I… didn’t like it. I wanted to. Really, I did. I mainly avoid trailers, but the quick snippets that I saw made it look very cool, so I was looking forward to seeing it. But, ultimately, the movie just didn’t connect for me.
I think the major problem is: this wasn’t a Batman movie. Not really. Sure, it was about a guy who dresses like a bat and calls himself Batman. But that doesn’t make you Batman. You could easily swap out the Batman in this movie for The Shadow, or Crimson Avenger, or any other insert-mystery-man-here and you’d ultimately have roughly the same movie. Batman and Catwoman are culturally iconic characters, but Pattinson and Kravitz felt like they were playing at those characters, rather than playing those characters. Like they were putting on Halloween store costumes, and not particularly well-made ones at that. When Battinson strode out of the shadows on the train platform at the beginning, I nearly laughed, just like the thugs did. I don’t know if that’s the reaction that the filmmakers were going for, but I doubt it. Making a stripped-down, pared-back comic book movie seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice it ultimately came off as generic. The movie simply wasn’t “Batman-y” enough. The Batcave was replaced with a boring basement, the Batmobile became just a muscle car with little-to-no “Battiness” to it that I could discern. The movie needed to lean way more into the Batman iconography. Batman needs to be larger-than-life. You need that over-the-top iconography. Otherwise, what’s the point? Then he’s just a guy who happens to wear bat ears on his cowl instead of… not wearing bat ears, I guess.
For that matter, why was Batman Batman? I mean, I know why he’s Batman, you know why he’s Batman, but I’m not sure the movie knows why he’s Batman. I’m not saying that you need to rehash the origin again, but there needed to be some explanation as to why he was dressing like a bat, and why he was acting as a vigilante. Otherwise, his behavior comes off as a little silly. One line of dialogue would have sufficed. And why does Gordon trust him, seemingly implicitly? Again, no explanations given. We needed some kind of background to their relationship. Without this information, it feels like several important steps are skipped, like we’re watching a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist. I do not expect such explanations in every comic that I read, of course, but movies are a different animal. In a movie, filmmakers need to give the audience an emotional hook and a reason for why the main characters are acting the way that they are. And it was especially needed in this movie, since it is establishing a new Batman universe, and a new interpretation of the characters. I think the movie could have gotten away with minimal explanation if it was presenting a mature, fully-formed, experienced Batman who just simply IS, but this was two-years-in, still-growing-and-changing Batman. There needed to be a reason to care about that growth and change. I didn’t get that here.
Paul Dano’s performance as the Riddler really didn’t work for me. Actually, he was fine for the first two-thirds of the movie, when he was still hooded, but everything that came afterwards was way, WAY over-the-top scenery chewing. Especially during the Arkham interrogation scene. When he started going “Broooooooooce Waaaaaayyyyyyyyne” and freaking out, and Bats was pounding on the glass, I was just rolling my eyes and the movie really lost me at that point. There are two interpretations of the Riddler that I find acceptable: flamboyant, maniacal goof (a la Gorshin or Carrey) or “I’m-smarter-than-you”, smug bastard with a superiority complex (a la Glover or Wingert). The Riddler may be crazy, but he’s not a looney toon, as he was depicted here. Just… not the right choice. And why-oh-why did they make the unmasked Riddler look like Cousin Oliver? Another strange choice.
Colin Farrell is about the only person who seemed to understand that he was in a comic book movie. I liked his performance, but as someone said up above, why so much makeup? And with all that makeup, none of it made him look or feel especially “Penguin-y”. He didn’t have a particularly large nose or anything. He was just kinda scarred up a bit. And he didn’t squawk or have an obsession with birds. So why was he called “Penguin”? No explanation given. The character felt like something more out of Dick Tracy than Batman.
I’ve seen a lot of praise for the cinematography and score, but neither clicked for me. I don’t know if if was that it was shot on digital, or at a higher frame rate, or if it was the Dolby processes or what, but something about the way it was shot made it feel a bit cheap. What was being shot was spectacular and grandiose, but the way that it was shot didn’t match the images that were being put on screen. The movie demanded to be shot on film, at 24 FPS, to give it that weighty “movie” feel. As for the score… whatever happened to movie scores having themes? Elfman’s theme is legendary, Zimmer’s and Howard’s scores are at least memorable, but Giacchino’s work here was plodding, monotonous and forgettable. It felt more like sound design than score.
OK, enough complaining. Some things that I did like: Jeffrey Wright gave the best performance in the movie. He had great chemistry with Pattinson. Frankly, I would have rather seen them in a buddy cop movie than this. Despite what I said above, Pattinson and Kravitz both gave good performances. Neither were bad by any stretch of the imagination. It just didn’t feel like they were playing Batman and Catwoman. And, mostly, the best part of the movie: I think that this is my favorite live-action Gotham. Jay_Kay said it better than I could above:
Random thoughts:
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The car chase was cool, but ultimately pointless. And all I could think during the scene was “how many innocent people did these jerks just kill with their selfish car chase?”.
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Catwoman’s line about “white, privileged a*******” was unnecessary, and just makes her come off as bigoted. It was a discordant note in an otherwise tonally-consistent movie. And it instantly dates the film to the early 2020s, whereas other Batman films are essentially timeless (as they should be).
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I had trouble following what Carmine Falcone’s plan was. I mean, I’m normally confuzzled by noir twistiness, but I found this to be especially confusing. There was a lot of information being thrown at the audience and I’m not sure that I caught all of it, or that all (or any) of it mattered in the end. “Mob guy bad” would have been sufficient.
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And with apologies to my esteemed colleague Vroom, it bothered me that they pronounced Falcone “Fal-cone”. Like “traffic cone” or “ice cream cone”. Blech. The proper Italian pronunciation, you need that extra syllable at the end. Otherwise, it just sounds silly.