The Batman movie review: Robert Pattinson plays the Caped Crusader in dark and utterly compelling new take on DC superhero

5/5 stars

To create a Batman film able to compete with – or maybe even eclipse – Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy takes some doing. Matt Reeves has done that with The Batman.

A rain-soaked noir, this is darker – in more ways than one – than any previous Caped Crusader chronicle, with Reeves crafting a film that exists largely in the night-time gloom.

A vigilante, Batman (played impressively by Robert Pattinson) is on the fringes of the law – his only supporter on the inside being Gotham City PD member Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright).

But when a mysterious, masked figure kills the mayor, and begins leaving ciphers for “the Batman”, he’s drawn into a puzzle that will take him into the heart of Gotham City’s underworld, in which villains mingle with corrupt district attorneys, cops and politicians.

That mystery figure is The Riddler – though Paul Dano plays him far removed from Jim Carrey’s impish incarnation in 1995 movie Batman Forever.

Likewise, Colin Farrell’s robust take on Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin, is not the cigar-chomping caricature seen in 1992’s Batman Returns when Danny DeVito starred.

Those were enjoyable performances, but Reeves demands something more real. Farrell, totally unrecognisable under prosthetics, is more like Tony Soprano.

Here, The Penguin works for gangland boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) at the Iceberg Lounge, a mob hangout, where hostess Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) works. Following a trail from the dead mayor, Batman befriends her – in the hope of getting to Falcone.

But in Reeves’ intricate story, every step leads further down the Gotham rabbit hole. This is one Batman story where his alter ago, millionaire orphan Bruce Wayne, is given little screen time – despite the Wayne family history smartly woven into the story.

Reeves, whose experience rebooting the Planet of the Apes movies has stood him in good stead here, does not forget the action. A car chase involving The Penguin and the Batmobile is utterly thrilling, while Pattinson’s multiple punch-ups feel bruising.

The cast is exemplary – even down to those with only a handful of scenes, such as Andy Serkis, as Wayne manservant Alfred, and Peter Sarsgard, as crooked DA Gil Colson.

But ultimately, it’s the tone Reeves sets, characterised by the use of Nirvana’s moody Something in the Way and Michael Giacchino’s ominous score, that thrills. This Batman broods with the best of them, violence sewn into its very fabric. The film is a comic-book masterpiece.