:
“If the audience… is saying, ‘It’s beautiful!’ but they’re held at arm’s length, and they’re not drawn into it, then somewhere we have failed.” This comment from Batman’s supervising and Lead Digital Colorist, David Cole, is as painful in its irony as this conversation is otherwise educational (via Dolby):
Try It Yourself
Mark Holtze, an editor and photographer who has long championed adapting cheap vintage photography lenses to modern digital video cameras, looks at the use of Soviet lenses in The Batman:
Patrick Tomasso‘s breakdown of the look of The Batman culminates in his attempt to recreate it:
Inspired by the video above, Cameron Tavakoly walks us through his own attempt at recreating the look of The Batman:
Aside from any specific lens, one crucial technique in Gregg Fraiser’s work is dirtying the frame: