The Batman - A Psychological Thriller, but Batman

And Catwoman is here for some reason, too.

The Batman is a perfect example of the state of large-budget movies in the post-Star Wars and post-MCU landscape. It’s not a bad movie, but it certainly falls short of great. It’s a franchise movie but of uncertain identity, yet what identity it does have is deeply dependent on the audience already knowing the characters and setting of Batman media. At its core, The Batman is a crime thriller told using the set pieces, characters, and tropes of a Batman movie, which would leave the audience unfamiliar with these (I’m not saying there are many people in the target audience like this) somewhat bewildered, though they would probably still be able to follow the plot.

This increase in references to outside media is something I’ve come to notice increasingly in media in the 21^st century. Parody has always existed (in fact, even the ancient Greeks used it), but there has been an increasing reliance on highly specific references in comedies starting in the 1990s. The Simpsons used it heavily, but shows like Family Guy and South Park are positively built on reference. Shrek was a movie whose entire schtick was referencing fairy tales that the audience presumably already knows of, but as the series progressed, pop culture reference became more pronounced. The moment-to-moment action became built around appeals to things the audience already knew about.

The growth of cinematic universes post-2000 has produced another variant of this. The MCU is the best example, where each movie starts to build on previous ones, with the entire franchise becoming about itself, and not just with the Avengers movies. The other movies start to feel like Avengers side stories, made by and for fans of the franchise and whose identities are almost entirely external.

The Batman suffers from this malady, though in the DC universe rather than Marvel. If the movie were to have sapience, it would appear to desperately want to have its own identity and yet find it impossible because every piece of the movie has to be drawn from a pre-rendered “toolkit” of existing characters, tropes, and aesthetics.

Weirdly, you could have a decent action-crime thriller by extracting the core of the story from the Batman setting. It fundamentally is about a private detective going to great lengths to solve a mystery regarding a mad serial killer before it is too late in the A story, with a romance B story with a dangerous woman ripped straight out of classic detective stories. You have the mob with their hierarchy holding up the hero and a corrupt bunch of politicians thickening the plot—a set of classic and effective tropes.

The problem is that nobody would watch that movie.

The Batman is a franchise movie. That’s why people want to watch it. It misses all the mythic layers of older, pre-Nolan Batman films and goes for gritty realism, but the result is an imitative noir thriller with Batman characters pasted on top. Maybe that’s what the audience wants, and while I do appreciate what The Batman is, it ultimately felt awkward and prurient as a superhero movie as a result.

There are things that are done well here. The neo-noir look and tone of the setting is solid. The music has a good atmosphere and is effective, though, like a lot of modern scores, I felt it was forgettable due to its melodic simplicity. The main plot is well-conceived and generally well-executed.

The acting is either flat (in the case of Pattinson as Batman or Jordan Peele as Gordon) or melodramatic (like Paul Dano as Riddler), but there are also some good performances. Andy Serkis as Albert elevates Pattinson’s performance, and Collin Ferral (unrecognizable) as Penguin carries his scenes.

There was something off with the choreography, which I couldn’t put my finger on. I think it was the conscious attempt to make Batman appear very worn down and vulnerable, which meant he takes a lot of shots and, again, when we are missing the mythic layer (exemplified by Tim Burton’s treatment), the costumed man ends up looking silly in the basic fight scenes. I think this is a classic example of mistaking momentary danger (the hero might get hurt) for real story tension (the hero might fail in his mission).

I did enjoy the revelatory climax where Batman meets and talks to the Riddler. This moment became a meme for good reason, and it’s the moment where the plot really turns over on itself and shows the potential of the movie. I think it would have the possibility of becoming a classic film moment if it wasn’t in a cape film and hadn’t been so long to arrive.

That brings me to the fact that The Batman is a rather long movie and feels long. There is a lot of plot here, with a fully fleshed-out C Story that adds a lot of runtime but does enhance the mystery plot. If anything could have been cut, it is Catwoman, whose presence in the movie has little effect on the main plot. She feels included because she is a Batman character, not because her story is critical to the main conflict. Again, though, I think she is there for the fans, and, as you might expect, Batman never gets to matriculate any romance.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie despite its strange placement in its franchise. I think it squeaks into the top half of Batman movies for whatever that is worth. For fans of the franchise who want a competent thriller treatment, I think it works. The strength of the movie lies in the mystery plot, but at the end, I can’t help but feel the movie was a miss.

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