Matt Reeves’ big screen blockbuster, The Batman, is one of this year’s most-anticipated releases. With an all-star cast, including Robert Pattinson as Batman, how does the new film shape up?
The Plot
Ten years after the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Dark Knight trilogy, writer-director Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig revive the tormented DC Comics character with aplomb.
They engineer a dark, brooding serial killer thriller that sows the seeds of a new trilogy, including a tantalising first glimpse of Dublin-born actor Barry Keoghan as one of the cowled crusader’s eye-catching adversaries.
The main character
Every generation has its big screen incarnation of Bruce Wayne.
In 1966, Adam West donned gloriously camp attire in a Kapow!-tastic extension of a popular TV series.
In the late 1980s, Tim Burton introduced Michael Keaton as Batman and the rictus grin of Jack Nicholson’s Joker in a marvellously menacing take on comic book mythology that earned the first newly-minted 12 certificate from British censors.
Director Joel Schumacher tarnished the legacy with the garish double whammy of Batman Returns and Batman & Robin – before Nolan resuscitated the franchise with the bombastic Batman Begins.
Reeves confidently takes up the mantle, delving into the tortured psyche of a self-destructive and almost uncontrollably violent Bruce Wayne, who exorcises personal demons with brute force on rain-lashed streets of Gotham.
The cast
Robert Pattinson strips away charm from his reclusive billionaire, exposing deep fissures in a nihilistic soul, suffocated by a squalid metropolis that is, by his grim assessment, “eating itself”.
The three-hour running time is excessive but permits other characters to breathe rancid air, including Zoe Kravitz’s spirited embodiment of Catwoman – “Got a thing about strays”, she purrs alluringly – and Paul Dano’s wickedly unhinged Riddler, who goads police with ciphers like the Zodiac Killer.
Wayne (Pattinson) is determined to honour the legacy of his murdered father, at the expense of his personal wellbeing and sanity.
He prowls city streets as masked vigilante Batman in open defiance of the rule of law upheld by police lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and fellow officers, often returning to his hi-tech lair bloodied and bruised.
“If I can’t have an effect, I don’t care what happens to me,” Bruce growls at butler Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis).
The prodigal son hopes to undermine the criminal empire of unctuous kingpin Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and his associates, including nightclub owner Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell).
A serial killer dubbed Riddler (Dano) targets high-profile city residents, beginning with a forceful intervention in the fiercely contested mayoral race between incumbent Don Mitchell Jr (Rupert Penry-Jones) and idealistic ingenue Bella Real (Jayme Lawson).
Bruce is drawn into a deadly game of brinkmanship with Riddler, aided by enigmatic burglar Selena Kyle aka Catwoman, who slinks seductively in the grey area between law and disorder.
Action satisfaction?
The Batman opens with a soaring refrain of Ave Maria as a nocturnal predator stalks unsuspecting prey, establishing a tone of grim foreboding that pervades every frame, including murky cinematography that blurs edges of the screen, focusing our attention of the eye of a storm.
Action sequences are slickly choreographed to discordant ebbs and flows of composer Michael Giacchino’s score, including scenes shot in Glasgow.
Pattinson and Kravitz spark palpable sexual chemistry despite the relentless downpours, while Farrell is virtually unrecognisable beneath cutting-edge prosthetics as a criminal underling with grand ambitions.
He’s perfectly poised for bigger and battier things in an intended second chapter that promises much and hopefully lops 30 minutes off the running time.
RATING: 8/10
