The Batman (2022)
3.5/4
Back in January, I said that Matt Reeves’ The Batman was the number-one movie for students to look out for this year. Today, I’m happy to report that Reeves delivers exactly what fans wanted and much more from this riveting film.
One of the main things that had me super excited for this was the promise of a Batman movie than leaned more heavily of the detective side of Batman. Most of the movies up to this point have never had a deep focus on this side of Batman and were more about the character’s morality, so this take was super exciting for me. It’s also predominantly more of a film noir/crime-movie take on Batman, in the vein of such movies such as David Fisher’s philosophical crime thriller Se7en or Bryan Singer’s crime epic The Usual Suspects, and, wow, Reeves makes this approach work.
I also really enjoyed Reeves’ direction in this film. I think that out of all of the Batman movies, this is the one that is more director-based than Batman-based. It’s a Matt Reeves movie first and a Batman movie second. From the mood of the film to certain shots that he used that are very comparable to some of the shots he used in the Planet of the Apes movies or the first Cloverfield film, you can tell that the producers at Warner Brothers just gave its filmmaker free reign, and the resulting style is one of the key factors that makes the movie so remarkable.
I also loved the performances in this film. Everyone brings their A game, but the standout is quite obviously Robert Pattinson. He is phenomenal as Bruce Wayne/Batman and is now one of my favourite actors to have ever put on the Batsuit. Reeves makes the great choice of having the movie be more about Bruce Wayne than Batman, which allows Pattinson more time to flush out who this character is in more depth; I can’t want to see what the future holds for that version of the character in future movies or shows.
My main problem with the film is its length. Every film has its own perfect runtime—some need to be three hours long and others need to be two. This feels like a two-and-a-half-hour movie but clocks in at two hours and 56 minutes; there are times when the movie grinds to a halt because of this. So, it’s fair to say that the length is a huge issue here, but that’s basically the only thing preventing it from being a perfect four out of four rating.
Reeves’ take on the famous Caped Crusader outruns a bloated runtime by delivering a riveting roller-coaster ride of thrills that outshines everything that came before it with ease.