Movie review - The Batman

The Batman ** (out of 5) (PG-13) On the upside, the conceptual bones of the script are solid, giving us The Batman’s (Robert Pattinson) first encounters with Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz) and The Riddler. The Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell) is just a second banana for mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) as yet another series of threats loom large in Gotham, with our eponymous hero serving as its last and greatest hope. Performances are mostly up to snuff for the franchise, aside from one glaring piece of overacting. You’ll know who I mean when you get to that scene. And probably be just as surprised.

The downside - there’s only about 90-100 minutes worth of plot stretched painfully over nearly three hours. The running time wouldn’t feel as tedious if director/co-writer Matt Reeves had sprung for some more lighting, and an less aggressive editor who wouldn’t chop several key action sequences into the point of incoherence. Everything happens at night, and mostly in dank industrial venues. Gotham’s apparently constant rainfall further blurs our view. Ardent gamers might be able to follow who is doing what to whom, but less-tuned senses may have a hard time keeping up. A long car chase is rendered so confusing that it makes every comparable sequence from other action flicks shine brighter.

And then there’s the sound. Anyone who can follow our hero’s raspy voice, and decipher all the lines mumbled by others - often further masked by loud background music - deserves the respect of audiologists everywhere. Maybe the details of dialogue don’t matter so much in an action flick, but I often felt frustrated wondering what I was missing.

Longtime readers of these reviews (if any there be) will know I have an admitted bias here. I grew up on the source comics for these adventures - mostly from DC. But ever since those characters became movie stars, the DC group have stuck with dark and gloomy dramas, compared to the Marvel line of descent, that doesn’t take itself so darned seriously. The first couple of Superman outings still contained some light moments... and sunshine. That all dissipated with Michael Keaton’s incarnation of Batman, and has trended to the dour side ever since. This is supposed to be escapism, people, not Kafka.

These caveats notwithstanding, this installment has a legit place in the cinematic World of The Bat, and more of these are inevitable. Whether to buy a ticket or wait for streaming, with its closed-caption and rewind options at hand, depends on your own assessment of how your sensory capabilities will stand up to this challenge.

(In theaters 3/4/22)