'The Batman' Review, No Lies Here Riddler!

It’s finally here, The Batman, and it’s one of the greatest Batman movies ever made. From start to finish it was a massive joy ride and the new take on the Caped Crusader by Robert Pattinson is on a whole new level in terms of portrayals. BEWARE: spoilers will follow from here on out!

Taking place in year-two of Bruce Wayne’s war on crime we see a young Batman trying to find his place in this crime riddled Gotham, while also trying to become Bruce Wayne again. Things quickly change when a new nemesis comes to town in the Riddler who begins to target people of power in Gotham. Seeing Batman actually utilizing his detective skills for once, was a nice change from past Batman movies where the writers seemed to have forgotten THE main part of the character. I mean, at the end of the day Bruce is just an elite detective who dresses up like a bat to protect his city.

Writer/director Matt Reeves brought the character back to his roots and it was done perfectly. Not getting a new origin was a nice change of pace for once, and the fractured relationship between Bruce and Andy Serkis’ Alfred Pennyworth was an interesting change as well. Alfred is clearly still on the fence about Bruce donning the cowl and risking his life every night for a city ran over by a freight train of crime. But by the end, the two mend their father-son-like relationship, and seem to be on much better terms heading into the all but confirmed sequel.

Zoë Kravitz did a beautiful job at bringing Catwoman to life, delivering her best performance yet in her very bright acting career. Selina and Batman’s relationship is one of the very best in all of comics, and getting a fresh take, and one where we actually see Selina falling for Batman without any lies attached to it, or her using him for her own fortune, was yet another refreshing take this time around. It’ll be interesting to see where Selina goes from here, with here leaving Gotham and all, it could be a means of setting up her rumored spin-off series on HBO Max that Reeves has been raving about it’s possibility of late. Who knows, maybe we could see Selina team-up with Poison Ivy and or Harley Quinn. The Batman takes place on Earth-2, so they could bring Margot Robbie aboard and maybe with a completely different look to distinguish herself as a different version from the other movies.

Selina will be back to Gotham though, if not before The Batman sequel in an HBO Max series, than in the movie itself. They did a really great job at building up hers and Bruce’s relationship and it really makes me wonder what’s next for her. She wasn’t really an anti-hero in the movie, like she is in the comics, so maybe she’ll turn to a life of crime more than she seemingly had done so in the movie? I really liked that they revealed that Carmine Falcone, played by John Turturro, was Selina’s father. That’s a plot point that is so crucial to her in the comics, and it was long overdue that we see that aspect in a Batman movie. Kravitz’s portrayal of Catwoman was a highlight of this movie, and something that I can’ t wait to see a lot more of going forward.

Believe it or not, the Penguin was played by none other than Colin Farrell. The makeup and costume departments did an amazing job at transforming Farrell into the Penguin, so much so that if you had no idea who played him, you’d probably not have guessed that it was Farrell under the makeup. The Penguin is also set to get his own spin-off series on HBO Max, with Reeves set to write and produce the project. The Batman did a great job at potentially setting up the series by having Carmine Falcone getting shot and seemingly killed by the Riddler… Right after Oz said to Falcone that he’s, “the new kingpin in town.” Oz will probably take full control of the Iceberg Lounge, and all of Falcone’s assets to build up his own criminal underworld within Gotham, much like how Falcone did over the decades.

I’m assuming that the series will be about Oz, maybe his origin through flashbacks, while also having the villain assemble his criminal empire and maybe also be a means of introducing a handful of classic Batman villains in the process. Could we see Oz sell Venom (a super-steroid) to Bane? Could Oz already be friends with the Mad Hatter and he courts Jervis Tetch to join his crew? Could Hugo Strange be doing unethical tests on inmates in Arkham? I’m betting that the Penguin series will establish Gotham’s underworld of villains, and serve as a Batman “1.5 film” that sets up the sequel. At the end of the day, Farrell did a phenomenal job at brining the Penguin to life, so much so that he’s already my favorite live-action Penguin.

Now lets get to the Riddler, the best live-action Riddler as well, and quite possibly my favorite Batman movie villain yet. Paul Dano is an amazing actor (see 2007’s There Will Be Blood) yet he’s very under appreciated so having him play a villain in the best movie since before the pandemic started, might gain the actor some long awaited notoriety amongst Hollywood. The Riddler is always three steps ahead of Batman, and we saw that perfectly in the climax of the movie as it turned out that the Riddler had planted seven car bombs all around Gotham to flood the city. Making the Riddler into a serial killer was something that I was really looking forward to.

In the comics, many of Batman’s foes are murderers. A majority of the time Batman and his rotating cast of allies are usually solving murders. That’s another aspect that we haven’t seen in a Batman movie all that much of before. In Batman Begins, Ra’s al Ghul was trying to destroy Gotham. In The Dark Knight, the Joker was trying to destroy Gotham. In The Dark Knight Rises… Bane was trying to destroy Gotham. So in The Batman having the Riddler murdering corrupt people of power to make a point and to reveal the truth about the city’s corruption, THEN he tries to destroy Gotham, was a much needed cleanse from the past redundancy that Christopher Nolan did movie after movie. This Riddler is chilling, he’s beyond broken, and just mentally insane and highlights Gotham to a tee.

Gotham is riddled with broken people who are driven insane by either their own misdoings, or by villains themselves. Edward Nashton was an orphan who kept having traumatic experiences that brought him down a rabbit hole of hell, which inevitably turned him into a serial killer. We haven’t seen this before with a Batman movie villain, besides Heath Ledger’s Joker but they didn’t go deep into his upbringing and it didn’t feel as real as what we got with the Riddler.

Having the Riddler being in a neighboring cell of the Joker in Arkham Asylum, is first of all a major mistake by whoever decided on that, unless it’s Hugo Strange of course, but it also setup that we might not have seen the last of the Riddler. Could we see an improvised version of the new comic book arch “A War of Jokes & Riddles”? I wouldn’t bet against it, especially if the Joker (played by Eternals star Berry Keoghan) is just playing dumb and going to use the Riddler to help him break out of prison after lying to him about being friends. We definitely haven’t seen the last of Riddler, and could see a lot more him in the Arkham Asylum series that Matt Reeves has been teasing could be yet another series on HBO Max.

Jeffery Wright (Uatu the Watcher on What If…?) is yet another outstanding actor that Reeves was able to get aboard the film. Wright’s version of Gordon is probably my favorite interpretation of this character as well. Him not being the Commissioner, yet, and seeing how he’s already trusted Batman for a few years was a nice change of pace for the character. In proceeding movies we’ve seen Gordon be a little uneasy about the Batman early on, while he’s already Commissioner, so having the best partnership in comics being established while the entire GCPD is still trying to gain trust in the Dark Knight themselves… Is a beautiful change of course for both characters.

Jeffery Wright does a masterful job at diving deep into a character, and making them seem real, so when he was announced to be playing Gordon way back in 2020, I was over the moon. There’s a GCPD series coming out on HBO Max, yes another spin-off, that is rumored to be taking place in Bruce’s year one as the Batman. The film confirmed that this was his second year, as Bruce was writing in a journal titled “Year Two.” In this series I fully expect to see a Gordon origin in gaining trust in Batman that is. His relationship with the GCPD and other cops, and members of the GCPD maybe writing off Gordon as crazy for “following” the Batman, while also seeing some within the GCPD gaining faith in Batman as well.

Reeves has also announced that the GCPD spin-off series on HBO Max has, “evolved into the world of Arkham [Asylum] leaning into the idea of… a horror movie of a haunted house.” If that doesn’t sounds like they’re floating around the idea of adapting “A Serious House On Serious Earth,” I don’t know what does!

In the classic story from 1989 by storied comic book writer Grant Morrison, Batman treks to Arkham Asylum to get information on a case that he’s been working on for days. As he arrives to Arkham he sees that the asylum has been overrun by inmates and he fights his way through a handful of his enemies to get deep within the asylum to get information from various inmates. I’m not sure if Robert Pattinson will appear in the show or movie, but with Pattinson’s new deal with Warner Bros. spanning across movies as well as TV shows to write, produce and to star in some… Anything is possible.

The story that Reeves gave us with The Batman was as strong as any superhero movie I’ve ever seen before. The acting was unprecedented which fueled the greatness of the story ten fold, as well as making it seem real. This is really the first time that a Batman movie felt like it could be something that could happen in real life, which was amazing to finally see because at the end of the day, that’s what Batman stories are meant to feel like. He’s just a man in a cowl, not dealing with world ending threats or Gotham ending threats that feel more “science fictiony” than real. His stories are supposed to feel like that they could happen tomorrow, and have a sense of realism that helps to make the character so beloved.

Batman running around Gotham trying to save people of power from a serial killer? What more could us Batman fans have asked for? They didn’t do try to do too much and didn’t have too many aspects going on that could’ve made the story feel bloated with excess plot points and setting up a dozen characters, which is what a lot of superhero movies do nowadays. I commend Reeves and Mattson Tomlin (co-screen writer) for the work that they did here. They easily could’ve been like, “ok this is Batman and Gotham… Lets introduce Dick Grayson (Robin) as well as having Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, oh and lets get the Joker in there and have him do something evil. Wait, I also want to have Clayface appear,” and they didn’t. They kept it with a lot of characters, but handled them perfectly that it didn’t feel like too much was going on. It was all connected at the end of the day and they delivered a great script with a strong storyline that I will forever love and cherish.

A sequel is inevitable, the film has made $250 million in its world-wide box office opening weekend, which is a record during the pandemic and a top 10 record all-time for a movie. There is a lot that I’d want to see in a sequel, but at the end of the day I’d have Mr. Freeze be the main villain, played by Sterling K. Brown. I’d adapt the classic story from the comics Heart of Ice where Victor Fries’ wife Nora has a rare blood condition that causes Fries to freeze her to give him time to find a cure, which leads the scientist down a path of villainy which sees him getting a condition of himself where his body needs to be at sub zero temperature at all times for him to remain alive.

Sterling K. Brown has grown as an actor since his short time on The CW’s Supernatural series, and is widely regarded as one of the best current actors today. Marvel Studios wasted an opportunity to use Brown in a major role, and had him appear in a flashback in 2018’s Black Panther as T’Challa’s uncle. Now it’s DC’s time to do him right.

Reeves and Pattinson have both said that they’d love to have Freeze in a sequel, and Pattinson said earlier in the week leading up to the release of The Batman that he, “expects to face the Court of Owls in the sequel.” The Court is comprised of members of the wealthiest families in Gotham who have secretly ran/basically owned the city for centuries. They try to recruit Bruce a lot, and they know his Dark Knight secret which caused them to try to brainwash him into being their enforcer from time to time known as the Talon.

They have brainwashed people on their payroll who serve the role of Talon, who are physically enhanced people who do the Court’s dirty work for them. Teasing the Court, or flat up having them being a big player in the movie setting them up for the threequel, would be a great idea. With politicians and people of power being targeted in the the first movie, maybe the Court begins to come out of the shadows to rebuild some fo their fallen empire.

It’s also about time that we see Robin again in a Batman movie. Wether you want to see Dick Grayson, Jason Todd or even Batman and Talia al Ghul’s son Damian Wayne become the new Robin, it’ll surely be Dick Grayson. He’s not only the most popular Robin, but he’s also what this version of Bruce needs. A young kid whose parents are also deceased, whose looking for a father while this Bruce could very well be on the path to wanting a son of his own, to train and to become a protector of Gotham much like himself. I’d cast Umbrella Academy’s Aidan Gallagher as the Boy Wonder and let him run with it. From the start of the hit Netflix show I was really intrigued by not only Five, but by how great of an actor Gallagher is. He’s snarky, has some interesting fighting techniques, and would fit in perfectly opposite of Pattinson’s Batman. I honestly believe that this would be a perfect casting and one that would excite all DC/Batman fans.

The future is bright for Batman, and it’s great to be able to say that whole heartedly for the first time in a long time. You can witness The Batman in theaters now!