Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Age Rating: PG-13

Only in theaters

Whenever a new Batman movie comes out it’s hard for a viewer to not compare it to the Dark Knight, which at the very least is considered the best Batman movie ever by the majority of people, and to some, the pinnacle of all superhero movies. They are very different movies. 

From the opening scene, viewers get the feeling that this is going to be a darker Batman than what the cinematic audience is used to. Instantly getting shots of a gloomy, rainy Gotham with gangs of criminals stopping their crimes at the thought of Batman showing up. This movie does a great job at building up Gotham and making it feel like this awful place to live, with criminals making videos as they steal, destroy, and even murder within the first 20 minutes of the movie.  You will have questions about why would anyone want to live there. In every other scene, it seems Gotham just gets grimmer. They never miss the chance to drive this concept home that Gotham is awful, even having Batman questioning if what he is doing will change anything. 

Now when Robert Pattinson was announced as Batman a lot of questions were raised about how well he could play this character. And for the most part, I think he does a good job with his version of Batman. Obviously, he has moments where all you see is the vampire from twilight, mainly showing up when he was trying to strike fear in people by staring. I couldn’t help but laugh thinking about his other roles, but overall he delivers a good Batman. His performance as Bruce Wayne on the other hand left a lot to be desired. You don’t feel any disconnect between the two characters. This is a very different Bruce Wayne from previous portrayals, and I think it could work in the future. But Pattinson just doesn’t get it done for me this time around. 

A big reason why this movie is so good is the performances of the other characters. Paul Dano has an excellent performance as the Riddler, taking a rather unthreatening villain and making him look like a psychopath. Also, Zoë Kravitz (Catwoman) and Jeffery Wright (James Gordon) helped make this movie what it is. Catwomen has a whole subplot in the movie with lots of twists having you forget about the mainline briefly before they connect seamlessly. While Gordon makes you feel the emotions of a regular person working a job in Gotham, and how everything is affecting them. The main issue with the characters is that the pacing in which some of these characters develop relationships is inconsistent. They seem very basic work buddies, but a few scenes later they are best friends with no connection on how we got here. 

In all honesty, the biggest flaw in this whole movie is the inconsistent pacing, landing it a three-hour run time when it seems like it could have been done in two hours and fifteen minutes.  Overall, The Batman is a good movie. I would recommend everyone to go and watch – it doesn’t let the three-hour runtime scare you away. The movie makes up for it with exquisite cinematography and wonderful performances from almost all of the actors involved.