The Batman (movie 2022) Dark Knight, Emo edition

The Batman. In large red letters like that. With the The article.  Wooptee doo. But why?
 
The thing is ever since Clooney/Schumacher’s laughably disastrous collaboration, you can’t really bottom out this franchise. The bottom’s already there. So automatically, this isn’t the worst of Batman movies. Just like that. But how close is it?
Well, it’s down there. Pattinson/Reeves went for a moody interpretation, but veered into emo territory and stayed there. It’s frustrating because the movie has potential: it’s absolutely gorgeous to look at, Kravitz’ Catwoman is kinda cute. But the rest leaves so much to be desired and the fault mainly lies with casting…
Pattinson is an..interesting choice. Not a good one, mind you, but an interesting one. It sort of makes one go…I wonder if Vampire Edward can pull it off, let’s check it out. Well, Vampire Edward can’t, not really. Just like he can’t quite build himself up for the role either. He just doesn’t look and inhabit the role right. His muscles are puny. I’m not saying he should have turned himself into a man-mountain like Affleck (another wrong Bruce Wayne) did, but Vampire Edward is slender. Emo slender. That build, that paleness, that pout, and that’s stupid lanky mop scream “I’m in a band” not “I’m saving Gotham”.
He’s fine enough in a suit, with platform boots and pointy ears adding height and the suit itself adding bulk, but outside of the suit he just seems lost.
Kravitz’s Catwoman is cute, an itty bitty kitty that kicks ass and takes names. She’s given a missing girlfriend in the beginning, one she apparently cares about, and yet the second she lays her eyes on The Batman, she can’t stop making out with him I guess she just can’t resist his…chin? His Batman voice.
He isn’t even the only one doing the Batman voice in this movie. Jeffrey Wright (usually a perfectly good actor)’s only acting choice as Commissioner Gordon for this movie is to do the Batman voice. Between the two of them, it’s like they are doing The Batman voiceoffs. Just standing around (in the rain, of course, cause it’s moody like that) gruffly mumbling to each other.
Serkis shows up as a very nice Alfred. For about two minutes. Dramatically underused.
So is Paul Dano, a terrific actor,who can easily outact anyone in this movie under the table…dramatically underused. The movie’s take on Riddler is a really weird one. You barely see Dano’s moonface which is a shame because he can do so much with it.
Another face you can barely see is Colin Farrell’s. Yeah, that’s him, under all that crazy Penguin makeup and the fatsuit. Now that’ a different Penguin. Usually played by diminutive actors with flair for extravagance and grotesque, Farrell’s guy is just a corpulent scarfaced mafioso standing at respectable 5’10”.
And that brings us to the other main problem with this movie…The Batman, you see, is a mafia tale with superheroes. It’s Dark Knight Soprano’s edition. The director/co-writer seems so enamored with Gotham’s seedy underbelly of organized crime that he gets permanently mired there.
The result…well, it depends on how much you like mafia tales. Personally, it did nothing for me. Including John Turturro’s turn as Falcone, arguably that actor’s most wrong casting since Pharaoh Seti I. Yeah, remember that?
Turturro is as Italian as it gets, but he doesn’t have the heaviness required for the role. Or the fat suit, like Farrell. He does well in New York style dramas, but this is outside of his purview.
And so, you mesh together the mismatched casting, the overdone moodiness, the overplayed mafia storylines, the very languid (i.e. slow) pacing and The Emo Batman and you get a movie that drags and disappoints. At times laugh out loudly so. A ridiculous production for all its grandiose aspirations.
I mean, I may be in the minority here. The movie did very well financially become the highest grosser of 2022. Even the critics loved it and it’s bound to spawn sequels and all that.
But really, though, outside of all its artistic bleakness, and modern obsession with youth and superheroes, why?