The Batman is a standalone movie where Batman is starting to get into the swing of things to figure out what he needs to be for Gotham. Gotham is the best part of this movie. Of course, throughout all Batman media, everyone knows Gotham has a lot of crime and is not a good place to live, but this is the first Batman movie that doesn’t pull punches in showing you just how miserable and hopeless that city is. It comes to the point where Batman questions if what he is doing will ever yield results, and if it might just be a lost cause. 

It’s a really interesting detail because the majority of this movie, which is almost three hours, takes place at night. Most of the time, Robert Pattinson is Batman. You don’t see a ton of Bruce Wayne. So you’re seeing him actively trying to make Gotham a better place and failing at every turn to have a positive effect. In fact, things are only getting worse with him there. Despite him having a profound effect on the criminals themselves, he’s still new to being a vigilante, but in the short time he’s been operating, he has become a fear incarnate. 

The movie does a great job of showing you how scary Batman can be, but that’s where my first complaint rolls in. Batman is great and Robert Pattinson does a great job as Batman, but there’s no connection between Batman and Bruce Wayne. They’re the same character in this movie. When he takes off the mask and becomes Bruce Wayne, he is still just as scary as Batman. Whereas in all the other Batman movies, Bruce Wayne puts on a facade and he’s completely different when he’s out of uniform. In this movie, Pattinson is still just sad and depressing even when he’s not being Batman. There’s just no difference between Batman and Bruce Wayne in this movie. Pattinson as Batman was fantastic, but as Bruce Wayne, it didn’t hit as hard as it needed to. 

Every other character was fantastic. Alfred wasn’t in the movie a ton, but when he was, I thought he did a great job commanding the scenes. The real standout to me was the Riddler. The Riddler is a character who I always found to be goofy and not very intimidating, but in this movie, he was like Jigsaw. He was a criminal mastermind who set up all kinds of wildly elaborate puzzles as well as what seemed like actual Saw traps. I’m shocked that the movie is PG-13 because it feels like it should be R-rated. From the very first mystery that Batman has to solve, it’s super intense. 

The movie does a great job of giving you a detective mystery as well as some great superhero action. Batman is still every bit as cool in this movie as he always has been. Robert Pattinson does a great job when he’s solving crimes and defeating criminals, and he’s very smart too. There’s never a scene in this movie where I feel like Batman is lame, and the same goes for the Riddler. There’s so much to it and it’s more than just the Riddler. 

This brings me to my next complaint. When Batman is solving some of those mysteries, he completely throws the value of human life right out the window. At one point there’s a giant car chase scene, and the chase is fantastic. It was well shot, but what happens in this chase scene is that Batman is so fixated on catching the guy he’s chasing, he completely disregards all of the lives around him that are lost. I would add a bit more about this scene, but it’s a minor spoiler. He just didn’t need to chase him, and all of those lives didn’t need to be lost in his pursuit. He could’ve just come back at a different time. 

Overall I did like the movie. I thought three hours was going to be way too long, but it was a great runtime for everything they captured. It told a fantastic story and was a good coming-of-age for Batman. There were so many incredible scenes in this movie and it was just super well-shot.