Film Review: The Batman ****
The Batman ****
Spoiler-free review
As more and more iterations of Batman come to the big screen, a thought has been stirring in my head… are the various versions of the cinematic Caped Crusader ultimately a cultural rorschach test? The ink blot image remains the same, but a different Batman emerges each time. The overall outlines of the Gotham Knight never change much in each cinematic iteration. The same thing cannot always be said of the cartoon or comic versions of the character. The basics include Bruce, as a child of wealthy parents, witnessing his parents’ murder, before deciding to devote himself to fighting crime in the crime-ridden Gotham; there’s always a cast of colorful rogues who contrast the monotone Batman, in fact, some of the rogues have been used more than once [Joker and Cat Woman three times each, Carmine Falcone, the Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face each twice, you might say Bane has been used twice… but that would mean calling Bane a character in Batman & Robin, which I think gives Schumacher too much credit]; Gordon and Alfred have appeared in each and every iteration; even Robin receives a second nod after Chris O’Donnell from The Dark Knight Rises. And so the broad outlines of a Butler supported crime fighting vigilante with a tested but successful relationship with police officer Gordon remain. And yet, despite the broad strokes being the same, the various Batmans couldn’t be more different. As I’ve thought more and more about this, inspired by the latest version, I cannot help but think that each Batman is a symbol for the time in which they were created. I think a great deal about our society can be explored through the differences of all the cinematic Batmans.
Tim Burton’s Batman premiered on the cusp of the 1990s. The 1980s had been a decade dominated by a resurgence of 1950s nostalgia and Christian conservativism. No wonder so many movies seemed to be focused on outcast misfits who did not fit in to the newly constrictive culture. The Breakfast Club is a great example of such a colorful band of misfits as are The Goonies and Ghostbusters. The list of movies using this 80s troupe can go on. Burton’s Batman, as embodied by Michael Keaton, plays Bruce Wayne as a disconnected, aloof man. Extremely socially awkward, he comes across as a misunderstood goth individual who dresses up in black to express his mood. Bruce is so disconnected that he doesn’t even know the rooms in his own home. Bruce never feels comfortable in his own skin. It’s as if his true self comes out only when he puts on the suit. This simplistic reading of Batman could be a twisted play on the ugly duckling, but in Burton had other fairytales in mind. Burton links the first Batman to the Beauty and the Beast fairytale and Batman Returns to a twisted version of Mosses.
The 1990s were the decade of apathy. I know… I grew up in them. Anything serious or important was forgot about. Stars like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler rose to prominence for being goofy and silly, without necessarily the comedic genius of their predecessors like Steve Martin. Schumacher helming the Batman franchise and returning it to the campy 1960s Adam West style Batman was insanely fitting for the times. Our unwillingness to take Batman seriously underscored the societal philosophy of dealing with social equities during that time. Ignore them.
Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy came out following the political birth of Barak Obama. Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 lit the political world on fire. Here was a man who dared to hope. That hope was infectious. Still dealing with the Iraq War, society yearned for a more positive vision of the future where corrupt defense companies and politicians were not lying to the country to send us to war to increase their profits. Nolan’s Batman Begins in 2005 was the beginning of the answer to those desire for a hopeful vision. In this film, Bruce Wayne becomes a symbol of hope, realizing that a symbol can make more of a difference than an actual person. The Dark Knight released in 2008, the year of Obama’s election and demonstrated again the hope of turning a dark page in history. As Harvey Dent says, “The night is darkest before the dawn. But I promise, the dawn is coming.” Bruce Wayne navigates his role as a hope for society represented in his belief that people will make moral decision while the Joker puts humanities collective ID or shadow to the test. Batman’s victory in The Dark Knight comes at a cost, but it is a victory. The Dark Knight Rises feels like the unfortunate conclusion to the Obama years. The backlash to his hope was a disenchantment with the system when the change people desired never materialized. Instead, the backlash, including the creation of the now seemingly tame Tea Party, came into being. In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane, or Talia, exploits these feelings and turns the city against itself.
The less said about the Zach Snyder’s version of Batman, the better. But, let’s just say there is a hint of Trumpian excess and rule breaking to this version of the Dark Knight. Snyder has Batman not only purposefully deciding that killing Superman is the morally right decision, but he also has Batman break one of his only cardinal rules in not using guns. It’s true that Tim Burton’s bat plane did use guns as well, but not in the excessive and insane way they were employed in the Justice League and Superman films.
And, now finally, we arrive at The Batman, which I think, like Parasite, is the movie of our times. The Batman’s world is the darkest Gotham put on screen. The depressed and oppressive nature of the fictional Gotham has never felt more real. Batman, a creature of the night, is seen in skies of brown as if even the sunlight is gone. As many critics have said, this Batman shares more in common with Se7en than with many of the other iterations of Batman. In Se7en, two detectives hunt a vicious serial killer attempting to atone for the seven deadly sins. One of the great joys of this Batman is the actual detective work Batman undertakes. I don’t think this is accidental. In a time where “fake news” dominates fact, we all have a little detective work we need to do ourselves.
Thankfully in this world, we are spared another glimpse of the pain of the boy, Bruce Wayne, watching his parent’s murder. But, even without that scene, it’s obvious that Bruce has not gotten over their deaths. In fact, Robert Pattinson’s take on Bruce Wayne seems like a riff on Curt Cobain and his tortured soul. Rarely do we see Bruce without the shadows under his eyes, even without the bat suit. Batman is going through the motions and following a belief while hurting so much.
Into this world (our world) steps the Riddler; a modern-day Q who attracts followers willing to storm the capital and overthrow a government… well not exactly, but the comparison is very apparent. Riddler’s belief that he is doing the moral thing makes him more frightening and real than most Batman villains. There is an interrogation scene between Batman and the Riddler that dares for the comparison to Nolan’s Dark Knight. While we can compare, I think in some ways Riddler is more frightening than Joker in that he seems to actually exist, while Nolan’s Joker is best read a symbol for chaos, let’s not fall into the trap of ranking them. They are both great.
By the end of the film, we recognize that this Batman does not share Christian Bale’s Dark Knight’s belief that Gotham is worth saving. In fact, the Batman’s musings reveal the darker truth about our own time. In this film, Batman is not wondering how to save Gotham… with everything going on, he’s asking if Gotham is capable of being saved? During these times… I believe we all ask the same about Democracy.
