The Batman (2022)

 

Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022) works so well because it cares enormously about story and not just action.

The film's nearly 3-hour length is evidence of Reeves' commitment to restoring the original comic series' "Detective" focus and noir atmospherics. It delivers riveting procedural explication, gangster-land shoot ups, and several spectacular set pieces, including a brilliant auto chase between Batman and the Penguin.

The villains (Paul Dano's Riddler, John Turturro's crime boss and fixer, and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell, the aforementioned Penguin, mainly) are not the cartoonish fiends from the TV series or earlier stabs at this material, but mad connivers, schemers and scoundrels, roving bands of punks, mobsters, bad cops and worse politicians, all preying on Gotham City (New York City's proxy) and its residents.

Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne / The Batman may be the darkest and most dyspeptic put on film, but his performance works because the city he's trying to save, if not renew, is in perpetual darkness, so filthy the rain that's constantly falling will never clean it. His dour interior matches the depressive exterior world but he seems committed to push through both.

His partners in the crusade are one of the few good cops in the city, Lt. Gordon, played by Jeffrey Wright, who never disappoints, and a mysterious, high-kicking Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), who is conducting her own campaign against corruption. While supporting players, they add levels of humanity and humanness to what is ostensibly a crime-fighting flick.

The film's climax, set on the day after the mayoral election in Gotham City, features a group of masked vigilante's radicalized over the internet by Dano's Riddler. It's a masterful conclusion that is also unsettling, in light of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.