The Batman Review: Robert Pattinson Works Hard To Lend Batman An Intense, Pensive Quality

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard

Director: Matt Reeves

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Robert Pattinson works very hard to lend Batman an intense, pensive, scowl-under-the-cowl quality in Matt Reeves' meticulously crafted reboot of the DC Comics superhero franchise. Some of the lead actor's effort shows but thanks to the massive dollops of support that he receives from the screenplay (written by Reeves in collaboration with Peter Craig) that the end result isn't overly undermined.

Besides giving the superhero the cloak of an inveterate recluse over the Batsuit that he dons, the script grants him the additional role of a narrator. He stalks the streets of Gotham City to rid it of undesirable elements and then retreats to his tower to spar with Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis) and make notes of his impressions in a journal, which takes the form of a voiceover narration.

As The Batman unfolds and the vigilante grapples with the rising crime graph, the audience is privy to Bruce Wayne's thoughts and feelings. He navigates cryptic riddles left for him by a dangerous serial killer who claims to be driven by a passion to rid Gotham City of crime and corruption. "We are not so different," the villain says to Batman when they come face to face in the final quarter of the three-hour movie.

But can the hero and the villain ever be working towards the same goal? As The Batman posits, they actually can, albeit with methods and outcomes that are diametrically divergent. The battle of attrition between the Batman and the antagonist (who face is masked for three-quarters of the film) takes a heavy toll on the hero and the city he is out to save.

As the murderer operates with impunity, targets a four-term incumbent mayor as well as the Gotham City police chief within the first half-hour of the film and then lies in wait for others, Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), to the displeasure of his Gotham City Police Department bosses, joins forces with the Caped Crusader.

In the process of dealing with friends and foes, the Batman stumbles upon secrets about his own family and the people at the helm of the city. In the bargain he develops a keen sense of what he must do. While journaling his innermost ideas, he verbalizes exactly what he thinks of himself as a crime fighter. "They think I'm hiding in the shadows. I'm the shadows," he says.

The Batman is the sort of genre movie that smartly combines a fair degree of depth with a great deal of heft to deliver the power that could pull people back to the multiplexes. Its emphasis is as much on character development as on its action set pieces. Both aspects of the film work absolutely fine, singly and in tandem, and add up to an entertaining, immersive superhero flick that looks and sounds different from most other Batman films that the world has seen.

Reeves, director of the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, brings his genre filmmaking experience to The Batman in ample measure. He comes up with a comic-book adaptation that thrillingly bends the rules of the game to deliver a grim and gritty hybrid of action and psychological drama that does not let the effort show.

By steering well clear of the dramatic flourishes of earlier Batman films helmed by Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder, Reeves injects some novelty into an exercise that has had so many iterations over the decades that finding sleights that haven't been attempted before is well-nigh impossible.

Pattinson's Batman is as dark, if not darker, than Christian Bale's Dark Knight. The film he is in matches the 2008 blockbuster thrill for thrill, complex twist for complex twist. Sustained intensity, very few lighter moments, and a consistently portentous tone ensure that The Batman does not lose its grip on the audience as it digs deeper and deeper into the mind of Bruce Wayne.

The focus of this movie is squarely on the inner workings of a soul so scarred that it is permanently dented. The drama centres on Batman's struggle to separate his compulsions from the choices he must make in order to be who is and/or wants to be.

To wriggle out of the debilitating trauma that he suffered two decades ago - his parents were killed in a mugging incident - the Batman dives straight into an all-out confrontation with Riddler (Paul Dano), a serial killer who targets men in who hold the reins of power and leaves behind a message couched in a riddle for the Batman.

The Batman isn't an origin drama. Playing out in the second year of the vigilante's career, it explores the evolution of Bruce Wayne from a mere vengeance-seeker to a genuine hero to the people of an ultra-violent, crime-infested Gotham City.

Revenge cannot wipe out the past but hope can, he reasons with Selina Kyle aka Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), who works in a bar but has a purpose far greater than serving drinks to sloshed men. Her story is intertwined with the shadowy world of the Penguin (Colin Farrell), and accomplice of mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and their Iceberg Lounge.

The Batman is at once intricately plotted and sweeping. While presenting specific detailing of what lies in the past for Bruce Wayne and Selina, the story provides an overview of a city that has been in the control of the underworld ever since one can remember.

If one isn't into superhero tentpoles, The Batman, at least parts of it, might feel like a bit of an endurance test. One way to keep fatigue at bay is to simply savour what cinematographer Greig Fraser contributes to the dimly-lit film by way of flashes of brilliance.

Speaking of flashes, The Batman - its first daylight scene is an hour and a bit into the film - abounds in them as Fraser plays sources of light off against the shadows that cover the edges of a world in which darkness and illumination feed off each other and one is frequently consumed by the other. The ambiguity of the war between good and evil is rarely rendered with such precision of lensing and lighting.

Owing to the first-rate cinematography, and for Pattinson's brooding and emotionally bruised superhero who makes his pain palpable even as he girds up for an onerous crime-fighting career, The Batman isn't the drudge it otherwise might have been.