You got a lot of cats

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2022

#15 :  The Batman

DC may still have some work to do in terms of figuring out its extended universe (your move, James Gunn) but appointing Matt Reeves to bring a new Batman to life in his own cinematic corner proved to be a great move. He somehow finds a fresh way into the well-trodden path of Bruce Wayne, mostly ditching the origin story to chronicle a hero finding his feet, while still stumbling along the way. 

Skipping over Decision To Leave (#18 here, #10 in The Guardian), The Woman King (#17/#44) and RRR (#16/#7), this is another one that's on my list to watch, but quite when I'd have got round to finding the required three hours isn't clear.  I know it was somewhat divisive with the audience - my eldest went to watch it at the cinema and was quite bored, but I'm hoping I'll quite enjoy it.

Hmmm, I quite enjoyed it in places, but the first thing to say that it is too long - quite how anyone didn't think to edit it down is beyond me.  However, it looks very fine throughout and it looks very Gotham - a lot of the shots have been very carefully and artfully composed.  It feels like a video game in a lot of places - a very well done video game with some very nice action shots.  And it's well acted and the plot manages to be different enough from previous Batman films to keep you a least slightly intrigued as to how it's going to end.  However, can you guess there's a "but" (or two) coming?!?

Well...

The film just has no heart, it takes itself far too seriously, it has no characters I felt the need to root for (yes, Batman is in peril at times, but you know perfectly well he's not really!), everyone speaks in ridiculously low growls all the time for no obvious reason and some elements of the plot are absolutely ridiculous.  Which is QUITE the list of complaints now, isn't it?  

All of which are only made worse by the lengthy running time - but I'd also have to say that, surprisingly, at no point did I feel like giving up on it because I wanted to see how it ended.  However, it then served up a ridiculously low-key ending - I was totally left thinking "was that it?!?".   So the whole thing for me was a victory for style over content - and I'm quite surprised how close it comes to getting away with it.  I think this is because if looks so good that I feel if I didn't have to think about it to write it up I'd have come away thinking "yeah, that was alright" - which is a slightly odd turn of events!

It is undoubtedly well acted - Robert Pattinson is good as The Batman (although possibly a little too brooding) - he spends remarkably little time being Bruce Wayne and he also wears an awful lot of eye-liner at times.  He also looks quite like Adam West with his mask on, which I wasn't expecting.  Paul Dano as The Riddler is a very unsettling villain and Colin Farrell is also excellent as the The Penguin - and almost completely unrecognisable, which does make you wonder why they cast him.  The film, for me, suffered from too many characters - I struggled to understand who everyone was and whether I should care about them but you can't deny the quality of actors involved - Zoe Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, John Turturro and Peter Sarsgaard all have pretty chunky roles.  There are also some well known actors I totally wasn't expecting to see - Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks), Con O'Neill (Happy Valley, Chernobyl, Our Flag Means Death), Sandra Dickinson and Barry Keoghan all pop up unexpectedly.

An easy, but not unreasonable, comparison to make here is Joker (which drops the definite article which this film picks up) - you can't help but feel that someone was told "make it dark - nope, darker than that" and they've certainly taken that advice to heart.  Although it's quite interesting because whilst I think Joker is a "better" film, it's very lacking in enjoyment so I much preferred watching this one.

All of which suggests I have slightly conflicting views on this film and I'd struggle to argue with that - it has a lot to recommend it and I'd certainly say it's worth watching (and I'm glad I did so).  But it's far too long, doesn't end satisfactorily and is ultimately all a bit soulless, which did leave me feeling a bit deflated.  I imagine I'll still watch the next one though...

#19 - A diverting couple of hours
#14 - A lot to like, but more to dislike