Batman Film Review

Synopsis

After two years stalking the city streets as Batman ( Robert Pattinson ) and striking fear into the evil minds of criminals, Bruce Wayne is deep in the shadows of Gotham City. This lone vigilante has few trusted allies—Alfred Pennyworth ( Andy Serkis ), Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright)—among the city's corrupt network of officials and high-profile figures. And that has led him to become the only incarnation of revenge among his fellow citizens.

When an assassin targets Gotham's elite with a series of sadistic machinations, a trail of cryptic clues leads the World's Greatest Detective on an underworld investigation, where he crosses paths with the likes of Selina Kyle/aka Catwoman ( Zoë Kravitz ) . , Oswald Cobblepot/aka The Penguin ( Colin Farrell ), Carmine Falcone ( John Turturro ) and Edward Nashton/aka The Riddler ( Paul Dano ). As the evidence draws closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator's plans becomes clearer, Batman must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit, and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that have long ravaged Gotham City. . ( Warner Bros Pictures Spain )

The movie The Batman tries to be a thriller, with many direct references to part of David Fincher 's cinema , inserting elements of film noir, both classic and more modern. It attempts to become a horror film by inserting elements from James Wan 's Saw . One of the problems with these allusions is that they are more direct tributes than a use of the audiovisual language it celebrates. Reeves tries to build a Batman with Fincher 's character , as Nolan did with Michael Mann 's tone in The Dark Knight .

Reeves 's most self-conscious reference may have been to his own work, albeit very similar to Tomas Alfredson 's original , in Let the Right One In . In the adaptation of the Swedish film, the director managed to combine that drive for death, vampirism as a disease and a subtle criticism of power structures, following in the footsteps of Alfredson exhaustively. Here it even has the same director of photography, Greig Fraser , who manages to give both the city and the characters a cloudy look.

The Batman tries to walk the line betweennoir, reinvention as a superhero movie and the portrait of the serial killer, but it doesn't get to be any of them, rather, it ends up failing in each of those purposes.

Deconstruction of the myth

During the lengthy footage, the fall of the great public and social institutions is suggested. In a similar vein to Todd Phillips 's Joker or even Bong Jon-Hoo 's Parasites , he tries to wink at the malaise that a large part of the population is currently experiencing. A problem with this type of resource is that it connects easily at the time of its release, but can easily turn against you over time.

Many lines will be written in favor of this film for its supposed ideology, just as it has been done against the Nolan trilogy for the wrong reasons, not so much in substance as in the angle of approach regarding the type of analysis. We should not limit a study of ideology to the internal structure of a film, in the end creations that seem to be on opposite spectrums belong to a common superstructure. If we start from this precept, the analysis of the individual doctrine of each element loses its meaning completely.

It could have been more interesting to explore a certain attempt to demolish part of the myth that supports the figure of the vigilante. But once again, it is something that is slightly suggested, and not delved into at all. We would have had a narrative line that would bring new nuances to a figure in need of them on his journeys to the screen.

For years we have heard and read ad nauseam that this or that film was the definitive twilight western . That with her the genre had become something else, had transpired. It's the same thing that happens with superhero movies today, trying to be something more. The problem comes when that seems to be the primary objective, and ends up distorting the work itself. You can point to tropes of a genre without ending up disparaging it, because the final line is closer to parody than reflection. And in the case of The Batman , the serious and dark tone does not solve the structural problems that it carries.

Within the Batman mythology, in his split personality, the part of Bruce Wayne is more of an annoyance than an asset, especially since Frank Miller's reinvention. And in this new film exactly the same thing happens, even in an exaggerated way. Robert Pattinson with that aspect, weary of the world, does not contribute anything to the whole of the film. If you thought that Edward Cullen's of him was too hieratic, it's because you haven't seen his Bruce Wayne of him yet. That musical line that links him to Kurt Cobain is quite descriptive of what his figure expresses.

A reclusive, revenge-obsessed Bruce Wayne who falls short even by the standard of a Batman story. The complex task of convincing the public that this cowardly young man becomes a vigilante dragged by his most primal instincts. On a visual level, the part of Batman, with that raw violence and the rage in his fights, leaves some of the best moments. It is true that the action scenes suffer from a confusing staging. Still, Fraser's photography provides wonderful images even in the midst of so much rain and darkness.

Bruce and Batman's other partners are Alfred and Selina Kyle. Andy Serkis brings us a very poor Alfred, both in footage and in acting, he doesn't quite fit the role, limited to cooking and serving Wayne's requests. The impossible love of Selina, Zoë Kravitz , and Batman proves more impossible than ever. Very difficult to believe that there really is some kind of attraction between the two.

The detective part of Batman is somewhat more developed than in the previous film versions. The game with Jim Gordon, Jeffrey Wright , as investigators of the misdeeds of mobsters and villains does not give bad results.

Reeves brings us back to three of the bat's villains, the Penguin, Riddler, and Carmine Falcone. John Turturro elaborates a mobster who is one of the highlights of the film. Perhaps because in the face of excess footage, Falcone is given to us in small and accurate doses, despite his histrionic character.

Colin Farrell with an enormous job of prosthetic characterization, which involuntarily will remind the comic imitation of a Spanish character from the nineties, is the Penguin. The owner of a nightclub that at times seems to be the only one that enjoys among the entire gallery of characters.

Paul Dano plays Enigma, a villain that Reeves tries to redefine, moving him away from the classic figure of the vignettes. In certain sentences he recalls Rorschach, the character created by Alan Moore, and in his efforts to undress the institutions he brings back the cinematographic Joker of recent years. He has an underlying desire to use the infamous clown, but without actually taking the final step. Despite this, Riddler is Batman's best on-screen pairing, with one shared scene standing out.

Sometimes the general tone of a tape is pointed out as its possible problem. This is not the case with the movie The Batman , the seriousness and darkness may be excessive from a certain point of view, but they are not its main drawback. Reeves has already achieved remarkable results in his career with similar shades. The difficulties of a script that he does not know the way to follow, and of a montage that, far from dispelling doubts about it, brings even more confusion, weigh down the whole. Reeves suggests much more than he manages to execute, he does not finish showing in his visual narrative everything that he drops.