Before settling down in my cinema seat to watch this film, I had three major reservations. First, at three hours long I had to wonder had the director fallen asleep in the editing room. Secondly, I wondered did the Robert Pattinson of the TWILIGHT days have the gravitas to pull off playing Batman. And thirdly, the Batman DC franchise has been so exhausted (not least by the Dark Knight trilogy) and is currently so saturated that it would take a true epic to rise above them.
I needn’t have worried. Despite it’s three hours the plot is knotty and intricate and well sustained and supported, so you barely feel the time passing. Robert Pattinson has filled out some and fulfils the neo-noirish taciturn super-hero sensibilities of the film with considerable aplomb. And, yes, the duel of puzzle-wits between Batman and The Riddler, together with some magnificent set piece action staging,
all serve to rise the film above the waves of its competitors. No risk of the film itself drowning beneath the waves, unlike the residents of Gotham City.
If I have one reservation it is in the growth arc between Batman and his romantic foil. Apart from a couple of forced semi-clinches, always at moments of high peril when these things are least likely to happen (and so in my view pull us out of the narrative), there is little in the film text to explore the developing romance, which in turn might further serve to highlight the lonesome vigil of Batman’s life. The final scene (I won’t spoil it) is highly emotive, but it could have been oh so much more so had the romance arc been fully developed. I suppose, however, you can’t have your cake and eat it. Had Matt Reeves added another twenty minutes onto the film for that purpose it might have been necessary to impose an Interval for a tactical powdering of the nose.
It’s a great movie. And for a super review of it (much better than I could do) check out Empireonline: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/the-batman/
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