Barrett Brief Movie Review – The Batman Is The Emo We Deserve

Barrett Brief Movie Review – The Batman Is The Emo We Deserve (2 1/2 out of 4)

Summary: When the Riddler, a sadistic serial killer, begins murdering key political figures in Gotham, Batman is forced to investigate the city’s hidden corruption and question his family’s involvement.

Genre: Action, Drama, Crime

The Batman is the 8th film to feature Batman in one way or another within the last 20 years. In that time there has been a noticeable acceleration of the emphasis of the “darkness” part of the character. Yeah he was a guy who dressed like a bat and beat people up, but at least there was the he was focused on justice. That is absent from Matt Reeves “The Batman”. More concerned with “vengeance” instead of justice we are subjected to watch Robert Pattinson (Bruce Wayne / The Batman) mope around as Wayne and try to act tough as The Bat. This will be a controversial review because most people are singing it’s praises. Despite some beautiful camera work and some ok performances, The Batman continues to the perversion of The Dark Knight. 

Very Dark, With No Knight

So Bruce Wayne has been Batman for 2 years at the beginning of this film. Just the mere shining of the Bat signal strikes fear into the hearts of criminals across the city. Meanwhile, Mayor Don Mitchell Jr (Rupert Penry-Jones) is in a race to be re-elected as mayor against upstart AOC stand in Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson). That is until the mayor is murdered by the Riddler (Paul Dano). This starts a chain reaction that will involves everyone from the Commissioner Pete Savage (Alex Ferns) to crime boss Carmine Falcone (with a nicely understated performance from John Turturro) and his right hand man The Penguin (Colin Farrell) to thief Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz). The only people Wayne can trust are Alfred (Andy Serkis) & Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). When disaster strikes Gotham, Wayne will have to decide what The Batman is. 

People complain that we have never seen the detective aspect of Batman in modern film, and they are correct. Co-writer/Director Matt Reeves tries to bring that aspect in. He is moderately successful. We do some detective work from Pattinsons Batman, but he is hardly the worlds greatest. In the end this Batman is the same as all the others, running around with fancy toys beating people up. I am use to that so it is not a shock. I have said before that modernity, with it’s focus on darkness and edginess, is incapable of express the KNIGHT portion of “The Dark Knight”. Bruce Wayne is not only a symbol of justice & courage, but of other knightly traits such as:

• Mercy,
• Generosity
• Nobility
• Hope

Which were all severely lacking in this film. Instead those traits are replaced with the traits of a modern man child:

• He fails to and doesn’t like to take responsibility for his life
• He never owns up to his mistakes – It’s always someone else’s fault
• He lacks emotional intelligence & doesn’t know how to relate with others
• He suffers from the Peter Pan Syndrome – He doesn’t do ‘Adult’

He hates his family, he emotionally stunted, he has no ability to connect with others. He is a man-child. Now people who like this film will say “He is growing and maturing, that is part of the story”. I’m not buying it, because there is no growth outside of some expository dialogue at the end, we don’t see growth. The Batman is a man-child because he is written by the man-children of Hollywood. 

 The Cast

Robert Pattinson is fine. He isn’t great, he isn’t bad. A bit wooden, and I couldn’t help but to think of Tobey Maguire doing his emo impression in Spider-Man 3. One of the key’s to playing this part is the separation of The Bat from Bruce Wayne. Pattinson is one gear the entire film and it gets kinda old after a while. He brings 0.0 charisma to the role, which is essential. Zoë Kravitz was actually very good as Selina Kyle. She brought much needed personality to the interaction between her and Pattinson. Jeffrey Wright tough guy act was laughable as he was trying to make his voice deeper, definitely sounded like a guy pretending. John Turturro has always been a high energy guy in the films I have seen him in, but this he was understated and I enjoyed his take on Falcone. Paul Dano definitely captures what Hollywood thinks of most white people and his outfit looks like garbage. They tired to do to him what The Dark Knight did to the joker, and while he tries, it doesn’t work. I like Colin Farrell, and after seeing the film I didn’t mind his take on The Penguin. 

What Really Hurt The Film

The film starts out with Riddler stalking the mayor. What bothered me was the playing of Ave Maria in the background. WHICH THEN TURNED INTO HIS THEME FOR THE FILM. AVA MARIA IS NOT A THEME FOR A VILLAIN. He even ends up singing it at one point which almost made me walk out of the theater. Do not insult the Holy Mother by using her in your film. I don’t care about the reason he sings it, there are plenty of chants and songs that could have been used, but the choice to use our Holy Mother’s song as a theme for a Batman villain is just in poor taste. 

Also I hope you like The Batman theme cause they are gonna pound that song into your head. 

Highs & Lows

Highs: Great camera work, excellent atmosphere. 

Lows: Man-child Batman, inappropriate use of Ava Maria & the continued loss of the Knight from “The Dark Knight”

Overall

Despite some beautiful camera work and some ok performances, The Batman continues to the perversion of The Dark Knight

Score: 2 1/2 out of 4