The Batman

I need to start this review with a potential trigger warning. It’s not long and it might not hit everyone but there are two scenes where Batman is observing someone. One made me feel a little uncomfortable but was tolerable. One went over the edge into voyuerism for me. I know everyone involved is consenting in the film, which is quite different to the real situation, but it still made me feel really uncomfortable.

On to the review itself.

Every clip you’ve seen where it’s really dark and moody is generally right. There is an opening quote “they look for me in the shadows but I am shadow.” The cinematographer seems to have taken that to heart, hardly any scenes are shot during daylight and when they are it’s heavily overcast. Given Batman and Catwoman dress in black, there’s a lot black-clad characters in the dark. However, eyes are wonderful things and I could follow the action comfortably enough.

For any Batman movie, or TV show, you really have two things you have to pull off. How does your lead perform as The Batman and how does he perform as Bruce Wayne, Billionaire usually playboy? In a movie you can add a third element, a great villain can make a poor Batman actor into a good Batman movie - Heath Ledger, I’m remembering you. I’d expected RPatts to be at least decent at Bruce Wayne, playboy, I was less sure about him playing the Batman. It turned out he totally rocked the Batman and he emo-boyed his way out of the billionaire playboy so he never flexed that particular muscle.

Zoë Kravitz is as hard on the eyes as always, compelling as Catwoman, and very believable in a kind of enemies-to-lovers arc against RPatts as well.

The other characters we see all work nicely as well within the way they’ve framed the story. And therein lies another big point in this review.

Is this a Batman movie? I mean, it’s clearly a movie with Batman in it but I’d be really tempted to say it’s a noir thriller (and not just for the dodgy lighting) that swerved into a disaster movie. While you might think those don’t go together the swerve to get there seems totally in place and perhaps the most normal-for-Batman thing we see. But we have a gritty detective unpicking the actions of a corrupt police force and the criminal underground with the aid of one of the few honest cops and a femme fatale who is morally grey. Surely this is the stuff of a noir thriller? You might argue he’s the paladin, moral crusader descending into darkness to fight against evil while she’s the scion of evil using it’s own tools to bring it down and reach into the light. They meet in shadows with broadly shared goals, being in the same morally ambiguous position but facing in opposite directions. That makes for an interesting dynamic in the film but it also means that the character of Batman recognisably fits into both his cape with pointy ears and his noir PI role. The fact there's a very "It wasn't every day a gorgeous dame walked into an office and asked me to kill her" voice over that Sam Spade would approve of (he doesn't actually say those words, but he reads excerpts from his emo-Bat diary as a voice over) just ramps up that noir feel.

I don’t read the comics, and I’m not going to catch up on 83 years of backstory, but I’m pretty sure the purists will object. I know The Dark Knight rebooted the comics, although I’m fuzzy on the details of how. The Nolan films used that name as they relaunched the franchise but how closely they modelled themselves on the comic reboot I don’t know. In terms of the evolution of the film franchise, this is the reboot after the Nolan years. It feels a bit like they looked to Daredevil for inspiration (and cinematography tips!) but I’m on board with that to be honest.

Bechdel Test: Pass. I’ll be honest, this film is a bit of a sausage fest. But Selina has a friend and they have a really brief conversation about getting out of Gotham while Batman plays peeping Tom. But it’s a pass.

Ko Test: Pass. Selina/Catwoman is doing the majority of the heavy lifting here. There’s another significant WOC but although she has quite extensive scenes, I don’t think she makes it to five of them (I make it three or four).

Russo Test: Fail. This is a mainstream DC property. Apparently Batman doesn’t even go down on Batgirl (she should dump him and shack up with Harley and Ivy). Despite the queer wonder that those two bring, the Batman isn’t ready for it yet…