Is The Batman the movie that 2022 needs?

By: Kenny Velez

The Batman is a complete bore.

Directed by Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes), Batman (Robert Pattinson) is in his second year of duty and investigates the actions of a serial killer, The Riddler (Paul Dano). 

Along with this, he has to deal with Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) and The Penguin (Colin Farrell).

I don’t think Batman had sufficient motivation to spy on Catwoman like that after they first meet. 

He sees her at a bar, then he follows her and sees her putting on the Catwoman suit in her apartment. It felt like a creepy excuse for fanservice.

This entire movie was long, boring, and overly drawn out. It should have been at least 50 minutes shorter.

The protagonist vs antagonist conflict was not as effective as the protagonist vs protagonist conflict because The Penguin and The Riddler don’t come off as real people.

They come off like cartoon characters. The Penguin in Gotham was less ridiculous than this… he looked like a real person. 

Meanwhile, the Penguin in here looks like a guy wearing a fat suit giving a stereotypical mobster performance. 

That said, this movie has a more definable antagonist than Loki and the villains did more than Blackstar did in Jupiter’s Legacy.

Gotham was portrayed as a hellhole, this dirty ass grimy city filled with crime and villainy. 90% of this movie is “dark and/or rainy all the time.”

It is unimaginative. This movie focuses way more on the detective parts of Batman more than the previous movies do.

The romance between Catwoman and Batman did not work because Batman came off as unlikable. In fact, he is not believable as Batman. 

First off he walks around in boots that leave a loud thudding sound whenever he takes a step. That is counterintuitive for stealth. 

Second, he is terrible at stealth. When he tries to go into a mob nightclub, he tries to go in through the front door, but none of the bouncers are having it. 

Then he comes back in the costume and has to fight them. He gradually gets better at stealth throughout the movie but is never great at it.

Third, he uses a squirrel suit after leaving the GCPD and the parachute from the suit gets caught on the viaduct of a train. As a result, he bounces off the ground several times until he hits a dumpster. 

It felt like he was in his first year as Batman, not his second. Batman still has a secret identity for some reason, although there are several moments in the movie where it could have been revealed.

The protagonist vs protagonist conflict between Catwoman and Batman involves their differing methods for revenge.

Catwoman wants to get revenge against Falcone by killing him, while Batman wants to bring him to justice. She wants to be laying low against the creeps in the club, while he wants her to look at them so he can get facial recognition. 

She is more street smart and socially savvy than him, while he is anti-social. 

The conflict does add something to the movie, and comes off as better than the conflict the GCPD has with Batman. Mostly, it adds contrast between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. 

The death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is skipped, which is a good thing since it’s been covered countless times before. However, the movie still focuses on their deaths and how Bruce hasn’t recovered from them.

Overall, The Batman is a bore. It is too similar to The Dark Knight trilogy to justify its own existence. 

The MCU movies and shows are better than this, with the exceptions of Captain Marvel and the MCU Spider-Man movies.