Review - The Batman 2022

 

The Batman: Directed by Matt Reeves. With Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell.

Disclaimer:  This review contains spoilers. I am not the kind of Batman fan that collects, watches or reads everything Batman related. I’m a Batman fan because the series is part of my childhood just as it is for many people so I created a list with my favourite Batman movies. The Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix is out of the list because I consider it as a Joker movie alone. I also left out of the list, the 1989 animated series and the Batman video games such as the: Batman: Arkham Asylum – 2009, Batman: Arkham City – 2011, Batman: Arkham Origins – 2013, Batman: Arkham Knight – 2015 and Batman: The Telltale Series, which in my opinion was superior than the 2022 movie itself.

1. The Dark Knight 2008
2. The Dark Knight Rises 2012
3. Batman 1989
4. Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice
5. Batman Begins 2005
6. Batman Returns 1992
7. Justice League 2017
8. The Lego Batman movie 2017
9. The Batman 2022
10. Batman Forever 1995
11. Batman & Robin 1997

Obs: This list is based only on films that I have watched. I Included the Justice League (2017) because I believe Batman played a big role in it, he had the responsibility to gather/unite the heroes and so on.

Intro: the intro of Batman reminded me of the HITMAN video games. The spectator sees

Batman's POV while he is looking through some goggles, he spies/investigates the

mayor and some “catholic nuns”. The audience also hears the ‘Ave Maria’ song playing,

in this case Batman investigates a victim while in the Hitman video games the agent 47

is an agent who spies his enemies before fulling the trigger or acting on a plan to get close to them.

• Audio/Visual Similarities with Hitman Video Game Franchise.

In my opinion, the similarities in the Batman 2022 intro scene compared to the Hitman videogames are so evident that they reminded me of the video game as soon as I saw it. The ‘Ave Maria’ song, for instance, is almost a trademark of the Hitman series considering the frequency that the song is played in the video games series.

Now, I don’t know if that was done intentionally or unintentionally, perhaps it does not matter either, but I still think that the music used for the intro could be more original and the scene not being so similar to the game. The other music used in the rest of the film is ok but nothing that would give the shivers.

• The Cinematography of the film.

I know a lot of people will hate me for saying this, but I have to be honest and confess that

I did not like what Greig Fraser did with the cinematography of Batman 2022. Don’t get me

wrong, he is an excellent cinematographer and I personally liked to see the cinematography

of LION (2016) and other films he worked on. Anyway, what bothered me with the visuals of

this Batman movie was the over use of very shallow depth of field, I don’t care about the

camera used (Arri Alexa LF) or the lenses choice being: Arri DNA, Cooke or

Panavision Anamorphics, Angenieux zooms or Canon Cine-Servos, what matters to me

the most, is not the tools but how they are used. For me there are times to

blow the background and isolate the subject, but when it is overused it becomes disturbing

to my eyes. What is the point of choosing the right and beautiful locations if you're gonna

blow the background and people won’t be able see what is behind? For me,

there is nothing wrong with the locations (mainly in New York) but the artistic design and visuals

of this film did not satisfy.

• Too noir-ish (very few scenes during the day).

Another thing that became cheesy to me was the overuse of dark scenes, sometimes too dark to my taste. I know Batman movies are dark, in fact Batman claimed, in a scene, to be the “Shadows” himself. I respect Reeves' desire to make Batman 2022 a noir-ish film, but come on! In three hours of film there are just two or three scenes shot during the day!? Look what Nolan did with the Dark Knight Rises, perhaps there are too many scenes shot during the day, I don't see that as an issue! just because we are talking about a Batman movie, it does not mean that almost the whole film needs to be shot in the dark…in this aspect, the Dark knight Rises proved to be a much more convincing Batman movie to me.

• Too much rain.

Man this film rains! It rains more than Brazil during the summer period. I completely understand

why the rain! The reflections of the lights on the water look beautiful on camera, but come on!

This is another thing that is unnecessarily overused in this film.

• Relationship between Batman and Cat-woman (she was not wild enough…).

It is not new that Batman has a crush for the cat-woman! I've seen this happen in films,

cartoons and video games before, but he was so passionate about her that to me that

it became too much of a weakness. We are talking about Batman here, not a Twilight character!

for a moment Batman became so weak and human that I almost forgot I was watching a

Batman movie.

• The Penguin character.

More weak than Batman was the penguin character, he reminded more of an enemy in a

gangster movie than penguin itself. What concrete danger he offered to Batman?

Don't tell me his armed henchmen, there was a scene that made me lough, when the ‘’naked’’

Bruce Wayne entered the Club, sneaked throw the security, the dumb twins guys,

and went straight to penguin to get things sorted… Anyway I know that Penguin was not the

main enemy of Batman in this film but still, I was expecting more out of the penguin character.

The more that did not happen, because he was so easily defeated and ''tied'' after the

car scene/accident, that made me give up on the hopes of him becoming a real enemy.

• Script Weaknesses

In the Nolan trilogy for instance the films were more immersive because they brought higher levels of conflict to the protagonist. Batman had real challenges, struggles, fears, that made me wonder if he was really going to succeed, or how he was going to succeed. For example the fight with the league of shadows, leader Henri Ducard, in the train (Batman Begins), the intense mister to where the joker placed the bomb in the (Dark Night), whether or not Bruce would escape in the prisoner’s cave (Dark Night Rises) among other examples.

The main weakness of the script to me was the: ''solution'' for the resolution (Riddler’s arrest), and I think I am being generous in saying: Solution, because the Riddler gave in himself (in the coffee shop) and the arrest was made by the police not Batman. I know that all of that was part of his plan, but still, the Riddler was a quite distant threat, Batman did not have a single ''face-to-face'' or physical confrontation with him. To me, Batman watching his nemesis arrest from the spectator seat seems to be a missed opportunity to make an even stronger script.

When Riddler was arrested and Batman paid a visit to him, another glass door prevented Batman, with all his anger, from confronting him. I agree that the scene from the dark knight (when Batman interrogates the Joker inside the prison…), could not be repeated but at least give the opportunity for Batman to confront his biggest enemy face-to-face, for a single time, Mr Reeves!.

Another failure to the script, in my opinion, was the scene when a bomb is attached to a hostage. The car with the hostage is thrown inside the church, everyone in the church leaves but Batman has to save the man, Batman comes close to the man and easily solves the riddles by giving the answers to him. The bomb then explodes on Batman’s face, and nothing happens to him!? Not even a scratch? This kind of scene makes me wonder: is this film really a faithful representation to the comics? What happened to the Batman that used to be beaten by their enemies and the  writers did not bother to show his blood being spilled?

• Gordon became a villain too late.

• The film was too long and had multiple endings

• The Batman toys

• The Comics problem

• Long periods of talk

• Pseudo-realism problem

• The car chase scene

• Shooting scene (in a hallway of the building)

• The heavy Publicity

Conclusion...

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