‘The Batman’ Returns the Dark Knight to the Screen With Furious Grit 

Alci Rengifo

Decades pass and Batman continues to loom as a dark shadow over popular culture. Like any myth, it becomes essential to reinvent this story over and over again. On a practical level it’s because the dark knight nearly always guarantees big box office, but Batman speaks to us on a deeper level in any era he returns to. “The Batman” is not only the latest title in the caped crusader’s long film franchise, it is also a fitting reinvention for today’s moods. Director Matt Reeves borrows many familiar elements from this saga we have seen time and time again, but filters them through a grungy, rain-soaked vision that has more in common with noir or German Expressionism. It’s not just a “comic book” movie. Reeves wants to frame a world decayed by everything being corrupt.

Once again we return to Gotham City, that gothic metropolis where Batman (Robert Pattinson), aka billionaire Bruce Wayne, spends his nights roaming the alleys and rooftops in search of criminals to unleash his vigilante brand of justice upon. It’s a place consumed by ossified systems as class conflict grows, the cops are all bought out by the mob and there’s a glimmer of hope in mayoral candidate Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson). When the outgoing mayor is brutally murdered, Batman and his only ally, Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), become alert to the emergence of a new threat, a psychopath calling himself The Riddler (Paul Dano). Riddler is explicitly targeting key figures of Gotham’s political class and leaves behind puzzle clues addressed directly to Batman. When venturing into the underworld to connect clues, Batman meets Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), who seeks answers to the disappearance of a friend. As they maneuver around dangerous figures like Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin (Colin Farrell), Batman and Selina grow close through their shared rage at an unjust city.

What makes “The Batman” initially absorbing as a cinematic experience is how it is not consciously a “Batman movie” even as it updates the familiar story touches. Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig don’t bother with a whole new origin movie explaining how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman because anyone walking into the theater already knows the narrative by heart.  Immediate emphasis is placed on pulling us in through pure visual textures that are riveting. Reeves’s Gotham is inspired by classic comic sources like Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” but it’s also a place out of noir and Fritz Lang, where towering buildings are drenched in cascading rain and shadow. It is believable enough as a gritty, misty place where desperate citizens paint rebellious graffiti on bank columns and thugs with painted faces harass commuters, until Batman emerges from some corner of the subway tunnel. Gangsters like The Penguin and Carmine Falconi (John Turturro) lounge around in pulsating neon nightclubs or smoky, elegant rooms that still feel poisonous. The architecture captures the mental state of the society. There is a fierce lushness to the cinematography by Greig Fraser, who first worked with Reeves on “Let Me In,” a wonderful 2010 vampire movie set in Los Alamos, inspired by a Swedish original. The music score by Michael Giacchino is grand and pounding, yet has moments fitting for a true crime thriller.

As a director Reeves has always been known for his combination of dynamic images with strong characters as in the found footage monster movie “Cloverfield,” and in the impressive “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.” With “The Batman” he reinvents familiar personas as people affected by their environment. Robert Pattinson, who has been in good small films since “Twilight” made him a big star, turns Bruce Wayne into a grungy, unstable mind. Reeves uses Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” almost as Wayne’s theme song, to evoke a man left so broken by his parents’ murder when he was child, that he has no social relations except butler Alfred (Andy Serkis), presented here more as a scar-faced henchman. Here Wayne is a recluse who could care less about meeting with the accountants, and never do we see him do the usual Batman double life where by day he cavorts with supermodels. Even more than the previous movies, this one understands that to process a trauma by dressing up in a rubber bat suit and jumping off buildings, you have to be insane. Throughout the movie Batman narrates his inner thoughts with the kind of hard-boiled language of Rorschach in Alan Moore’s “Watchmen,” like a witness to a world going insane. As Batman, our hero still refuses to use guns, but he can quickly lose his temper and pound someone’s face like a mad animal.

Fans used to the typical grandiosity of a Batman movie will find that “The Batman” reaches great visual heights while attempting to be a serious detective thriller. The Batmobile this time around is more of a muscle car than a big flashy “I am a superhero” ride. The film can feel bloated at 2 hours and 55 minutes, although it’s never boring, just overly packed with layers of plot. Like a noir paperback, Reeves gives the mystery various angles. The madman Riddler has a vendetta against society. Selina needs to uncover the fate of her friend. Mob bosses hold the keys to many questions. Gordon doesn’t know who to trust because the police are all corrupt. All this before The Riddler reveals the big, apocalyptic climax every super villain needs to hide. Despite the bloated script, it works because Reeves puts thought into it all and the performances are entertaining on their own. Colin Farrell undergoes a stunning transformation as The Penguin, to the point where it’s easy to forget it’s even him underneath the makeup. He’s like a debauched Al Capone out of some dystopian future. Paul Dano’s Riddler borrows some of the mania of Heath Ledger’s immortal Joker from “The Dark Knight Rises,” but turns the villain into his own take on a demented outsider. He can be tragically funny when raging at Gotham from behind a camera, or torturing some poor hostage with a bomb strapped around their neck while firing word puzzles. Batman movies, like any superhero title, can’t help but comment on the times. Reeves eventually turns Riddler into a movie shadow of the kind of enraged, internet-based fanaticism being hotly discussed today. His plot turns into something out of an incel fantasy or Proud Boys daydream. Jeffrey Wright is a perfect Gordon, so honest he almost looks entrapped by working in a crooked system. On the flip side, Zoë Kravitz ends the stereotype of Catwoman as a sexual temptation for Batman. She’s not only his equal here but also more willing to take radical measures to bust heads and take names. There are shades of romance, written this time as a tense, subtle attraction between people living on the edge. 

There is of course plenty of action in “The Batman.” Reeves adapts some of his trademark shots for riveting sequences, like a scorching car chase involving Batman and Penguin that ends with the dark knight emerging from a fiery wreck in iconic fashion. It’s one of the best uses of Reeves’ signature of filming crashes from within the backseat of a moving vehicle. For the last few minutes of the movie Reeves is required by franchise demands to unleash real havoc and he does so with a threat to Gotham both apocalyptic but also very realistic. Batman has undergone many cinematic makeovers since the Tim Burton films of the ‘90s, not counting previous efforts in the ‘60s. The best probably remain the first two Nolan movies from the 2000s. Let us not dwell on the ill-fated Ben Affleck era. Now here comes Reeves with something gritty and fresh. It has the kind of flaws you can almost admire because the filmmakers were reaching for that rare combo of artistry and pop commercialism. It’s not every year that we get a superhero movie that references Raymond Chandler, grunge and David Fincher at the same time. You could say every era gets the Batman it deserves. Reeves has made an absorbing entertainment where its rainy streets and perturbed faces speak to our intensely uncertain days.

“The Batman” releases March 4 in theaters nationwide.