Simply put: yes.
Having gone to the theater on March 1 for the advanced IMAX screening of Matt Reeves’ noir/detective/superhero passion project, The Batman, I had high hopes to say the least. I had been a fan of Robert Pattinson for a couple of years prior, no thanks to Twilight and its following films, so I was excited to experience his foray back into mainstream blockbusters. I bought the tickets the moment they came out and managed to snag one of the absolute worst seats in the theater–I was not going to let this get me down, though.
As I sat in my my seat, with my complimentary Long Halloween comic in hand, my heart was racing. It was finally happening, after two years! I had fell in love with the premise of this film upon having seen the trailer way back in August 2020. The enthusiasm had been building for a year and a half, and I was ready to see this film.
Nearly three hours later, my boyfriend and I were trembling in our seats. The second we left the AMC Theater, we shouted every possible opinion at each other, adrenaline rushing through us.
Simply put, this is one of the greatest comic book films I have ever seen. The performances, the score by Michael Giacchino, the cinematography, all of it. Giacchino somehow perfectly captures the essence of the character in a way that was only loosely touched on in Michael Keaton’s films, with Danny Elfman’s score. A standout performance was Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle; she stole nearly every scene she was in. Paul Dano’s Riddler was also a performance to be noted. This character is not Jim Carrey in a unitard…Dano takes this character and makes it his own in a remarkable way. This Riddler is frightening because it feels so real. He could very well exist and be an everyday incel in an Instagram comments section, that’s how real it felt.
One thing The Batman has that other superhero films do not is a small scope. To elaborate, this film is not exploring multiverses, variants of the same person, alternate timelines, or anything that the casual viewer would find convoluted. This film is Bruce Wayne’s second year of being The Batman, and coming to terms with what that means for himself and his loved ones. The audience grows with Bruce throughout the course of this film.
Despite all of these fantastic qualities, the film is not perfect. The runtime is very long (though it doesn’t feel it…) and I personally didn’t like the relationship between Selina and Bruce. Though it is authentic to the comics, some things happen in this film that I don’t think fit with the overall theme.
I cannot praise this film enough. It is clear that it isn’t some tailor-made cash grab. It is something that Reeves, Pattinson, and the whole cast and crew put their hearts and souls into. It is the most Batman Batman film to be made thus far, and I think any other iteration would have to try very hard to top it. Go see this film in theaters while you still can–it is not something to miss.
Rating: 9.5/10