Category: superhero movies

The Batman (review)

February 28th, 2022

Critic’s rating: ★★★ 1/2
(176 minutes; PG-13)

Would someone please turn up the lights? That was my first, somewhat frustrated response to Matt Reeves‘ much anticipated, much hyped “The Batman,” with former teen idol Robert Pattinson occupying the role played by approximately 150 stars and others — most recently including Ben Affleck — in movies and television over the decades.

Visually, the latest version of the Caped Crusader tale inspired by the beloved DC Comics series, is far, far darker than any of its predecessors. In fact, it’s gloomier than any recent film — of any genre — that comes to mind. Every scene is shot at night or at dusk, or made to look that way, and every interior sequence is murky and extremely underlit. At some of these crime scenes and cop shops, you could cut through the darkness with a bloody knife. The overall look of contemporary New York City, er, Gotham, is sort of 2022 by way of the bad old days of the gritty, crime-laden terrain of ’70s NYC. Everything is drenched in darkness, as if we were permanently trapped in the darkest recesses of the Bat cave. Did the Gotham City cops suddenly stop paying the light bills? Did the sun go on vacation?

The Batman, who carries that “the” around like an appendage meant to convey untold depths of mystery and intrigue, telegraphs what’s to come with some of the first words he delivers. “Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal,” he says via voiceover, in the kind of raspy delivery that has become de rigeur for contemporary Bat flicks.

Unlike some of his cheerier, funnier, complex predecessors in the Bat costume, Pattinson’s guy is more depressive Gloomy Gus than the split personality man of yore, a dapper billionaire playboy by day and heroic crime stopper by night who likes to lob occasional comic quips. In this film, I could count the lighthearted lines on a finger or two. By now, the campy TV series starring Adam West is nearly 60 years in the rearview mirror, and perhaps it’s even despised by some contemporary Bat fans.

Reeves’ vision, spiritually speaking, is as dark as cinematographer Greig Fraser’s murky if sometimes hypnotic visuals. Philosophically, it’s not as different from Chris Nolan‘s superior Dark Knight trilogy or other recent versions of the story as some might have you believe: Reeves (the last two “Planet of the Apes” movies, vampire shocker remake “Let Me In,” “Cloverfield”) and co-screenwriter Peter Craig (“The Unforgivable,” the forthcoming “Top Gun: Maverick”) simply cranks the nihilism to its logical conclusion.

Emo Batman — raccoon eyeliner, resting dour face, low-energy vibe except when he’s fighting — doesn’t appear to have much to live for, aside from ramping up his plans for retribution against the forces threatening to destroy his once-fair city. He calls himself “Vengeance,” after all. Even his dalliances with a sexy new Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), who has her claws deep in the Gotham underworld (or is it the other way around?) don’t seem to lift his spirits much, although her bright-eyed charisma helps provide a much-needed lightening of the mood. The inclusion of Nirvana’s spooky, angst-filled “Something in the Way” on the soundtrack is no accident.

What does feel a bit twisty this time out? “The Batman” is on most counts a particularly gritty noir thriller — think “Zodiac” or “7even” — that just happens to have at its center an ace crime-solving sleuth who enjoys playing dress up in a leather costume. And nobody appreciates Batman’s investigative expertise quite as much as does doggedly determined police Lt. James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright).

The cop and the cowled one are hot on the trail of those behind the murders of some of the most prominent citizens of a city that has been ruled by graft and corruption for so long that it will take a masked superhero to straighten things out. Gangs of thugs routinely rule the streets, as demonstrated during an early sequence featuring a group of such criminals targeting a bookish man of Asian descent in the subway, referencing recent such real-life attacks in NYC and elsewhere.

Sorry, fanboys and fangirls, but Pattinson’s Grim-Gus Batman, certifiably not much fun at parties — he’d much rather Netflix and brood — appears to be located somewhere around Meh on the spectrum of Batman portrayals on the big screen. That’s no slap at Pattinson, as I thought he gave a picture-perfect performance in the Safdie Brothers’ underappreciated 2017 thriller “Good Time,” among other recent films. It’s the downbeat script, not the actor.

The actual baddies in Reeves’ movie are considerably more provocative than the main attraction, and are brought to life by some galvanizing, genuinely memorable and maybe even subversive performances, some of which clearly point to even larger presences in coming Reeves-helmed Bat pics. As The Riddler, Paul Dano is frighteningly out of his gourd, a psycho meanie with a duct-tape fetish, while Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as powerful, tough-guy crime operative the Penguin (his trademark cigar, sadly, is MIA) and his mobster boss is played by the great John Turturro, who practically cackles in evil delight. All three light up the screen.

“The Batman” suffers a bit from its nearly three-hour running time. It feels overlong, and burdened with too many endings. Still, there are solid suspense, chills, thrills and a few surprises to be had in the course of seeing some nasty criminals get their comeuppance. The dynamic duo — Batman and Gordon — ultimately promise to give Gotham a shot at a brighter, or at least less dim, future, a chance to again be more than a place that’s “eating itself,” as Batman says of the city’s problems.

And any criticisms are probably moot — superhero movies are critic proof, don’t you know? — in the context of what’s sure to be massive box-office returns, a byproduct of a loyal and enthusiastic built-in audience for comic book and superhero movies and an expected post-Covid surge in moviegoing. Burning Bat questions: What’s in store for the sequel? Will Reeves make it a trilogy? Stay tuned: Different time, same Bat channel.

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“The Dark Knight Rises”: Stunning Closing Chapter in Chris Nolan’s “Batman” Trilogy (review)

July 19th, 2012

I’ve just been aggressively entertained by Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that I feel as if I’ve been beaten into submission — and a state of wide-eyed wonder and sheer audiovisual hangover — by a 165-minute film long on masterful direction of stunning set pieces. It’s also packed with variously heroic, scary and funny/sexy performances, and guided by a storyline that can, and will, be read as supporting multiple, conflicting political agendas.

Regarding that last point: Does the Gotham City anarchy in the film result from boiling-over class warfare driven by a leader who inflames the public with power-to-the-people rhetoric while secretly planning to benefit from the chaos? Or is it a result of long-festering institutional rot, lorded over and covered up by the wealthy and powerful, who would do anything to preserve their social status? (Just for the record, the screwy idea that the villain Bane is a stand-in for Romney, and thus the film is a Lefty attack on conservatism, makes no sense in light of the actual movie).

Nolan, easily one of the greatest living American filmmakers (see: The Dark Knight, Inception, and my favorite, Memento), opens the best superhero movie since the last Batman flick with an exhilarating mid-air raid, one of several sequences shot with IMAX cameras for maximum eye-popping impact. A team of baddies led by the villainous Bane (Tom Hardy, also in Inception), drops from a huge transport plane to wreak havoc on a smaller plane below.

Astonishingly enough, the sequence largely was executed for real, with stunt men, in the air over Scotland, rather than simply being a product of artful CGI. And, yes, the extra effort pays off, in droves, setting the galloping pace for the film and introducing Bane, who, with an obtrusive mask over his face, is a bit reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter, and speaks in a sort of electronic rasp. “I’m necessary evil,” he declares at one point.

The film brims with similarly impressive large-scale sequences, including a massive cops-versus-criminals rumble, the bombing of a stadium during a pro football game, the near-simultaneous explosions of buildings and bridges all across Gotham City, and several breakneck chases involving various Bat vehicles, including one with enormously fat tires and another able to fly in the sky AND stop on a dime.

And yet, The Dark Knight Rises isn’t at all overwhelmed by the hardware and explosions, or overly indebted to those trappings. Rather, it’s the human element that makes the film, co-written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, far more compelling than your average comic-book movie; the others in the genre, in fact, come off as mere pretenders.

The director has elicited grade-A performances from his cast of returnees and newcomers, the former led by Christian Bale as an unusually vulnerable Bruce Wayne/Batman, retired from crime fighting and hiding from the public in the aftermath of the events of the last film. Not only did Wayne suffer the loss of his girlfriend, but the public believes that the late Harvey Dent (aka Two-Face) was a civic hero, murdered by “the Batman.” Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), who knows the truth of the matter, feels as if he must continue to prop up that lie, and Wayne has neither the energy or the inclination to set the record straight. “There’s nothing out there for me,” Wayne tells longstanding family friend and butler Alfred (Michael Caine), who also seems powerless to help his old pal.

The first-timers to the trilogy help give the grand finale the kind of lift it needed, particularly in the wake of the superb The Dark Knight. Anne Hathaway, she of the big eyes and big teeth, makes a suitably slinky, sarcastic Catwoman, torn between her natural thieving, cheating tendencies and wanting to do the right thing. Two more Inception vets round out the cast — Marion Cotillard as a particularly pretty member of the Wayne Industries board, and the always reliable and often surprising Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a capable cop and key Wayne ally. As the sympathetic conscience of the crew, Gordon-Levitt is a real standout, and maybe the film’s MVP.

Third films in any given series typically amount to disappointing dilutions. Then there’s The Dark Knight Rises, which closes the Nolan-directed Caped Crusader trilogy at a fever pitch. It’s the opposite of a letdown, as a highly gifted director applies his considerable skills to an unusually textured tale of a familiar pop-culture hero. All that and the threat of nuclear destruction, too. Color me pleasantly shocked.

Category: superhero movies

The Batman (review)

“The Dark Knight Rises”: Stunning Closing Chapter in Chris Nolan’s “Batman” Trilogy (review)