The Batman (2022)

I fell asleep. In the cinema. During a Batman film. That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about how I got on with Matt Reeves' much-hyped reinvention of the Caped Crusader, but let me explain myself properly, because this one genuinely frustrated me in a way that a straightforwardly bad film never could.

The disappointment cuts deep precisely because the ingredients were there. A serious director, a bold casting choice, a stripped-back detective angle on the character, gorgeous low-lit cinematography that gives Gotham real weight and atmosphere. On paper, this should've been exactly the fresh take the franchise needed. On screen, it's nearly three hours of style smothering substance until you can barely breathe, let alone stay awake.

Robert Pattinson is the sticking point I keep coming back to. Look, I've got nothing against the man as an actor. He's done interesting work elsewhere. But as Bruce Wayne, as Batman, he just doesn't convince me. The brooding, the moodiness, the heavy-lidded introspection. It reads less as a tortured vigilante and more as a bloke who's had a rough week and really wants you to know about it. There's a difference between dark and compelling, and between dark and joyless. Too much of this film falls into the latter. I never felt the weight of the character behind those eyes. I never bought it.

And then there's the Riddler. I know, I know. The Jim Carrey version is campy, theatrical, deeply unserious. But here's the thing: he was genuinely entertaining, and more importantly, he felt like a threat with a pulse. This new Riddler is presented as some kind of grimy, radicalised internet menace, which is a perfectly valid angle in theory. In practice, his motivations are muddled, his plot is more confusing than sinister, and I found myself struggling to care about what he was actually trying to do or why. A villain needs either menace or magnetism. Ideally both. This one has neither.

The length is the film's cardinal sin. Nearly three hours, and it earns perhaps ninety minutes of that runtime. There are sequences that drift on long past the point they've made their point, whole stretches where the pacing sags so badly that the atmosphere Reeves has worked so carefully to build just... dissipates. I watched it again at home after nodding off in the cinema, forcing myself through it in full, and I can confirm: there is no hidden masterpiece lurking in the back half that I missed first time round. What's there is what's there.

It's not without merit. Genuinely, the look of the film is often stunning. Whoever was behind the camera had a clear vision, and there are individual shots and sequences that crackle with atmosphere. The rain-soaked streets, the darkness punctuated by neon, the grime of it all. If you could bottle the aesthetic and pour out about forty minutes of runtime, you'd have something. But great cinematography is seasoning. You still need a meal underneath it.

I've seen films that are stylistically bold and also genuinely gripping. The Raid 2 is a film that commits fully to an ambitious, sprawling vision and actually earns every minute of its runtime with propulsive energy and craft that serves the story. The Batman wants that kind of ambition without putting in that kind of work.

What we're left with is a film so wrapped up in its own self-importance that it forgets to be fun, or tense, or emotionally engaging in any meaningful way. It's a brooding pose held for two hours and fifty-six minutes. Some people find that compelling. I found it exhausting.

Two stars.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2022  | Watched: 2025-04-10

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · Now TV Cinema · HBO Max
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
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Physical: Amazon US

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