![]() Reeves, to his credit, knows the pitfalls of franchise fatigue. (And after the pseudo-epic exertions of Zack Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” who’s even to say where seriousness ends and silliness begins?) The problem is that there are too many of them, period, to the point where even a picture as artful and restrained as “The Batman” - by all appearances a meticulously crafted attempt to get a tarnished pop cultural phenomenon back on track - may struggle to justify its existence. Really, the problem isn’t that there are too many serious superhero movies or too many frivolous ones. The dourness of Nolan’s “Dark Knight” films has often been overstated, often to the neglect of their hurtling narrative velocity, impish wit and gorgeously enveloping images. Their complaints merit some sympathy, but also a little closer inspection. Those who took issue, in other words, with Christopher Nolan’s grave and thrilling “Dark Knight” trilogy (itself inspired by some of Batman’s bleaker comic book adventures, including Frank Miller’s seminal “The Dark Knight Returns”), will find plenty to object to here. Here it may be worth noting that “The Batman” runs almost three hours, though “runs” may not be the word forgoing pop buoyancy in favor of psychological realism, it rumbles forward with a grim seriousness of purpose that some might well mistake for pomp and pretension. (The often oppressively murky images were shot by Greig Fraser, a current Oscar nominee for “Dune.”) ![]() We are in a hard-edged, rain-pelted Gotham City that, absent either Tim Burton’s gothic eccentricity or Joel Schumacher’s neon excess, suggests a Manhattan from which bright lights and warm colors have been banished. ![]() The Riddler’s first victim is the city’s mayor (Rupert Penry-Jones), a high-stakes target for a story that soon strands us in a labyrinth of legal, financial and political corruption. The deadly sins being punished here are all sins of betrayal, committed against the people of Gotham by their ostensible enforcers of law and order. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Murder is in the air, thanks to the Riddler (Paul Dano), a cross between Ted Kaczynski and Will Shortz who clearly has a thing for David Fincher movies, given the techniques he’s borrowed from the Zodiac Killer and the detail-oriented John Doe from “Seven.” The other one - variations of which will soon seep into Michael Giacchino’s death march of a score - is “Ave Maria,” setting a funereal tone even before it pops up at an actual Gotham funeral. The director, Matt Reeves, who wrote the movie’s dense screenplay with Peter Craig, plays up these associations with an early snippet of Kurt Cobain singing “Something in the Way,” a hit of acoustic anguish that supplies one of the movie’s two recurring pieces of music. This Bruce Wayne doesn’t look like a playboy or a billionaire, let alone a hero with his unkempt sidelocks and air of morning-after debasement, he’s more like an addict about to crash, or a young rock star gone to seed. Bloody beatings are to be expected for a vigilante trawling Gotham’s lower depths by night, but these particular wounds might well have been inflicted from within. Not because of the fine actor playing him - it’s Robert Pattinson, as if you didn’t know - but because of the heavy bruises darkening his pale face, as if he’d been wearing a mask beneath his mask. When the title character first sheds his cape and cowl in “The Batman,” a moody, methodical and, finally, disappointing return to Gotham City, your initial glimpse of Bruce Wayne might come as a mild shock.
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