Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Batman.
One of the longest-delayed blockbusters of the pandemic, The Batman, has finally hit theaters. And, thankfully, it was worth the wait. Matt Reeves’ reboot has reinvigorated the franchise with a thrilling detective story, a handful of stunning action sequences, and a fresh, nuanced take on the titular masked crimefighter.
Some of the film’s reviews have complained that Reeves doesn’t reinvent the wheel enough and veers too closely to the established aesthetics of Nolan and Snyder. But The Batman finds a nice middle ground between evoking the franchise’s traditions and subverting the audience’s expectations of Batman’s big-screen adventures.
Honors The Traditions
Dark, Gritty Tone
With his classic 1989 Batman movie, Tim Burton reinvented the Caped Crusader’s stories with a dark tone, a gloomy, expressionistic visual style, and an occasional dalliance into the horror genre. While his immediate successor Joel Schumacher harked back to the camp tone of the ‘60s Adam West series, both Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder have stuck to the Frank Miller-inspired Burton tradition of a dark, edgy Batman.
Reeves maintains this tradition in The Batman, one of the darkest, edgiest, and downright scariest Batman movies to date. Paul Dano’s Riddler is practically a slasher villain. The UK rating board BBFC, previously bombarded with complaint letters after giving The Dark Knight a 12A rating, has forbidden anybody under the age of 15 from seeing The Batman.
Bruce Wayne’s “Batman Voice”
Since readers can’t hear comic books, the “Batman voice” is an invention of the adaptations, not the source material. The trope was created by Michael Keaton, who thought it was unrealistic that such a public figure could remain anonymous unless he altered his voice.
The “Batman voice” has since been emulated by every subsequent Batman actor, including The Batman’s Robert Pattinson. The voice is a big part of any Batman performance, and Pattinson nails it. His Batman voice is gruff and growly, but not overstated.
Multiple Villains
From the Joker to Two-Face to Mr. Freeze to Bane to Poison Ivy, there are far too many iconic villains in the Bat’s rogues’ gallery for the filmmakers who adapt his stories to only include one per movie. 1966’s Batman: The Movie features just about every major Batman villain there is. Since Burton’s original blockbusters, every Batman movie has featured at least two villains in substantial roles.
Reeves adheres to this tradition in The Batman, presenting the Riddler as a real-world serial killer and the Penguin as a mid-level mobster trying to climb the power ladder.
Brutal Fight Scenes
Fans always look forward to the fight scenes in Batman movies. Like Charles Bronson in Hard Times, he’s an undefeated badass whose fighting style is defined by brute force. In recent years, the Arkham games and Snyder’s ultraviolent DC movies have taken the Bat’s on-screen hand-to-hand combat to whole new levels of brutality.
Reeves keeps up this trajectory with some of Batman’s most brutal fight scenes to date. Pattinson’s young, inexperienced Batman is constantly getting beaten up, but he gives as good as he gets.
No Connections To A Larger Universe
Thanks to Marvel’s runaway success, most Hollywood blockbusters these days are made with countless sequels and spin-offs in mind. Every studio hopes their next big tentpole will be a springboard into a new cinematic universe, but traditionally, Batman movies have stood on their own.
Snyder introduced the Bat into a wider universe in his DCEU films with mixed results. For the most part, The Batman is a standalone story. It sets up its own interconnected universe – including two sequels and two spin-off streaming shows – but its plot has no ties to the wider DCEU.
Deviates From Them
No Origin Story
Mercifully, Reeves skips the Bat’s origin story and saves audiences from having to see Martha Wayne’s pearls hit the ground yet again. Batman’s origins have already been depicted in a bunch of previous movies – including Joker, which isn’t even technically a Batman movie – and Batman Begins covered it in more than enough depth to make any subsequent Batman origin movies feel redundant.
In The Batman, Reeves borrows the Spider-Man: Homecoming strategy. Since everybody knows the character’s origins, he skips right to the heroics. Both Homecoming and The Batman use their lack of a traditional origin story to instead explore the inception of their characters’ superhero careers through their development as established heroes, not their journey to becoming a hero.
A Young, Inexperienced Batman
With a sort of “Year Two” storyline, The Batman covers the middle ground that most origin movies skip over. Pattinson’s Batman is already a lean, mean fighting machine who’s donned the cowl and become a Gotham legend – but he’s still in the early days of his crimefighting double life.
Since he’s still learning the ropes of masked vigilantism, he’s a little too trusting of untrustworthy people and takes as many punches as he doles out in the fight sequences.
Hard-Boiled Detective Plot
Along with “The Dark Knight” and “The Caped Crusader,” one of Batman’s many nicknames is “World’s Greatest Detective.” But since detective work isn’t as visually stimulating as fight scenes and car chases, most Batman movies put his detective skills in the backseat.
In The Batman, Reeves finally explores the Bat’s talents as a detective through the lens of a hard-boiled crime plot. The Riddler’s trail of riddles and ciphers provided the perfect basis for a grisly neo-noir mystery story.
Catwoman Is A Straightforward Ally
Catwoman is usually characterized on the big screen as a femme fatale switching allegiances between Batman and the villain, or as a full-blown villain herself. But the version of Selina Kyle played by Zoë Kravitz in The Batman is more of a straightforward ally in the Bat’s latest investigation.
Similar to Jane Fonda’s Oscar-winning turn opposite Donald Sutherland’s detective in the neo-noir classic Klute, The Batman’s Selina becomes a love interest during the course of the investigation.
Much More Batman Than Bruce
In Batman stories, it’s crucial to explore the dichotomy between Bruce Wayne’s two identities. But, ultimately, fans come to Batman movies to see Batman kick butt, not to see Bruce Wayne brood.
While Batman movies tend to have a 50/50 split of Bruce scenes and Batman scenes, in The Batman, Bruce spends much more time in the cowl than he does in the facade of a reclusive billionaire. The movie might be a whopping three hours long, but those are three solid Bat-centric hours.