I’m not a fan of movies inspired by comics. The Marvel universe and the other parallel imaginary universes do not overwhelm or concern me. I use to judge movies as they are, and I believe that any cinematic genre provides opportunities to tell interesting stories, build characters that one can identify with or that one can energetically dislike, can raise or touch on universal human themes and, most importantly, can provide quality entertainment. That’s right, this happened to me less often with comics-inspired movies. I can count on the fingers of one hand the ones I remember with pleasure, and I still have one finger left free: Todd Philips’ ‘Joker’ before any other, the original ‘Superman’, ‘Spider-man’ edition 2002 and ‘The Dark Knight’. ‘The Batman‘ (2022) directed by Matt Reeves is a gloomy and complicated version of the complex intrigues of the metropolis of Gotham, but it fails to complete my gallery of exceptions and make the last finger useful.
I’m not even sure that Batman in the version proposed by this movie is a superhero. The only time in the movie when he flies, he does it only as a last resort, after obvious hesitations, and the aerial promenade ends almost catastrophically, with an emergency landing. His identity is known to almost everyone, of course to the audience, but as long as he plays his role, he doesn’t take off his mask even when he kisses, that’s how it goes in comics. His nemesis is The Riddler, a vigilante who uses serial killer methods, and for a long time we are in a situation of ambiguity, because from a moral point of view at least, the two seem to be on the same side of Good (or Evil) . The script proposes a complicated detective intrigue, sprinkled with riddles that the assassin leaves at the scenes of his crimes, addressed especially to Batman. Catwoman also shows up, with a parallel personal story of her own. The two, along with Police Commissioner Gordon, will fight alone against a corrupt system complicit with the underground world of crime.
As many similar movies, ‘The Batman‘ deserves praise for the visual concept. We are in a dark universe, where it seems to rain almost permanently, excepting when the dams break and the city is completely flooded. At no time do we have a feeling of warmth or light, more than 95% of the action takes place at night and the darkness dominates, figuratively and literally. The story is too long. Movies that last more than two hours need good justification for their duration, that doesn’t exist here, and this film lasts almost three hours. The detective action is not interesting enough, the revelations of the characters behind the masks do not bring extraordinary or unexpected surprises, and the successive passes through cinematic genres (police intrigue, vengeance, catastrophe) is done without elegance. The romantic story is fragile to the point of non-existence. Robert Pattinson, whom I have appreciated a lot in other movies, fails to bring the character behind the mask to life, while Zoë Kravitz fails to make us forget other famous actresses who wore the Catwoman’s costume. A more interesting role, in the category of ‘actors-made-up-beyond-recognition’, is played by Colin Farrell. Delicious but too little. ‘The Batman‘ is one of those movies that I can only recommend to fans of comics-inspired movies and especially to those who love the Batman series and do not want to lose any production in the collection.