The Batman Review: “Sparkly Vampire” Becomes My Favorite Live-Action Batman Of All Time

The Batman brings in a completely new actor to become our Dark Knight. Robert Pattinson, our sparkly vampire (which I will have no more of) is set to take his vigilante career in year 2 to the streets of Gotham.

The trailers have come, the hype has built and a new era of Batman begins with Robert Pattinson and Director Matt Reeves at the helm. It’s an exciting time for many superhero fans, especially those who are fans of Batman.

If you haven’t watched the movie, we have created a spoiler-free zone which is our overview part of the review. This is where we talk about the movie in general, I have separated the page when it gets to the actual super spoilers so you are safe on the article…for now.

If you have watched the movie then as always, I hope you enjoy my thoughts on this.

Overview – Spoiler Free Zone

One of the many complaints I saw coming into this was the casting of Robert Pattinson. People generally didn’t think he had what it takes because I’ll be honest, Ben Affleck did a very good job with the role, but I was always optimistic that Robert Pattinson would be the best live-action Batman, and I wasn’t wrong, at least in my opinion anyway.

The movie has a runtime of just under 3 hours, which did feel a little dragged out at parts, and I did feel like there were a few moments that could have been drawn back. I got to the point where I didn’t want to stay for the after-credit scenes because I just needed to stretch my legs. This isn’t a spoiler, but don’t wait around, it’s not worth it. There’s no proper after-credit scene.

The Batman was rated 15 which I think was a fantastic option as it gives the movie the option of going down the dark route which this film did. Bruce Wayne is in his second year as Batman and you can imagine as always, Gotham is just riddled with crime, drugs, and everything else. This allowed the movie to have the darker scenes with the 15 rated, the super dark scenes as well.

In a general overview, the movie was brilliant, it wasn’t perfect but it was damn near close. I honestly believe the only thing that did let it down was the super long runtime but everything else slotted into place very well. The story structured well, the cast options were perfect and it leads into what could be a very successful Batverse for Matt Reeves and DC.

I think Warner Bros. especially needed this to be good, and it was. I think it was better because Matt Reeves was given full control to tell the story how he wanted to. Batman has 1,000s of stories in the comics, some he’s super overpowered and some not, but this was on the basis of the more underpowered.

Let me explain;

In the past Batman movies, we’ve seen the tech, seen the gadgets but we’ve never had that full-scale detective Batman. We know he’s a master detective and often does a better job than GCPD’s finest because of patience and understanding. Matt Reeves went down this route which worked well. For those who don’t read Batman comics this felt different, it felt fresh.

That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of action, because oh boy there was. Some of the fight scenes, especially the one you see in the trailer where he says “I’m vengeance” were just even better when you get to watch the entire scene.

I will say this again, it’s a movie I was extremely excited for and I’m happy I was able to get the chance to see this on day one of release. I have already made plans to again next week.

I will also mention, if your bladder isn’t great, it may be worth asking someone who’s seen the movie for those “down times” if you need to go to the toilet, as 3 hours, plus adverts and trailers is a long time to be sitting still.

Now it’s time for the spoilers. It’s now time for you to click away. If you want to read on, you can continue scrolling at your own risk.

Story – Spoiler Zone

With a 3 hour run time, you think the story would be very well played out, and well, it was, but it wasn’t perfect. The story focused on Batman’s second year, dealing with becoming this nocturnal vigilante. We never got much of what’s happened prior to this which I did like, I couldn’t bear to watch Thomas and Martha Wayne be killed again. I like the fact they took a page out of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies when it came to this.

We’re thrown straight into it with a brief narrative from Bruce Wayne about his ventures, he’s also writing a journal to keep track of everything that’s going on. The main focal point begins when the Mayor of Gotham is killed brutally by The Riddler, and if you’re familiar with Riddler then you’ll know why this movie was more of a detective movie.

The story also focuses on the corruption in Gotham, which tends to be a major point in most Batman stories. The Falcone is still running everything, the Maroni family are mentioned but you never see them. This allows the introduction of Catwoman into the movie as it all jigsaws itself together once you get to grips that Bruce has been doing this vigilante stuff for quite some time.

As mentioned, I enjoyed the story. It wasn’t perfect but it was damn near close. Seeing Batman have to investigate Riddler’s riddles made it enjoyable and intense at all times. It felt like one of those classic hunt-down stories but with Batman at the helm, it was obvious it was going to be interesting.

I will say though, some of the murders you see in the movie are brutal. Especially the opening scene when the Mayor is killed.

Characters

The main characters are Batman, Catwoman, Alfred, Jim Gordon, Carmine Falcone, Penguin, and the Riddler himself. I’d like to discuss the main villain of the story here which was The Riddler, played by Paul Dano. This cast was perfect. The Riddler was well done. He wasn’t in the normal usual funky green question mark pants with the question mark stick we’re used to, no, this one was far grittier which I did like. I do enjoy it when a villain takes a full-blown dark twisted angle, the same way this Riddler did. He didn’t care for casualties, and actually had fans in this. He went after corruption and mainly liars who failed Gotham city. This also involved Bruce Wayne due to his parents. A perfect choice for the villain, after all, we’ve had the Joker, Two-Face, Ra’s, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, etc in live-action before, we’ve never had The Riddler so I liked this direction.

Moving onto our star man, Robert Pattinson who played Bruce Wayne. I cannot say enough good things about him. He was absolutely perfect in every way as both Bruce and Batman. Something other actors can’t get nailed down but Pattinson did. He gave us this gritty version, had a solid Batman voice, was able to fight, and more importantly, he was the detective we’ve all wanted for so long.

But that’s the thing, I could go onto each cast member individually and say good things because the cast was perfect. It truly was, even Catwoman surprised me in this as I didn’t expect much from the trailers. The direction Matt Reeves took Catwoman down met for a much better watch, mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to have a repeat of Bale’s Catwoman where it’s back and forth all the time, it got boring.

I did see some initial complaints about Jim Gordon, mainly due to the fact he’s black in this movie but that never mattered to me. Jeffrey Wright stepped up into that role and smashed it. We’ve had a fair few versions of Jim in live-action now, some better than others but this Jim Gordon was great. I really did enjoy the fact he still blindly trusts Batman, even despite most of the police force don’t.

10/10 for the characters in this.

For the full cast list, you can visit IMDB by clicking here.

Hype

Personally, from the moment Robert Pattinson was cast as Batman I got excited. The hype for me was always high. It got higher as the months went on when trailers, footage, and other promotional material were dropping. When I arrived at the cinema this morning, the queue was lengthy. I live in a fairly small city and I’ve honestly never been in that big of a queue before, so that says something.

In terms of the public, it’s difficult to say. I’ve seen it from either side where people didn’t think that Robert could truly live up to Batman but now the movies out, I hope opinions have swayed. In the last few weeks, I think since No Way Home dropped, the spotlight was on Batman to shine. It began to be talked about more and more, people were excited. All of my friends and family were excited, it just felt like a great time to be a Batman fan again.

Favorite Moments

I like to choose 3 favorite moments. I feel like if I choose more than that then I might as well write an audiobook on the movie. These aren’t in order of the movie, just the ones I did like the most.

1. After Alfred opens up the bomb that was meant for Bruce Wayne, he’s injured and in hospital. Obviously. After a while, in the movie, he wakes up with Bruce by his side. Bruce explains he knows that Thomas worked with Falcone to silence some dirt a reporter had on him. Alfred tells Bruce the truth about what he knows, explains that after Thomas died he was thrown in to look after a child and didn’t know what to do. The reason I loved this scene is that throughout Bruce looks so dedicated to Batman that he fails to forget about the ones he cares about. The pair share a beautiful scene where Bruce explains he cares for Alred and appreciates everything.

2. This Batman did things differently. In other Batman’s they stick to the shadows and pick off their targets one by one. In this, he doesn’t. Yes, he sticks to the shadows but he simply walks out which I can imagine only strikes MORE fear into his enemies. The opening scene is the one in the trailer, where he beats up the gang dressed as what looks to be the Joker. The scene was everything you imagined it would be, the entire fight was very well done. It showcased Pattinson’s ability as Batman on the fighting side. You do feel those punches so much more when they’re blaring through massive speakers in the cinema as well.

3. After Batman stops The Riddler’s plan, we see Batman go into humanitarian mode. The place they’re in begins to flood drastically, and people are trapped. In the trailer, you see him in the water where he ignites a flare, and this is that scene. We generally see Batman take down a villain or stop a plan but we’ve never seen him stick around to help injured civilians. He does this where he saves the new Mayor of Gotham, and also after he’s seen carrying an injured civilian up a ramp onto a stretcher to be aired away to a hospital. Bear in mind, he’s doing this when the sun is rising so it’s very light, something I’m not used to seeing either.

Dislikes

My main dislike was the runtime. It was too long. It didn’t need to be and I felt like they could have dropped some scenes and shortened others to make it more impactful. However, on a whole, this didn’t take too much away from what is a damn near-perfect movie.

This isn’t a dislike as such, but more of a want. I felt like Lucius Fox was a miss in the movie as he’s always around Batman, especially Thomas Wayne. We never got any indication if he exists, is dead, or what. I do hope this is something we can see moving forward.

Recommend?

Oh, 100%. If you’re able to make it to a cinema today, tomorrow, or whenever your next opportunity is to go, then go. This is absolutely a must-watch movie and for me personally, it was the best live-action Batman I’ve ever seen.

Verdict

The Batman delivered as I expected it would. Some people will compare Pattinson to the likes of Affleck and Bale which will create a divide. Overall, the direction Matt Reeves went to was fantastic, and will definitely be a service out there to any fan of Batman, a fan of a good detective movie, or a general superhero fan. This can appeal to many out there, but this was my favorite Batman movie of all time.

Rating 9.6/10

The Batman is available in cinemas worldwide. You can visit your local cinema’s website for more information. The Batman is not available in Russia.