Matt Reeves directed five movies before tackling The Batman, earning an overall "Fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes. The Batman is Matt Reeves' newest Fresh rating with 85 percent, so how does it compare to the Rotten Tomatoes scores of the rest of the movies Reeves has directed?
Reeves' directorial debut in 2004 was a romantic comedy called The Pallbearer with a 45 percent "Rotten" score, but it wasn't until 2008 that he landed on most people's radar when he directed the J.J. Abrams-produced found-footage sci-fi sensation Cloverfield. Reeves then directed the horror movie Let Me In before taking over the Planet of the Apes franchise with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War For the Planet of the Apes, giving him a four-movie Fresh streak, with all his movies seeing a Fresh score other than Let Me In.
Since The Batman is also rated Fresh, Reeves' streak is officially extended to five Fresh Rotten Tomatoes scores in a row. Despite the Fresh score, there are also some key differences between the way critics reviewed The Batman compared to his other movies.
The Batman is Matt Reeves' Fourth Highest Rated Movie in Rotten Tomatoes
The Batman is one of the best-reviewed movies in the DCEU, but its 85 percent score only ranks higher than The Pallbearer (45 percent) and Cloverfield (78 percent). Out of Reeves' six total movies, The Batman only ranks fourth, coming in fourth behind Let Me In (88 percent), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (90 percent), and War for the Planet of the Apes (94 percent).
Despite ranking towards the bottom of his filmography, The Batman still comes in above Matt Reeves' 80 percent average Rotten Tomatoes score. Interestingly, if The Pallbearer's Rotten Tomatoes score is excluded from the average as the biggest outlier in his filmography both in genre and review score, his average rating rises to 87 percent, meaning, of all his more genre-oriented films, The Batman's review score is one point below average.
The Batman is Matt Reeves' Highest Audience Score
While The Batman isn't the preferred Matt Reeves-directed movie when it comes to critics, it is the highest-rated movie when it comes to Rotten Tomatoes' audience score. The Batman's 89 percent audience score beats out Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (88 percent), War For the Planet of the Apes (84 percent), Let Me In (76 percent), Cloverfield (68 percent), and The Pallbearer (18 percent). All but one of Reeves' movies other than The Pallbearer have strong Fresh Rotten Tomatoes ratings from both critics and audiences, but The Batman is the first and only time in his career where his movie had better reviews from audiences than critics.
It should be noted that audience scores for most movies, particularly comic book movies, typically debut high and drop a few points in the weeks after release. The Batman's audience score has already dropped slightly, and will be tied with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at 88 percent if it drops just one more point. It's entirely possible it stays at 89 percent, but don't be surprised if it ends up tied with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or even falls slightly below it.
Critics And Audiences Agree on The Batman More Than (Almost) Every Other Matt Reeves Movie
Matt Reeves movies don't tend to be very controversial or have a wide split between critics and audiences and other than The Pallbearer, which critics rated 27 percent higher than audiences in Rotten Tomatoes (45 percent vs. 18 percent), none of his movies see scores split by more than 10 points. Even so, The Batman's 85 percent critic score is only four points away from the 89 percent audience score, which is smaller than every other movie but Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with a three percent difference. Meanwhile, War for the Planet of the Apes is a 10 percent difference between critics and audiences (94 percent and 84 percent), Cloverfield is a 10 percent difference (78 percent and 68 percent), and Let me In has a difference of 12 points (88 percent and 78 percent).
Interestingly, Reeves' highest rated audience Rotten Tomatoes scores are also the movies with the lowest split between audiences and critics, although the reverse trend isn't true of his highest-rated critic scores. What does correlate to audience score, however, are the box office earnings for each movie, with the higher audience score holding a stronger relationship to box office draw than critic score.
With six movies under his belt and a strong track record in Rotten Tomatoes, Reeves is well established at this point in his career, although he's still got a lot of career ahead of him, meaning he has a high bar to meet for any potential The Batman sequels and anything else he directs. The Batman might not stand out compared to Reeves' other critics scores, its overall strong performance, particularly the top audience score, still makes it a big addition to his Rotten Tomatoes record.