'The Batman' A Review

 The Batman is a superhero movie, a reboot of the Batman franchise. Robert Pattinson plays the titular caped crusader with more brooding, more sensitivity, more petulance, and more overt crime-solving intelligence but with a similar rage as the Bale incarnation. Thankfully an origin story isn't played out beat-for-beat and its mostly inferred. Batman is on the trail of the Riddler(Paul Dano) who is killing a series of corrupt city officials. But the case is more complicated and wide ranging than it first appears.

Pattinson brings a unique take to the character and that's refreshing, with a landscaped clogged with superhero movies and even flicks with this particular character its nice and necessary for this to feel if not totally new at least different. Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman is great if somewhat underdeveloped, and that can be said of most of the impeccable cast- Dano, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, John Turturro and Colin Farrell as gangsters, Andy Serkis as Alfred et al- ultimately there is simply too much going on, too many characters, too much story to form a clean narrative. 

Visually dark and rich with some fun anachronistic architecture, vehicles, and costuming and an effective repeating score that's one note shy of the Imperial March from Star Wars. Although Chicago is and will always be Gotham, London is a passable substitute. The production is all very assured and transportive, no surprise coming from writer/director Matt Reeves, but what also comes as no surprise is the bloat. The movie is too long, has too many villains, and too many climaxes. For a portion of the narrative the patient pacing is reflective of the content, it is more a mystery/thriller than an action flick, and that's great. But somewhere after the two hour mark it attempts to trade up to full blown fights and explosions and it doesn't really track, leaving the final city-destroying climax to fall flat and be rendered relatively unnecessary. It seems Reeves has been pinning for the Batman for so long he didn't want to risk not getting a sequel so packed as much as he possibly could into this installment and the movie as a whole suffers.

A lot to like, a fair amount to get bored with, a stunning lack of restraint both from the screenplay and the editor. 40 minutes too long.

Currently in theaters coming soon to VOD/HBO Max.

Rent It.