Let’s Talk about The Batman

A look at the new Batman movie and some thoughts on the production.

The Signal Lights

This isn’t a review. It’s been too long. The movie has long since left theatres and arrived on HBO Max. I’m not going to tell you whether or not you should see this movie. Either you already have or you’ve already decided not to. My score doesn’t matter.

Instead, I’m going to talk about some bits of the movie that stood out to me and talk through them. I don’t know if this will matter or if you’ll agree with me. If you do or don’t I’d love to hear your thoughts. Drop them below or find me on social media and tweet at me.

While this isn’t a review I am going to talk about the movie and my opinion. This means there will be spoilers. I say this again just in case.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!

With that out of the way. Let’s jump in.

Where I Stand.

I want to give you a baseline for my opinion so we’ll all know where I’m coming from. The movie is fine. If I had to give it a score it would be between a 6 and a 6.5 depending on my mood that day. It didn’t offend me or make me hate it, but there were places that I just wasn’t sure what to think. There were a couple of places that took me out of the movie for a few moments as I tried to figure out what the decision process was. There’s also one major point where I was completely broken from the narrative for most of the rest of the movie. The last forty-five minutes are exceptional and worth at least a full point on their own.

This is again just a baseline so we all know where I’m coming from. I’ve talked to a lot of people who loved this movie far more than me and that’s awesome. Nothing makes me happier than to see people love something; even if it’s something I don’t like or hate. I am thrilled when people find joy in something. If you love this movie, that’s fantastic. I’d enjoy sitting down for a drink with you someday and we can talk about comic books and superheroes and have great couple of hours.

The Cast

I do not have a single complaint for any member of this cast. They all do a fantastic job. Zoe Kravitz is amazing as Catwoman; she plays Selina as someone who’s given up on relying on the laws of society to make things fair and has started doing it herself. Andy Serkis and Jeffery Wright bring their character to life in a unique way that is those characters but with their own spin on them.

Robert Pattinson plays an excellent Bruce and Batman as he walks that line behind being new at the job and still finding his feet while being crippled with the trauma of his youth. I have a couple of problems with the character, but those aren’t Pattinson’s fault so I’ll talk about them later.

Collin Farrell as the Penguin is fine. He doesn’t really have a lot to do here. They are clearly basing him off of the cockney thug version of the character which I’m not particularly enamored with but I understand why they did it. I’ll have to see him in further instalments to see how well they handle the character. I’m tempted to write another piece on just the Penguin as he’s my favorite villain from the comics and is so rarely done well. Gotham is actually one of my favorite versions of the character.

There’s one character left; the Riddler played by Paul Dano. I don’t want to complain about Paul, he did a good job. I have other things to say about the character so let’s just give him his own section.

The Riddler?

Paul Dano was not playing the Riddler. I know what the credits said, what they called him in the movie, and what Matt Reeves says is the character’s name. However, that wasn’t the Riddler. I don’t care about the costume, the look, the humor, or the way the character acted in any other version. Those aren’t why I don’t think Paul Dano wasn’t the Riddler.

Matt Reeves said he patterned the Riddle after the Zodiac Killer. He wanted something that fit in with the more gothic style of the film and basic detective nature of the story. The character in the movie is those things. Everything Matt Reeves described the character as is what we got in the movie. That’s the problem. He described someone else.

In the comics there is a Batman villain who is a Zodiac Killer style murderer who leaves clues for the police, they perform brutal murders to make a point, and think in long range plans. Everything Matt Reeves described in his movie exists in comics; and he’s called Calendar Man. The only difference between what Matt Reeves described and Calendar Man is that Calendar Man’s crimes all take place in and around holidays.

At this point I would have argued that they could have moved the murders to holidays and made the character fit in the movie. Except, the first murder takes place on Halloween and the final phase of his plan takes place on Election Day.

He’s Calendar Man.

I understand why they call the character the Riddler in the movie. No one has heard of Calendar Man. My parents aren’t going to be excited to go see a movie with Calendar Man. If the movie were just Batman versus Calendar Man hardly anyone would have watched it.

Here’s where that’s a problem for me. It’s not Batman versus Calendar Man. They also had the Penguin and Catwoman. They could have also used Calendar Man in this and introduced a pretty cool villain to the public.

I understand this isn’t the first time this has happened in the movies. The Danny DeVito Penguin is playing a Penguin who uses Killer Crocs backstory and personality. I just wish the directors would have more faith in audiences to let us meet these character instead of having them show up cosplaying other villains.

Batman

For the most part, Batman is fine. There are a couple of instances where he made decisions that kind of threw me a little. For example, when he follows Selina from the club to her apartment early in the film to find the missing waitress. The woman he’s looking for is at Selina’s. He has found the witness he’s been looking for. The one he believes to have a clue to the mystery he’s trying to solve.

Once she gets home Selina goes into the bedroom, changes clothes, leaves through the fire escape, gets on her motorcycle and rides away. This is fine. It’s revealed why she’s doing this in the next scene and makes perfect sense.

What doesn’t make sense is why Bruce watches her strip down to her under ware and get dressed, get on her bike and leave, and then Batman decides to go and follow the woman who is not the witness he’s been looking for. The fact that he watches her change clothes is just creepy. He follows her because she…leaving? Why? Why does he care? He doesn’t need her. He’s looking for the woman in the living room and she’s right there.

I get that this is only his second year as Batman. He’s new to the job. There are mistakes he makes in this movie because he’s inexperienced and I don’t have a problem with those. This decision is just weird.

I joke that I don’t understand why he watched her change. I know why he did it. So that we, the audience, could see Zoe Kravitz in her under ware. I’m not saying this to shame anyone, but I figure someone will point it out, so I might as well say it here.

I’ve also been told that that’s is a scene from the Year One story. I’ve never read that and it may be from there. But it still feels unnecessary and weird.

However, that’s still not my biggest disconnect with the film.

The Highway

There’s a car chase in the middle of the movie. The Batmobile, which is very nice, chases the Penguin. It’s a fun scene. The stunt drivers are all doing good work and I love a good chase scene. The engine sounds amazing by the way. So few movies get the sound of the engine right and these folks worked on this one hard. The whole crew deserves massive props on the chase scene.

My problem with the chase scene is at the very end of it. The Penguin, in an attempt to escape Batman forces a truck to collide into another truck. This causes multiple trucks to slam into one another. In the middle of all of this are several smaller cars and vans. We see a minivan get caught in the initial collision. The pile up is so massive that Batman has to angle towards a collapsing car carrier as it crumbles and use its bed as a ramp to jump of the wreck as it bursts into flames. There’s an explosion. The Batmobile comes soaring through the wreckage and lands behind the Penguins overturned car.

Batman then get out of the Batmobile with the flaming wreckage lighting him up from behind and he walks forward in silhouette. He looks amazing. It’s a wonderful cinematic shot of Batman back lit by all of these flaming cars full of people….

We saw at least five cars and rigs crash and explode. The speed they were going at, there’s no way other cars didn’t slam into that pile up from the other side. People died in this. And Batman used it for back lighting.

What makes this worse is immediately after this Batman and Gordon are interrogating the Penguin in an abandoned warehouse. Once they’ve finished questioning him they run off to catch the Riddler because…

This is going to take a minute. At this point in the movie the Riddler has killed two people, attempted to kill a third which placed an innocent person in the hospital, and is planning to kill at least one more person. That’s why they make the next decision.

…he may kill a third person and when they go, they leave the Penguin behind to go home on his own. They let him go after killing a handful of people on the interstate because the Riddler might kill a third person. They also never address it again. There’s literally a scene later in the movie when the Penguin shoots at someone while surrounded by cops and then apologizes for it and they let him go again. I get that Gotham is corrupt, but there’s a level of, “you’ve got to be kidding me,” going on here I’m just not okay with.

The Hero

I don’t want to leave this on a sour note. I don’t like to finish on a downer. Let’s talk about the best part of the movie; the final forty-five minutes. The end of the movie is Bruce finally figuring out what Batman needs to be. He needs to be a hero.

The early part of the film is Bruce punishing criminal for what happened to him as a boy. The end of the movie is him making sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. I love the end of this movie because it’s what Batman should be; the hero. He’s the scary hero for sure, but he’s still the hero. For the purposes of this ending he’s bringing hope to the people, which is technically Superman’s thing, but everybody gets one moment to be the beacon that the world needs. Even Batman.

This movie is going to get a sequel. It was a hit with critics, the crowds loved it, and people swooned over the hero. I won’t be surprised if it gets nominated for an Oscar or two next year. Matt Reeves says he wants to try his hand at Mr. Freeze. I hope that he looks at eth character when he’s at his best and follows that template. I want to see a tragic and sad Mr. Freeze pushed to desperation by his wife and the sacrifices he’s made for her. If we could that it would sure be…

What the hell.

It would be cool.

Let me know what you think in the comments. I’d love to hear what you thought about the movie or what I think about it. Who’s you favorite Batman villain, mines the Penguin in case I hadn’t said that earlier. I love him for three reasons: no one is afraid of him by design, he one of the few Batman villains who is not insane, and he’s the only one who wakes and beats Batman every single day. Let me know if you want to see my thoughts on him as well.

Until next time, stay safe and be well.