THE Caped Crusader versus The Riddler in Matt Reeves’ gritty, neo-noir motion picture returns to Gotham City.
Simply titled ‘The Batman’ (2022), the film introduces Robert Pattinson as the legendary vigilante and establishes its brooding, angsty tone with a grim opening sequence set to Nirvana at the band’s most tormented.
Reeves’ Gotham, like its cinematic predecessors, is still a veritable cesspool.
Run by mobs and rife with crooked cops, corrupt officials and the kind of crime wave that has The Bat Signal beamed into the sky just about every night, Gotham is the perfect place for Bruce Wayne to exact his professed vengeance.
We find Batman striking fear into the hearts of the city’s scum before the mayor is murdered and the guy who did it leaves him a note.
Enter Paul Dano’s chilling Riddler, whose cryptic killing spree dispatches the city’s shady pillars of society while taunting Batman a la Zodiac Killer.
A detective film as much as it is a Batman picture, Reeves’ take casts Bruce/Batman in a relatively new light. Still tortured, reclusive and mourning the murder of his parents, Bruce Wayne also possesses keen powers of deduction which he employs alongside Jeffrey Wright’s lieutenant Jim Gordon.
In the duo’s deep dive into the city’s underbelly, Batman meets Zoë Kravitz’ badass Selina Kyle/Catwoman, who is searching for her missing roommate and uses her particular set of skills to infiltrate the den of corruption that is the Iceberg Lounge, haunt of cheating mayors, druggie district attorneys and owned by The Penguin, an unrecognisable Colin Farrell.
Clocking in at almost three hours, ‘The Batman’ moves relatively slowly as music by Michael Giacchino peters and swells below the action elevated by Greig Fraser’s dim but dazzling cinematography.
Though much more could have been said about the brooding Bruce Wayne, admittedly conceived via Kurt Cobain, ‘The Batman’ whets the palate for the Pattinson era in the star among stars’ compelling characterisation and in its realism and relatability.
‘The Batman’ is a superhero film about the world we know.
One in which money meant for the most vulnerable is misappropriated, anti-Asian violence is on the rise, crime creeps closer each night, women are often collateral damage, white privileged men still hold most of the world’s power, warped internet trolls can inspire violent real-life uprisings, poverty is one missed paycheck away, mental illness is stigmatised, and the people we have elected to govern and safeguard are on the take . . . or worse.
Want to win a movie ticket to see ‘The Batman’ (2022) or a movie of your choice at Ster-Kinekor? Simply answer the following question: Who plays Selina Kyle?
Send your full name, cellphone number and your answer to weekender@namibian.com.na.
– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com
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