The Battinson

We were sort of surprised that The Batman (2022) arrived - we expected it to be "Long Wait" for a while. Is it because everyone saw it on streaming? Or did the hype just blow over? Now that we've seen it, I have to say, I don't remember that much.

This is the first Robert Pattinson Batman. We get to see him all Goth, with the mask off and the black eye paint running like Robert Smith, mourning his parents, and crime and stuff. When a weird criminal starts murdering city officials, Batman shows up at the crime scene to do some detecting. A lot of the police are hostile, but not-yet-commissioner Gordon (Jeffery Wright) wants his help. Especially when clues in the form of riddles for Batman show up. 

Clues lead him to the Penguin's club. Penguin here is just a regular villain, a mobster under Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). But he's played by Colin Ferrell under a ton of makeup and prosthetics to make him older, fatter and with worse skin. 

At the nightclub, Batman notices Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, which gets her into the story. As Catwoman, her and Batman have some steamy scenes together, which generate no heat. In fact, I mentioned the love interest to Ms. Spenser, and she didn't know what I meant. Maybe lack of chemistry, maybe Pattinson is just too much of a stiff in costume. 

You see, a lot of this movie is Pattinson moving slowly and stiffly through a scene. Maybe it was supposed to look deliberate and strong, but I thought it looked wooden. It was like an overused slow-mo effect, but at normal speed. He might have made a better Bruce Wayne, but we don't get to see much of him.

It all ends with Batman failing to stop the Riddler (Paul Dano as a sort of doughy, dweeby Ed Nashton) from blowing up the seawall and flooding lower Gotham. Who knew that was an option? Is Gotham in Louisiana? So they herd all the citizens into a sports arena, which is unfortunately underground (and then underwater). This all makes little sense, and little more dramatic sense. 

Which is too bad, because in general, this was a good, maybe too generic, Batman movie. There are several nice Batmobiles, including 70s muscle car style. Batman does some detecting as well as punching, etc, and the grounded mob and corruption-based plot is refreshing. But I don't think it really brought a lot to the table that's new or fresh, and I don't think Pattinson is our best Batman - although I did detect a hint of the old Val Kilmer in his chin. 

Will still watch the next one.