General [SPOILER WARNING], obvi.
He’s back! After Zack Snyder sucked the life out of Batman for a few years, Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson team up to bring the caped crusader back with The Batman. Though I believe in the law of diminishing returns for any character, the sure hands of everyone participating make certain that Martha won’t stop Bruce Wayne from his pursuit of justice this time.
This Batman (Pattinson) is still early on in his activities in Gotham City, aided by his trusty butler Alfred (Andy Serkis). The criminals fear him, but so does everyone else, except Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) whom he’s forged an uneasy alliance. Bruce isn’t the only one out for vengeance though: a mysterious Riddler (Paul Dano) just burst onto the scene with a high profile murder, forcing Batman to consider this new threat to his city, filled with familiar names you might recognize: Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), Oswald Cobblepot (Colin Farrell), and Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz).
The biggest addition Matt Reeves makes to the movie Batman lore is Gotham City itself. Not since Tim Burton has a director put as much thought into how his city would look and feel. Burton was working off of Gothic 1920s noir for his films; Reeves straight up pilfers the opening of The Conversation, to give us a 1970s Gotham City. Yes, there are copious shots at night especially in apparently monsoon season, but more important than the night is Reeves’s use of light and dark. Batman can appear foreboding or inspiring depending how how Reeves puts him into various versions of light and dark, necessary for the themes Reeves is trying to conjure. Gotham carries those themes too: as the city can appear hopelessly bleak one minute, to pulsatingly exciting the next, to soberingly beautiful as the sun rises. All of those feelings Gotham can conjure are magnified by Michael Giacchino’s magnificent score, insistent but unnerving, befitting the world The Batman would choose to try to save.
We’ve now seen 10 live action movies about Bruce Wayne and his quest to save Gotham City, so the material here isn’t Earth shattering. Reeves strips a lot of Batman’s aura away: I don’t think I’ve seen a Batman get beat up in his fights to common thugs like he does in this one. Pattinson has the chin to be imposing, but he gives Bruce his vulnerability, which helps make the character seem fallible, and sells the identify crisis Bruce is in. This also helps the story, which is mostly a detective cat and mouse between Batman and the Riddler, focusing on Batman’s brain instead of his brawn. Dano’s Riddler is nicely paralleled as an alternate reality for Bruce Wayne, and Dano’s a vet at playing disturbed characters that get more menacing the more they’re hurt. Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle is her own; I found Cat Woman more heroic than Batman a lot of the time, as she willing faces down bad people when Batman lays in wait. And filling out the supporting cast are a host of amazing actors, like Jeffrey Wright (as good as Gary Oldman’s James Gordon), Andy Serkis (again, the emotional lynchpin in a Reeves film), Colin Farrell (necessary levity here), and John Turturro (soothing and scary), who elevate their parts to service Reeves’s 1970s noir.
And the roller coaster is back on the upswing. Matt Reeves has proven himself 2 for 2 as the franchise revivalist. He made the Planet of the Apes franchise important and vital again, and now he’s found Batman in the depths of Justice League hell and brought him back from the brink. Let’s see if Reeves can go 3 for 3? Maybe give him the Fantastic Four? Or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Or, and here me out…Godfather 4?