THE BATMAN Review — Try to Get an Aisle Seat
Lisa Johnson Mandell’s The Batman review says the film hangs heavy and dark on the screen for three long, lugubrious hours, which is about two too many.
Do you ever wonder why anyone lives in Gotham? It seems like it’s always night there, the streets are gritty and full of graffiti , urban blight prevails, everyone’s angry, and there are all sorts of strangely dressed manic villains skulking about. I mean, why not move to Poughkeepsie?
This is really neither here nor there, it’s just one of about 5,000 places my mind wandered during the bombastic, three-hour slog known as The Batman. The sheer hubris of co-writer/director Matt Reeves (Let Me In, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) burdening (or should I say bludgeoning?) us with a two hour and 56 minute movie about a character and story we’ve already seen ad nauseam on the big screen, is staggering.
Not that The Batman doesn’t have its moments. It’s just that it only has about 90 of them. I actually liked Robert Pattinson’s smoldering broody routine (the first 20 times I saw it), and Jeffrey Wright as Lt. James Gordon is just about perfect. Colin Farrell as the Penguin and Peter Sarsgaard as the District Attorney literally disappear in their roles, and obviously relish doing it. And Zoë Kravitz makes Cat Woman completely her own.
Then Paul Dano as the Riddler, brilliantly provides us with the film’s few moments of levity and mirth, although they’re maniacal and homicidal.
That leaves us with an unoriginal tale of the Riddler and other bitter bros trying to expose “the truth” about Bruce Wayne, his parents and other Gotham elites, and Batman attempting to prevent collateral damage and protect his identity while sulking and staving off bad guys.
I’ll admit I’m always intrigued by the way Batman fights crime without super powers, using nothing but good old American vigilante knowhow and some shrewd tech. In addition, the operatic scenes toward the end are works of cinematic art.
But are there enough of those moments to save this dark, gloomy and gruesome gamble? I’ll let you know when I wake up.
Rated PG-13
3 Hours 56 Minutes
If this The Batman review makes you want to take wing and fly out to the cineplex, get times and tickets at Fandango.com.
Lisa Johnson Mandell’s The Batman review says the film hangs heavy and dark on the screen for three long, lugubrious hours, which is about two too many.
Ths is why you never let women review a batman movie smh
I walked out of the movie at an hour in, I’ve seen every Batman movie in theater excluding the original 80s batman. The only other movie I’ve walked out of in my life was Tom Green’s steaming trash pile of a movie Stealing Harvard. This is objectively a bad movie and you should feel bad for liking it. Watching paint dry has a more interesting story and occurs in significantly less time.