Earlier today, I watched The Batman in IMAX at my local AMC theater. Despite the nearly 3-hour running time, Matt Reeves' cinematic take on the Dark Knight is one of the best iterations of the Caped Crusader yet!
Seeing as how this story takes place about two years after Bruce Wayne first began to don the bat cowl, it's understandable that he would still be moody as a billionaire playboy and the masked vigilante bent on seeking vengeance against the criminals of Gotham City for the death of his parents. Robert Pattinson's performance as Wayne and his armored alter ego was perfect for this version of Batman.
In regards to the main villain, Riddler, this is where The Batman falls short of the best pre-DCEU (DC Extended Universe) bat flick, The Dark Knight. Whereas Heath Ledger's Joker was present at all the major attacks on Gotham in the 2008 film (the opening bank heist, the attempted attack on Harvey Dent at Wayne Tower, the attempted assassination of Gotham's mayor during Commissioner Loeb's funeral, the second attack on Dent inside that SWAT vehicle and the destruction of Gotham General Hospital), Paul Dano's Edward Nashton (the real person behind Riddler) only appeared in the third act of the film.
SPOILER ALERT: It appears that the Riddler who committed all of those murders were actually the followers of Edward Nashton...not Nashton himself. This puts The Batman's version of Riddler on par with Ghostface from the Scream movies. Different people wore the mask of this serial killer in each installment of the hit slasher franchise, as opposed to a singular person causing mayhem. This is why Ledger's Joker will remain as the best Batman movie villain for a while.
In terms of the rest of the cast, it was stellar. Andy Serkis gave an understated performance as Alfred Pennyworth, Zoë Kravitz was more sultry and badass as Selina Kyle than Anne Hathaway was in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, Colin Farrell was unrecognizable (in a good way) as Oz...aka the Penguin, John Turturro was menacingly calm and collected as mobster Carmine Falcone, and Jeffrey Wright gave a valiant portrayal of Lt. James Gordon—just like Gary Oldman did as Gordon in the Christopher Nolan movies before him.
Focusing on the music, Michael Giacchino's excellent score for The Batman was just as bombastic and moody as those of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard in The Dark Knight trilogy. In fact, I reckon that I will be ordering The Batman's orchestral score on MP3 (through Amazon) sometime this weekend!
[My laptop computer is so old (I bought it back in June of 2013) that its CD-ROM player is no longer working properly. That's why I won't buy The Batman's music score on compact disc, unfortunately.]
So once again, The Batman is an excellent addition to Warner Bros' long-running film franchise. I don't know how it will do at the box office over the long term, as I'm sure that there will be a lot of moviegoers who walk out during the film due to its epic running time, but one thing's for sure: I intend on watching The Batman at the theater again and appreciate how Matt Reeves did justice to the Caped Crusader.
Also— It may not be the Tumbler from the Nolan movies, but the new Batmobile is still pretty badass! Happy Friday.
THE BATMAN Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars. ****1/2
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