A few hours after the movie ended, it hit me (and I’m going to tell you so you don’t waste your time thinking about stupid things like this and can focus on this, er, splendid movie). Ready? Here it is—former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Can you picture that peculiar lopsided delivery with the slight lisp? Once you see it, you won’t be able to un-see it. You’re welcome. And, you know, since Gotham is loosely based on New York City, it would be kind of an amazing tribute from an actor playing Batman—whose mission is to clean up Manhattan—to mimic the mayor responsible for cleaning up Manhattan. But I’m fairly certain it didn’t go that deep.
What It Is
Director Matt Reeves’s “The Batman” is the first live-action solo Batman movie in 10 years. Ben Affleck’s Batman was always working with Wonder Woman, Superman, and so on. This one also has nothing to do with other recent DC Comics movies, so Aquaman doesn’t cameo here, either. It’s also not an origin story.It’s a slice of the Batman life a couple of years into his Bat-Signal-responding, crime-and-corruption-stomping, Gotham-City-streets-purging prime. Granted, there’s enough mentioning of the childhood trauma (mugging and murder of his parents) that drove the young trust-fund billionaire Bruce Wayne to dress up as a bat and compulsively help people in need so as to adequately inform anyone left in the universe who hasn’t seen a Bat movie.
What Happens
In this setting, “The Batman” basically focuses on a serial murder case. The serial killer is the classic Bat villain The Riddler (Paul Dano), who, instead of the lime-green, question-mark-infested unitard of the comic books, wears a dark olive drab, rubber-raincoat-and-duct-tape costume, a very DIY-type costume.We are now going through a Bat phase of realistic costumes—and realistic evil—ever since Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker.” Actually, since Heath Ledger’s Joker. Batman’s villains are being realistically rendered as originally more or less innocent children who, by dint of horrible circumstances, spiraled into maniacs and psychopaths.
Performances
Dano’s Riddler is not bad as an epic tantrum-throwing, soft boy-man similar to his role in “12 Years a Slave,” switching from singsong-y genius geek to apoplectic frothing insanity in a heartbeat. Joining the ranks of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Bob Hoskins as Brits who pull off impeccable New York accents is (Irish) Colin Farrell. Farrell, whose “fat” makeup rivals that of Jared Leto in “House of Gucci,” has such a blast playing the Penguin, as more of a mafioso than a supercreep, that it’s almost infectious.
Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) is a perfectly serviceable cop who assists Batman every step of the way. They convene and mutter in corners about clues every 10 minutes.
And Zoë Kravitz, daughter of rockstar Lenny Kravitz and stepdaughter of Aquaman’s Jason Momoa, is most likely hereby catapulted to superstardom as Catwoman: a motorcycle-riding, lock-picking, Taekwondo-kicking mini-thief who plays both sides of the law and smooches Batman a couple of times. They seem to have more fun racing motorcycles than kissing, though. John Turturro plays a mob boss as only Turturro can.
The Bat Performance
I submit that this is a goth Batman. I'd kept hearing “emo” bandied about as descriptive of Pattinson’s performance, but I mean, c’mon—does the man not live in Gotham? He’s a goth Batman. I had to go look up the difference between emo and goth:“Emo rock is associated with being emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angry. It is also associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide. Goths are associated with dressing all in black, being introverts, and preferring to be secluded.”
What'd I say? Goth Batman. OK, I’ll concede on the self-injury; this Batman’s Bat suit being, as mentioned, exceedingly low-tech as supersuit armor goes, results in a number of scars and bruises on the Bat bod that the camera lovingly pans.As bruised as Batman gets, the movie is low-action except for one car chase and a final act rescue sequence that seems out of place due to its high energy. Speaking of car chases—I highly recommend the new Batmobile. Now this is a Batmobile to covet. Not the 1960s campy original, or the riot-tank militaristic behemoth of the Christopher Nolan era—this is a muscle car to put all muscle cars to shame.
But back to Batman. Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is hardly the free-spending billionaire playboy of past Batman characters. Is he perhaps very thrift-minded? He’s able to afford so much of a higher tech, Rolls Royce-like batsuit, like Ironman, but seems to prefer using eyeliner pencil to camouflage his eyes. Goths also enjoy wearing lots of eyeliner.
Speaking of supersuits, I’m personally tired of the gritty, dark, dreary, low-tech, realistic trend in Batman movies. But since the franchise won’t be going away anytime soon, I‘d like to see—in the same way the Tampa Bay Buccaneers like to bring back the old 1970s “Creamsicle” football uniform every once in a while—I’d like to see the next Bat movie bring back the original light gray Bat suit with the blue underwear worn on top of the tights, blue cape, boots, gloves, black-on-yellow Bat insignia, and the yellow utility belt. Let’s see some actor try and animate that thing for a change.
“Furries are people who have an interest in anthropomorphic animals, or animals with human qualities. Many furries create their own animal character, known as a fursona, which functions as their avatar within furry communities.”
Oh, one last observation: He’s also so good at figuring out the Riddler’s riddles, you suspect him of having some Hobbit genes. He doesn’t even pause. This Batman knows riddles.
All in all, this is definitely the dingiest, dankest, most scabrous of the Bat stories: part serial killer murder mystery, part cautionary tale about institutional sludge and rot, with a goth-emo-furry-hobbit in the lead. Bat Baggins. Look for the Rudy Giuliani lisp. It’s not a bad Bat movie, but it’s definitely a too-long Bat movie.
