THE BATMAN (2022) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

THE BATMAN (2022) movie

Genre              |  Action Crime

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   176 minutes

Released         |   3 March 2022

cast

Robert Pattinson ... Bruce Wayne / Batman
Zoë Kravitz ... Selina Kyle / Catwoman
Jeffrey Wright ... James Gordon
Paul Dano ... Edward Nashton / The Riddler
Colin Farrell ... Oswald Cobblepot / The Penguin
Andy Serkis ... Alfred Pennyworth
John Turturro ... Carmine Falcone
Peter Sarsgaard ... District Attorney Gil Colson
Rupert Penry-Jones ... Mayor Don Mitchell Jr
​Alex Ferns ... Commissioner Pete Savage

director

​Matt Reeves

writer

Matt Reeves ... (written by) &
Peter Craig ... (written by)
 
Bob Kane ... (Batman created by)
Bill Finger ... (Batman created by)

cinematographer

​Greig Fraser ... director of photography

music

Michael Giacchino

film editor

William Hoy
Tyler Nelson

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box office result

Worldwide               $500 million

Australia                 $40 million

North America        $300 million

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movie minutiae

​Robert Pattinson's screentest (before he was officially cast) took place while he was in rehearsals for shooting Tenet (2020) in Los Angeles in May 2019. Pattinson had to lie to Christopher Nolan about it, but Nolan, who was no stranger to Batman and Warner Bros., immediately figured it out. Pattinson: "It's funny because Chris (Nolan) is so secretive about everything to do with his movies. And then I had to be really secretive about Batman stuff. So I had to lie to Chris about having to go for a screen test. I said I had a family emergency. And as soon as I said it's a family emergency, he said: 'You're doing the Batman audition, aren't you?'" Pattinson was told that he won the role of Batman a day before principal photography for Tenet began and was surprised that Nolan cogratulated him, although Pattinson hadn't told anybody about it yet.

​Matt Reeves cites the Batman comics "Batman: Ego", "Batman: Year One" and "Batman: The Long Halloween" as influences on the film.

​Pattinson's Bruce Wayne is inspired by Kurt Cobain. Writer/director Matt Reeves was listening to Nirvana when he wrote the first act: "That's when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we've seen before, there's another version who had gone through a great tragedy and became a recluse. Kurt Cobain had a relationship with fame, where being famous was not his goal. He loved music, but the idea of being famous for music was a double edged sword for him. And that made me think of Rob Pattinson, actually. Because Rob is a very private person himself and doesn't necessary like the part of being recognized everywhere as an actor."

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RELATED MOVIES

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

THE BATMAN (2022) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE BATMAN (2022) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Batman ventures into Gotham City's underworld when a sadistic killer leaves behind a trail of cryptic clues. As the evidence begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator's plans become clear, he must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued the metropolis.

THE BATMAN (2022) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 1 March 2022

Pop ​Movee Rating

THE BATMAN represents a return to the DC Comic Book character’s origins, depicting Bruce Wayne/Batman more as a vigilante Detective, determined to uncover a series of sadistic murders committed by “Riddler”, a likewise masked vigilante determined to shine a light on Gotham City’s privileged, criminal overlords.

THE BATMAN is a gamble that ultimately pays off.

Christopher Nolan’s DARK KNIGHT trilogy of films concluded a decade ago but their contribution to Batman’s cinematic legacy looms large.

The Zack Snyder Batman entries weren’t singularly focussed on the character, distracted by Warner Bros’ attempt to match Marvel Studios in building an interconnected universe of characters. Ben Affleck was solid as Bruce Wayne/Batman but he wasn’t required to carry the films he appeared in nearly as much as what Christian Bale had to in his three movies. 

THE BATMAN tasks Robert Pattinson with as much (if not more) than what Bale had to, as Writer & Director Matt Reeves opts to bring Batman out of the shadows and into the public realm, actively working the Riddler case with Gotham City Police Detective Jim Gordon, played by Jeffrey Wright.

Reeves, with co-writer Peter Craig, inverts the typical Bruce Wayne/Batman dynamic, allowing Pattinson to play Bruce as an introverted, damaged young man. Unlike the somewhat obnoxious version of Bruce played by Bale or the facilitator of heroes that was Affleck’s version, THE BATMAN version of Bruce feels like a genuinely challenged individual, struggling to make sense of what is happening around him.

His answer is to become “Vengeance”.

Vengeance, however, is not working. As THE BATMAN opens on Halloween night, Paul Dano’s Riddler murders Gotham City’s Mayor as part of the first stage of his plan to bring down Gotham’s corrupt elite.

This is where THE BATMAN offers a much different take compared to the Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan  and Zack Snyder films. It is The Riddler who has the masterplan that will bring real change to the decadent and decaying Gotham City. Batman, while critical to uncovering the plan, is as much a victim as he is a protagonist.

It’s only upon encountering Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle that Batman starts to make real progress in his investigation.

Like Michelle Pfiffer and Anne Hathaway before her, Zoe Kravitz makes a lasting impression as Selina Kyle/Catwoman. She delivers a healthy dose of sexual tension with Pattinson and absolutely nails the physicality of the role. The film’s 176 minute running time also allows Reeves to give Selina a fully developed backstory; something that neither the Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan films featuring the character did.

The film’s long running time also allows Reeves to explore Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Andy Serkis’s Alfred Pennyworth in a deeper than expected way. Bruce is much younger in THE BATMAN than the Burton, Nolan and Snyder films and he is far less resolved as a person, still suffering the effects of his parents murder. His relationship with Alfred is also far less resolved. He reacts to Alfred more like a rebellious teenager acting out against someone who is trying to model what is right. In response, Bruce makes the point that Alfred is not his father. The relationship is challenged even further when Bruce learns that Alfred has chosen to keep family secrets from him.

The only character not touched by Gotham’s corruption is Jeffrey Wright’s Detective Jim Gordon.

THE BATMAN is set well before Gordon’s rise to become the Commissioner, so his authority within the Gotham City Police Department is not nearly as well established. Gordon believes that it is better to have the masked vigilante in the Bat costume inside the tent than outside, so he actively involves him in the Mayor’s murder investigation after the Police discover that Riddler has left a message for “The Batman”.

Wright and Pattinson work well together and it soon becomes obvious that Reeves has used David Fincher’s SE7EN (1995), starring Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman, as one of his inspirations for THE BATMAN. The relationship between Gordon and The Batman echoes that of Freeman’s Somerset and Pitt’s Mills.

The sadistic nature of The Riddler’s murders also has more than a passing resemblance, although not quite as horrific, to those committed by Kevin Spacey’s John Doe character. There are moments throughout the first half of the film where it almost seems that Reeves plans to jettison anything bearing any connection to a comic book inspired film and go all-out for a hard, crime drama.

The appearance of the “Batmobile” punctuates the story’s darkness and provides the story with a thrilling action sequence that places THE BATMAN back in far more familiar comic book action territory, opening the way for Reeves to reveal the extent of The Riddler’s plan.
Throughout the film, the story’s darkness is matched and accentuated by Michael Giacchino’s score. Giacchino, alongside Hans Zimmer, has become the preeminent film composer of contemporary western cinema. Despite some truly memorable soundtracks to date, including his Academy Award winning UP (2010), THE BATMAN sees Giacchino take the story’s darkness and provide an incredibly menacing score that is simultaneously unique but familiar, blending some of Danny Elfman’s Tim Burton BATMAN music into his own.

Australian Cinematographer Greig Fraser also delivers some of his best work yet. The DUNE (2021) DP follows up his stellar photography on that film with something that could not be any more different. Denis Villeneuve’s epic space saga was shot to accentuate the vastness and harshness of the desert planet Arrakis but THE BATMAN is set mostly at night with low lighting and almost non-stop rain. It’s dark and claustrophobic. Fraser’s photography helps to deliver THE BATMAN’s version of Gotham as a city that is  on its knees, one step away from being metaphorically consumed by its own excess.

It’s difficult not to draw comparisons with previous Batman films.

Since 1989, the character has appeared in eleven live-action feature films (if SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) & the Zack Snyder version of JUSTICE LEAGUE (2021) are included).

Up until THE BATMAN, Tim Burton’s BATMAN RETURNS (1992) has been the darkest take on the character. The 1992 film and Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012) are the two Batman films that have similar DNA to this new film.

THE BATMAN successfully reinvents the movie franchise, with only Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) being better.

Robert Pattinson turns in a great understated performance, helping this new film to clearly establish itself as being very different to anything audiences have seen before. Matt Reeves pays enough attention to Batman’s history & mythology in order to satisfy fans, but he has also delivered a serious film that explores how a man whose world has been broken for so long can finally start to find a way home.

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THE BATMAN MOVIE (2022) USEFUL LINKS

​​The Batman (film) - Wikipedia
​The Batman (2022) - IMDb
​The Batman - Rotten Tomatoes

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