By Emily-Rose Toohey
On 3 March, director Matt Reeves’ epic The Batman was released in cinemas.
The film stars Robert Pattinson in the titular role, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler, and Colin Farrell as the Penguin.
It follows Bruce Wayne’s vigilante alias in his second year, as the villain Riddler goes on a killing spree of Gotham City’s most corrupt people in power.
From Michael Keaton, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck, movie viewers have seen many different iterations of the character on screen, but none feel as intimidating as the Batman Pattinson plays.
Unlike its predecessors, this Batman film feels more grounded in reality and as a result, Batman himself is far more terrifying and strange than viewers are used to.
The film itself is an almost three hour dark, dramatic, brooding crime noir set in the always gloomy, unappealing Gotham City.
Audiences only see small glimpses of the Bruce Wayne side of Batman as the story is very crime and action focused.
As seems to be the post-Twilight films curse, Pattinson’s initial casting raised more than a few eyebrows, similar to the casting of now Oscar nominated Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana.
Despite Pattinson’s long resume of successful independent movies after his role as Edward Cullen, many average movie goes just couldn’t see him playing the iconic comic book character.
But Pattinson was perfect in the role.
From his scary demeanour to his practised, effective Batman voice, he nailed the ‘emo’ Batman the film was looking for.
Alongside Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz is a great Catwoman, and it could be argued that she is the true movie star of the film.
She gets the cool one-liners, dramatic entrances, and is the most nuanced character in terms of depth.
Another standout was Michael Giacchino’s wildly dramatic score, which felt like a character itself.
However, strangely enough, parts of the score sounded eerily similar to Darth Vader’s theme in Star Wars which was slightly distracting.
Nonetheless, the films owns its intentional drama and runs with it (there were a few instances where the dramatics became laughable though).
Greig Fraser’s cinematography continues to be a wonder, especially coming off of his Oscar nominated work in Dune: Part One (2021).
Overall, in the meme-ified words of Martin Scorsese, ‘this is cinema’.
Because that’s exactly what The Batman movie feels like: a big budget blockbuster truly committing to the craft of movie-making.
Go see it in cinemas while it lasts (ideally in a massive V-Max theatre) – you won’t want to miss it.
