“Vengeance won’t change the past, mine or anyone else’s. I have to become more. People need hope.”

While I know it isn’t true, I like to imagine there’s one guy in Warner Bros who was put in charge of the Batman films in 1989 despite knowing nothing about comics in general or Batman in particular and who spends every day banging his head against a desk and screaming “what the FUCK do you people even WANT?!”

Because to a casual observer, there really is no rhyme or reason to which Batman movies succeed and which fail. Why was Batman Forever a massive hit and Batman and Robin a franchise-killer? Why did audiences love Batman and largely steer clear of Batman Returns? Why is a grim and gritty Batman great with Christopher Nolan but not with Zach Snyder?

And there’s no one answer, really. Audience expectations. The marketing. The directing. The acting. The writing. The music. There are hundreds of factors that decide whether a Batman movie will succeed, same as any other movie. And added to that there is a very specific problem with adapting this character to screen: nailing the tone.

Getting the tone of a Batman story right is a damnably tricky thing, and it’s something that writers have struggled with ever since the character was introduced 85 years ago. Let’s take a moment, firstly, to acknowledge that Batman has often been campy and fun and played for laughs. And often, as in the sixties Adam West series, or Batman: The Brave and the Bold, it’s been done to great effect. But, fundamentally, this is a character rooted in a mashup of crime fiction and the horror genre. Batman stories, from their very beginning, deal with murder, corruption and violence. A child witnesses his parents’ brutal slaying and devotes his life to waging violent nocturnal war against the criminal element. It ain’t baby-town frolics. And I think what trips up a lot of Batman writers is that they succumb to the temptation to wallow in miserabilism. They lean into the violence and the horror and the awfulness of the setting to a degree that it stops being in any way enjoyable.

The best Batman stories have stakes and drama and darkness, but it’s a certain kind of darkness. A darkness that takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. There is a dusting of pulpy camp that stops the darkness becoming overwhelming. It’s a very, very tricky tone to capture and, if I’m perfectly honest, no single live action director has ever managed to capture it perfectly.

That is, until Matt Reeves knocked it out of the fucking park in 2022.

So I remember seeing this trailer below and absolutely loving it:

I loved the mood. I loved the use of Nirvana’s Something in the Way, I was about as excited for a Batman movie since Nolan’s heyday and then I got to the bit where Batman beats the snot out of some punk, beats him again while he’s still on the ground and snarls “I’m vengeance!”

And all my alarm bells started ringing.

Because, holy shit, we need Batman, but we don’t need that Batman right now. Or ever, honestly.

Thankfully, Matt Reeves played me like a fiddle and I’m not even mad. The movie opens in Gotham where the mayor, Don Mitchell is brutally murdered by the world’s scariest mouth-breather. It’s so weird to think that we’ve never had a Batman-versus-a-serial-killer movie before but Reeves makes up for lost time by taking what feels like every major serial killer film of the last thirty years and putting them in a bat-blender. There’s shout-outs to Silence of the Lambs, Manhunter and Se7en and those are just the obvious ones. Not a criticism, by the way. I love all those films and the references are used effectively and intelligently.

Over a hard-boiled monologue Batman tells us that he’s now in the second year of his mission. This is a great choice, story-wise. The movie wants to show a younger, rawer, angrier Bruce Wayne who’s not yet the super-competent plot armour model he will one day become. But, it also doesn’t want to be another origin story. This choice lets us have it both ways. This is still a relatively inexperienced Batman, but all the setting up (choosing the bat motif, meeting and establishing a relationship with Jim Gordon, his first encounter with the Joker) has already happened so we can actually see something new. And, we also get what I’m just going to go ahead and say is my favourite onscreen depiction of Gotham City.

Burton’s Gotham was a gothic hell, Schumacher’s was a neon-dripping fever dream, Nolan’s was…Chicago. But Reeves’ team takes the colour and feel of New York at the height of the eighties crime wave and paints a dripping, ghastly, beautiful portrait that still manages to feel like something that actual human beings might realistically live in.

We follow a subway commuter who’s chased through a dark station by a gang of clown-makeup wearing thugs who want to beat him for views on the Facebook or Tik Toks or whatever you kids use when they’re interrupted by a man dressed as, of all things, a bat.

So firstly, I love the suit. Is it noticeably accurate to the comics? Not especially. But it works very well with Pattinson’s performance. Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is…um, well…

There is something downright unsettling about this guy. And that, coupled with the vaguely “home-made gimp outfit” feel of his costume combines to make the first screen Batman that I actually find scary. Which, given the story this movie is telling, is just perfect.

Batman dispatches the goons easily enough although but the guy he saved cowers in terror and begs him not to hurt him so clearly some more brand out-reach is required. And then Batman sees the bat-signal.

Batman arrives at the scene of the mayor’s murder and assists Gordon and the other cops with examining the crime scene. This scene establishes that Batman’s relationship with the police is…well, let’s just say we’re a long way from Adam West giving press conferences in Commissioner Gordon’s office. The cops view Batman as a weird freak and are not happy with having him around. Comissioner Savage (not Loeb, which is interesting. To me. And no one, probably) arrives and chews Gordon out and Gordon reveals why he called Batman in: a note addressed to the Batman, with a riddle.

Well, we all know who that is, right?

YOU GO TO HELL! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!!

Alright, so here are my thoughts on this portrayal of the Riddler. First of all, let me tell you about one of my all time favourite Batman comics, Secret Origins Special #1 from 1989.

In this issue a documentary film crew come to Gotham to make a film about Batman’s rogues. They interview Harvey Dent’s wife and one of the Penguin’s goons but only one super-villain actually reaches out to them offering to be interviewed: The Riddler.

He takes them down to a warehouse and shows them all the old goofy death-traps and gadgets that he used to use and poignantly reminisces about the good old days before everything got so bloody serious.

And this just always stuck with me and it’s why, however much time passes, this is always my favourite take on the Riddler: the old-fashioned costumed criminal who time has passed by. The guy who’s not actually trying to hurt anybody. So, call me a little bit precious, but the idea of the Riddler getting crossed with John Doe from Se7en was always likely to rub me the wrong way. That said…if you’re gonna do it, do it well and they really did.

But we’ll get to that.

Following the clues the Riddler left at the scene, Batman and Gordon find a thumb drive (complete with Mitchell’s severed thumb) which shows that hizzoner was playing around with a Russian woman who worked at the Iceberg Lounge, a known mob-hangout run by Oswald “Oz” Cobblebot who’s the lieutenant to mob boss Carmine Falcone. Look, it’s a mob movie, some of this is just gonna be like that.

Batman rolls up to Iceberg Lounge, beats the crap out of Penguin’s goons before being politely and cordially welcomed into the big man’s office. This is a brilliant take on the Penguin, by the way. It takes the comic version’s schtick of being a gentleman criminal and filters that through a mafia mob boss. He’s a gentleman like Don Corleone is a gentleman, he’s warm, friendly, generous, open-handed and only uses violence as a last resort. But, y’know. He absolutely will use it.

Penguin claims to not recognise the woman in the picture but a random waitress who comes into his office seems to know her so Batman tails her back to her apartment and learns that the Russian woman, Annika, is living with this waitress as her…roommate?

And then the waitress goes into the backroom and changes into a skin tight cat burglar outfit and okay, I think we all know who she is…

GOD DAMN IT!

So Selina is trying to get the fuck out of dodge with Annika because they’ve heard of Mitchell’s murder and are worried that she’s going to be next. But, Mitchell was keeping Annika’s passport in a safe in his office so Selina goes to burgle it and gets stopped by Batman.

So…I think I’m very much in the minority on this but I actually love the Batman/Catwoman relationship here. Keaton/Pffeifer had some sweet moments but that movie was too gonzo to really be taken seriously. Are for Bale and Hathaway, you could probably have replaced Catwoman with Catman for all it would have effected the sexual chemistry between those too. But this really works for me. There’s a scene…look, most of this movie is so dark that finding useable screencaps is a nightmare so I’m just gonna have to describe it. Batman surprises Catwoman in the Mayor’s Office and they fight and he has her in her in a hold but then the security guard comes in and they have to freeze or they’ll both be caught. And she’s still struggling but then she stops and they’re just…holding each other. And it’s just perfect.

Batman gives her the passport in exchange for being allowed talk to Annika to see what she knows. But when they go back to Selina’s apartment, the place has been raided and Annika is gone. There is one of those convenient plot-exposition TVs left on though, which tells them that the Riddler has kidnapped Commissioner Savage and strapped his face to a cage full of rats, presumably so he can be set straight on whether we are war with Eurasia or East Asia (it’s Eurasia). Savage turns up dead, injected with rat poison and another message from the Riddler telling Batman to “find the rat”.

Bruce recruits Selina into helping him investigate the iceberg lounge and he equips her with a set of contact lenses that record everything she sees and hears. With her help, he learns that the D.A., Colson, is a regular at the club. She gets chatting to him and Colson reveals that the rat was a mob informant who helped the DAs office shut down Sal Maroni. Colson is freaking out because the Riddler apparently knows about it and says that when the truth comes out, the whole city will go berserk. Selina then runs into Carmine Falcone who obviously knows her. Bruce chews Selina out for not revealing that she has a relationship with Falcone and she angrily takes out the lenses and ends the transmission.

Back at the Batcave, Alfred tries to get Bruce to dress for Mitchell’s funeral. So, in this version of Batman, to all intents and purposes, there is no Bruce Wayne. There’s no public facing persona. Bruce is this weird, never-seen billionaire recluse whose whole life has been eaten alive by the mission. Alfred tells Bruce that he’s translated the latest Riddler cypher as “You Are El Rata Elada” which Bruce assumes means “Stool Pigeon”.

At the memorial, Bruce is collared by Bella Réal, the woman who was running for mayor against Mitchell who wants to talk to him about maybe getting his head out of his ass and giving back to the city. Possibly by donating to a political campaign, which is a great way of giving back to the city, maybe the best way. She’s interrupted when a car crashes into the church with Colson who has now got a time bomb strapped to his neck and a ringing phone duct-tapped to his hand.

The police clear the church and Batman has to solve the Riddler’s riddles to free Colson. But, the answer to the final riddle is the name of the rat and Colson refuses to nark because he’s cool. So the Riddler blows him up.

Knocked unconscious, Batman wakes up in police headquarters and, with Gordon’s help, he has to escape and wingsuit gracefully of the top of the building into an oncoming truck. It is very, very funny.

Gordon and Batman eventually track Riddler’s trail to an orphanege that was funded by the Wayne Foundation before being shut down. Realising that the Riddler has a grudge against the Waynes, Bruce races home. The movie frames this as Bruce racing against the clock and trying to reach Alfred before he opens a letter bomb addressed to Bruce, only for the call to be answered by Bruce’s secretary who reveals that the actual bombing has already happened.

While Alfred lies comatose in the ICU, the Riddler reveals Thomas Wayne’s secrets; that when he ran for Mayor years ago, a journalist threatened to expose Martha’s history of mental illness and so Thomas had his friend in the mob, Carmine Falcone, assassinate him.

I don’t know if it’s just been bad luck on my part of whether this is a genuine trend but it feels like every second piece of Bat media I consume goes out of its way to make Thomas, or Martha, or both, awful people. And, as I said in my look back on the Telltale Batman games; that’s just bad story-telling. If the Waynes aren’t good people, their death isn’t a tragedy and Batman becomes a weakly motivated character. Making Thomas Wayne a bastard is just adding another layer of grimness to a story that really doesn’t need it, and makes the story much, much weaker. But this is not what that is. As the movie later makes clear, Thomas Wayne didn’t actually have the journalist killed. He did ask Falcone to lean on him, to protect his wife, but when Falcone actually had him killed he was going to turn himself into the police. And this, according to Alfred, is why Falcone had the Waynes killed (smartly, the movie doesn’t set this in stone either, simply mooting it as a possibility). And this is fine. Bruce learning that his father wasn’t perfect and made a terrible mistake but was still a fundamentally decent guy? That works. It fits the themes of the movie about needing to confront the sins of the past, while still leaving Batman’s character intact. Good job.

The bat-signal is lit and Gordon and Batman arrive to find Selina with a gift for them; one of Penguin’s dirty cops and a recording that Annika sent her right before she was brutally killed by Falcone. Selina reveals that Falcone is her father and the cop tells them that Falcone has been raiding the investment fund the Waynes left to rejuvenate Gotham and using it to assert control over the entire justice apparatus of the city. Cops, judges, mailmen, all of it. Oh, and Falcone was the rat all along and fed information to the cops to get Maroni, his biggest competitor, taken off the board.

Selina goes to get revenge on Falcone. Bruce stops her and Gordon and the cops arrive and take Falcone into custody, only for the mob boss to be shot by a sniper from an apartment overlooking the club. Batman and the cops sweep the apartment which has your standard-issue serial killer wall o’crazy and Gordon gets word that the shooter has been arrested in a local diner. But looking over said wall o’crazy Batman realises that this killer is obsessed with both him (Batman) and also him (Bruce Wayne) and seems to have stumbled on some kind of big secret about the two of them. Which, you can appreciate, is rather ominous.

And then, Batman gets word that the killer is one Edward Nashton (not “Nygma” boooooo) and would really like to talk to him about something super important.

So, it doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to figure out that the game is up.

Batman turns to Gordon and says goodbye the only way he can: “You’re a good cop.”

Batman travels to Arkham Asylum to talk with Nashton and we get…um….yeah, fuck it. We get the best scene in any Batman movie, period.

What a sickeningly well executed twist.

We start with Batman, a shaken, shell-shocked figure, almost cowering before the small, be-spectacled little man who he thinks is about to blow his entire world sky high. Nashton stares straight at him and moans almost seductively.

“Bruce…Wayne…Bruce…Wayne…”

And then the bomb drops. But it’s not the one Bruce was expecting. It’s even worse.

“We almost got him, didn’t we Batman?”

And so it’s revealed that the Riddler never actually thought of Batman as a rival, but that, in his insane mind, they were working together to expose the corruption at the heart of Gotham City. Remember this scene in Batman Begins?

Well, this Batman too became a symbol. He too shook people out of apathy. But he didn’t inspire them to become their better angels. He inspired them to give reign to their demons. Everything that the Riddler did, he did for Batman.

Because this Batman isn’t hope.

Batman and Riddler stare at each other in mutual horror, realising just how badly they have misjudged one another. And Riddler hints that the worst is yet to come.

Racing back to Riddler’s apartment, Batman discovers that the Riddler has formed an army of disaffected Gothamites to launch a terrorist attack onthe city, bombing the city’s flood defences to submerge the streets, forcing the citizenry to retreat to a stadium on the high ground where Réal is holding a political rally. And then the shooting will start.

Bruce is unable to stop the flooding and races to the stadium. With Selina’s help he’s able to stop the gunmen, but when one of them almost kills her Bruce loses it and beats the guy to mush, only just barely pulling back when Gordon intervenes. Gordon unmasks the gunman and demands to know who he is and he replies: “I’m vengeance”.

And then the lights go out and the floodwaters come crashing in.

And Batman finally realises what the city actually needs.

After almost electrocuting himself to save the people below, he plunges into the floodwaters and leads the survivors to safety.

The movie ends with Gotham struggling to rebuild. Half the city is underwater. The Penguin is preparing to take control of the underworld. Gotham seems worse off than ever.

But now, at least, she has something that she never had before.

Hope.

***

This is the Batman movie I’ve been waiting for all my life.

The Dark Knight Detective

I’ll admit it, I was skeptical of the sparkly vampire man playing Batman, just as I was of the Brokeback Mountain Gay Cowboy playing the Joker. I’m an idiot, and so is anyone who pays attention to my opinions on movies. Now the question is whether Pattinson gives the best live action Batman performance or if he takes the silver after Bale. Maybe it’s too early to say. Bale, after all, had a whole trilogy whereas Pattinson has just had one bite of the pie at the time of writing.

Nah, fuck it. I think Pattinson’s better.

Here’s the thing, with Bale we have the best Bruce Wayne and a Batman that started out excellent and then descended into parody. With Pattinson, well, we don’t really have a Bruce Wayne. That’s kind of the point of this version. There is no billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, there’s just Batman with the mask or without. I’m assuming that future installments will have Batman building up the Bruce Wayne persona but for now we just have Batman. But it’s such a good Batman. Unsettling, intense, the voice just right.

And this is the best written Batman by far. It’s not even close. Starting with the angry, edgelord vigilante that people assume Batman is, and ending with the noble, inspiring symbol of hope that he actually is and making that his character arc? Brilliance.

His Faithful Manservant

Is he though? What I mean is, I don’t think it’s ever actually stated in the movie that this Alfred is even a butler and he seems more like the family’s head of security. I don’t think Andy Serkis will ever replace either Michael, Gough or Caine in my personal pantheon of Alfreds but he’s very good in a very different take on the character. Not a hint of upper class refinement here, Serkis’ Pennyworth is all big, tender working-class masculinity. But, while this is a very different version of the character, his love and loyalty to Bruce and the Wayne family is clear as day, and that’s what makes him Alfred.

The Comish

Jeffrey Wright is one of my favourite actors and I’m not just saying that because I pray every night that he’ll get cast as Nikolai South in a future screen adaptation of When the Sparrow Falls. Wright is the Jim Gordon I’ve always wanted. And this Gordon/Batman relationship is such a great depiction.

The Clown Prince of Crime

Hah! I just realised this is the first movie since 1966 to feature the entire Big Four. The Joker barely makes an appearance but if you haven’t seen the deleted scene where Batman consults him Manhunter style, go do that. It’s probably the only deleted scene that I consider to be the best scene in the movie it’s from. I’ve heard of killing your darlings but that’s ridiculous. Anyway, Joker is played by Barry Keoghan.

Keoghan’s Joker (what little we see of him) looks like someone said “oh wait, wasn’t this guy dipped in acid? What if he actually looked like he was?”

Keoghan’s take is, in my opinion, excellent, the wheedling, mocking, lecherous voice works very well. But what really makes this scene shine is the writing. The choice to set this movie two years after their first meeting means we have a Joker who’s already living in Batman’s head rent free and who is dangerously good at getting under his skin and playing his nerves like a violin. Part of me desperately wants to see more of this Joker, and the other part is terrified that it could never live up to this introduction.

The Prince of Puzzles

As I previously stated, this take on the Riddler is about as hard a sell for me as it’s possible to be but, damn it, it works. Paul Dano’s performance as Riddler is genuinely unsettling, at times pitiful and sympathetic while also being possibly the single scariest villain this series has ever seen.

That pompous, waddling maestro of fowl play, master of a million criminal umbrellas!

Once again, nobody changes as much as the Penguin. This iteration of Oswald Cobblepot is played by Al Capone played by Robert DeNiro played by Colin Farrell.

First of all, holy shit the makeup. This is the kind of makeup job where you can logically know that that’s Colin Farrell under there and your brain simply refuses to believe it. It’s not at all noteworthy to say that this is the most layered Penguin we’ve seen but for what it’s worth, I can absolutely see why HBO decided that a series could be built around this guy. Not a top hat or umbrella in sight, this Penguin is a true gangster but with a code of honour, intelligence and personal courage that makes him very appealing. And the sight of him ragging on Batman and Gordon for their terrible Spanish never gets old. The only quibble I have is how the hell a guy named “Oswald Cobblepot” ever got to be a made man.

The Queen of Criminals, the Princess of Plunder

Okay, my one criticism out of the way first and foremost. Selina’s scene in the taxi trying to calm her upset girlfriend is one of the least convincing pieces of “talking to myself on the phone” acting I’ve seen in a long while. Otherwise, this is a great Catwoman. Not the best, but definitely the Catwoman who has the best relationship with Batman. Kravitz gives a less playful, angrier performance than previous Catwomen that suits the story very well.

Batman NEVER kills, except: 

He doesn’t! Not once! Hurray!

Where does he get those wonderful toys?: 

We get the Advanced Contact Lenses, a supremely cool (and creepy) bit of kit that allows Batman to record everything he sees. Oh, and a Batman wing suit which actually makes him look less like a bat and more like a flying squirrel.

It’s the car, right? Chicks dig the car:

In keeping with the stripped down, back-to-basics approach of the rest of the movie Batman is now driving an actual goddamned car and not something out of Mad Max.

I like it more in concept than in execution. On the one hand, this feels like the right kind of Batmobile for this Batman. Practical, simple, gets the job done.

On the other hand, I kinda feel that the Batmobile is such a goofy concept that if you’re going to do it you might as well go whole-hog and make it something that Dracula would drive in a drag-race themed Hanna Barbera cartoon from the seventies. Whatever, it’s perfectly decent and it doesn’t have any fucking guns. B+

FINAL SCORE OUT OF TEN:

NEXT UPDATE: 19 September 2024.

NEXT TIME: I guess the movie’s called “Mouse”?