Putting Hope and Heroism Back Into the Batman

It’s possible that Batman has always kind of functioned as a synecdoche for our pop culture as a whole.

There's something really compelling about Bruce operating out of the remains of his father's legacy.

Now that’s a particularly bold claim, and to stick any certainty to it would probably require more research than I’m willing to do here. That said, it’s not hard to look at the wide array of Batman adaptions and see in them some reflection of the way what we look for in a hero has changed over time. There’s a purity and simplicity to Adam West’s ’66 Batman. Good is unambiguous, and evil is easily stopped. But in 1989, Tim Burton released Batman, starring Michael Keaton. Unlike the unabashed heroism of the 60’s show and the Superman films, Batman was “dark,” a word that has basically lost all meaning in the years since. Keaton’s Batman was gothic and brooding. His Bruce Wayne feels like an alien in an unknown world, totally unaccustomed to regular society. Batman Returns only deepens the sense of insanity – a movie about psychosexual outcasts desperately trying to relate to each other and find their place in the world. The premise was “dark” in its exploration of unhinged human depths, but it was filled with colour. It was bright, goofy, and “comic-booky” in a way most modern directors would be ashamed of. In the world before the modern superhero film, a hero could be a monolithic, elemental thing. Batman is less of a character as much as he is a force of nature, a beacon of hope in a decaying world, but one who certainly wasn’t “normal.” Perhaps there’s in this a nod to the state of comic books in this time; I’m sure there’s a lot to read into a Batman who is disconnected from the world around him.

Zoe Kravitz is so good here. I really hope they keep using her character.

Through the 90s, the movies shifted under the tutelage of Joel Schumacher to further embrace the silliness of its comic book roots. Pulling away from the horror influences of Burton, Batman became more of a family-friendly hero and more of a hero with a family. To this day, Schumacher’s films are the last live-action film outings to embrace characters like Robin and Batgirl. Val Kilmer and George Clooney’s takes are less beloved, but for better or worse they present a Bruce Wayne who just kind of feels like “some guy.” The romances in these movies aren’t high-soaring affairs, despite the killer Seal music video. In a way, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin feel like they’re paving the way for what will be picked up by Raimi’s Spider-Man and the first X-Men movies. The “realism” of those movies is in one way reaction and in another way embrace; rejecting the silliness of Schumacher’s films but taking up the simple humanity. Batman and Robin intersperses the gaffs and gags with a shockingly poignant discussion about death and grieving. Schumacher’s movies are almost at war with themselves, split between farce and genuine heroics in a way that almost predicts the overly eager light-heartedness of the MCU. With Batman and Robin, you also see clearly the capitalist machine getting its grips on the superhero market, with producers stepping in to introduce more suits and vehicles to be used as toys. Schumacher’s films, despite the lack of self-seriousness, sit on a unique tight rope of authorial vision and corporate product, heroism and parody. They’re superhero films that aren’t quite sure what they want to be, in an era where the superhero film itself wasn’t sure what it wanted to be.

In 2005, Christopher Nolan took the helm. The Dark Knight Trilogy was also dubbed “dark,” but the darkness this time stemmed from a focus on psychological realism. In a post-9/11 world, the high-flying heroics of the Schumacher films felt like a thing of the past. The Gothicism of Gotham has been replaced by familiar cityscapes like Chicago and Pittsburgh. Nolan strays away from the “comic-booky” feeling of previous movies and frames Batman Begins around the question, “what would lead a man to become Batman?” Bruce Wayne is less of a character so much as he is a character study. The movie goes through his background and reasoning with microscopic focus, putting reason and meaning into every element of the Batman mythos. The symbol needs to have meaning. We’re not satisfied any longer with a Bruce Wayne who simply is Batman, with a hero who just wants to be heroic. Christian Bale’s Wayne is focused and dedicated, but despite how much necessity he puts into the image of Batman, he spends most of the trilogy not wanting to be Batman. He wants to find a successor, wants to give Gotham the power to confront its own corruption. But he is a hero by necessity, not by desire. He’s a hero because someone has to be.

More Gordons should call Batman "man" like he's an old college buddy.

Doused in the language of the War on Terror, Batman becomes a force against hidden evil. Our heroes now fight the darkness with dark weapons of their own. The Dark Knight has a peculiar plot point wherein Batman hacks into all of the cell phones of Gotham NSA-style and uses them to create a sonar system. While the film justifies Lucius Fox’s horror at this system, it never seems interested in actually exploring the moral complications of the invasion of privacy. The hero will do whatever is needed to defeat the bad guy. I love Nolan’s Batman films, but I’m not always enthralled by their subtext. In The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan decides to confront the Occupy Wall Street movement in a truly curious side swipe. Bane gives (ultimately hollow) promises to “give Gotham back to the people,” to the suffering lower class, and Catwoman is treated as a villain for seeing any potential good in this. The grand climax of the trilogy is an army of Bane’s mercs, presumably built to some degree from Gotham’s underclass, facing off against an army of cops. There is also a nuke thrown into the story because there always has to be an uncomplicated evil. But there is a lot of subtext in between the nuke and Batman. The hero is one who sacrifices himself for the greater good, but not before being the one to do all the messy things that we don’t want to do. Things we might think of as morally questionable. All in the name of the “greater good.” The militant aesthetic of Nolan’s Batman, with his armoured suit and his tank-like Batmobile, gives Bale’s portrayal the appearance of a well-funded government agency, the image of American supremacy. I do love these movies, but their place in the context of the worldview of the 2000s always feels a little telling. It’s an era where easy heroism is dying, and the heroes we have are complicated and messy.

By 2016, we barely have heroes at all. With the success of the MCU, heroism has been fully commercialized. Marvel doubled down on a sort of plucky realism, characters grounded in humour and a level view of the world around them. The more absurd the premise became, the more the movies relied on humour to sell those characters to the audience, as typified by James Gunn’s hugely successful Guardians of the Galaxy. DC ran in the opposite direction. DC’s “Expanded Universe” became all the more self-serious. Superman was defined by his otherness, by his divinity. Batman, meanwhile, was defined by rage. Where Schumacher introduced Robin to bring more humanity to Batman, in Zach Snyder’s world, Robin is already dead, and Batman’s humanity with him. Ben Affleck’s Batman is older, worn out, and angry. While he ends Batman v Superman with the proposition that “men are still good,” we’re given nothing to support this argument. The world his Batman occupies is just as full of anger and rage as he is. Heroes are met with suspicion. Superman – the paragon of virtue and justice – can’t be trusted, he has to be removed. A big reason I never connected with Snyder’s movies is that he seems to, at every turn, reject the notion of heroism. Which makes sense; in the world of the mid-2010’s an increasing sense of hopelessness seeds through everything. Politics can’t be trusted. People can’t be trusted. How is anyone supposed to believe in heroes?

I will basically watch Paul Dano in anything at this point.

In a way, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is in direct conversation with these questions. Coming off the heels of all these preceding films, The Batman’s advertising played it up as the “darkest” entry yet. Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is an obsessive young man, sleeping through the day and spending the night haggard and exhausted. Paul Dano’s take on the Riddler is one inspired by the Zodiac killer and horror villains like Jigsaw. Greig Fraser’s visuals are as moody as ever. A hefty amount of the plot deals in police corruption and in the machinations of the criminal underworld. Michael Giacchino’s score plays up Batman as a horror villain or the Terminator, an unstable machine. The opening of the movie continues to play up this image; Batman is portrayed as a nigh-mythic figure. “They think I’m hiding in the shadows,” Pattinson’s Wayne narrates, “But I am the shadows.” He saves one man by beating another to a pulp. “What the hell are you supposed to be?” the thug asks. The caped crusader’s answer is one that rests on the past twenty years of his film history. “I’m vengeance.” It’s the culmination of this fascination with dark, psychologically realistic heroes. Batman is framed as the extension of his city’s unspoken suffering. By closing out the first trailer, those words set the tone for the movie’s whole advertising campaign; this would be “the darkest” Batman. One dripping with style, but a style that was definitively moody.

I trust Matt Reeves enough that I would have been fine with that premise. And I just like Batman! I like the gothic tones of Burton’s Batman, I like the silliness of Schumacher’s Batman, and I like the grounded psychology of Nolan’s Batman. I don’t like Zach Snyder’s movies in general, but that’s neither here nor there. I love Reeves’ Planet of the Apes movies, and he’s proven that he can pull a lot of depth from a ridiculous premise. The promo material all pointed towards a clear directorial vision and style, which is kind of a breath of fresh air in this era of superhero films. Which is all to say, yeah, if Matt Reeves had set out to make “the darkest” Batman film, I would come around to it. Moreover, I would understand the impulse – because if Batman is a reflection of the way we see our heroes, then this would certainly be a dark time to be Batman. What heroes are there in 2022? Now, more than ever, it would make sense to have a Batman film that is fully cynical about the concept of heroes. But, luckily, this is not that movie.

I love how vulnerable Pattinson's Bruce is. There's something really human about his portrayal.

Despite all the talk of how “dark” this movie is, The Batman is the most hopeful this character has felt in years. It all starts with Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne. Maybe it’s recency bias, but I genuinely believe he might be our best Bruce Wayne yet. The movies of the 90s weren’t overly interested in getting into Bruce Wayne’s head, and Nolan’s films were more interested in the symbol than the man. But here, it’s all about Wayne. Whereas the Dark Knight Trilogy was about a Batman who didn’t want to be Batman, Reeves’ movie is about a Bruce Wayne who doesn’t want to be Bruce Wayne. He avoids the spotlight; he spends his days smudged with eyeliner and with his hair in a mess. He’s an anti-social weirdo who doesn’t know how to talk or interact with the people around him. There’s a certain amount of silliness that this movie embraces; not in a tongue-in-cheek self-referential silliness, but in this almost Matrix-y sense where the movie takes itself so seriously that there’s a kind of humour in it. All of the Riddler’s riddles are clever in a kind of understatedly goofy way. And yet despite how delightfully weird Pattinson’s Wayne is, it all feels like a cover for his hurt. Like the world around him, Wayne is mired in pain and guilt. For Pattinson’s Wayne, Batman is an outlet. He’s almost obsessed with it. While he starts the film acting out of vengeance, he can’t end it that way. The Batman we see in the opening few minutes is a familiar one, but the movie understands that this is a problem. We’ve had our fill of tortured renegades and anti-heroes, but Reeves sets his vision higher. The goal of The Batman is to rebuild Batman as a hero.

The way Riddler's plot leads the film to a deeper exploration of Gotham as an environment is some great worldbuilding.

Gotham is a city of corruption. Paul Dano’s Riddler, picking up on Batman’s influence, seeks vengeance of his own. Vengeance against the corrupt political and social elite. Many are willing to join him. Despite all the flashy, moody lighting, it’s a familiar world. And in some ways, it’s a familiar anger. The Batman has more or less been the movie that’s gotten me through the 2020s, and the world of The Batman appropriately feels like a reflection of the time it was made in. But as the events of the film progress, Bruce Wayne realizes that vengeance alone won’t accomplish his vision. Vengeance alone won’t bring change. Being “dark” isn’t everything. The Batman has to do more than just beat up criminals, and the impact he’s having in his city is more than just stopping villains. Pattinson’s character has to travel out of the place we’ve had Batman in since 2012, and journey back into being a bonafide hero. It’s difficult to talk about the thematic weight of this thing without talking about the ending, but it nails it. In a time where everything feels kind of desolate, The Batman understands that superheroes should be hopeful, and ought to stand for something. The more I watch this movie, the more impactful the resolution of Batman’s arc feels. “Our scars can destroy us,” Wayne reflects. “But if we survive them, they can transform us. They can give us the power to endure.” Instead of acting out of his pain, he has to learn to grow from it. And he has to inspire others to grow as well. Batman has to be a guiding light, leading people out of the darkness.

Batman at his best.

Such hopefulness feels borderline transgressive in a time like this. There’s a bold declaration that, despite how awful things look, they can get better. Gotham is a suitable world for this theme. Reeves’ Gotham feels alive, but its liveliness is rooted in criminality. It’s a dark, gothic city that seems to only be falling deeper into its own void. But Bruce Wayne becomes dedicated. Things can and will change. It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had a superhero film that honestly cemented itself in that sort of theme. I enjoyed Shang-Chi and thought it was pretty well made, but did it really say anything as a superhero film? Perhaps this is a virtue of The Batman’s refreshingly self-contained nature; it doesn’t feel obligated to set up the next movie or the next plotline, it can just focus on what it’s saying in the moment. It’s a nice change of pace. Now, more than ever, we need heroes who can instill hope in the world.

Along with its critique of the self-obsessed “darkness” of this franchise, The Batman also seems willing to interrogate aspects of the mythos that previous films took for granted. Nolan’s Batman was an eccentric billionaire whose limitless power and influence allowed him to invade people’s privacy and buy multiple tanks. Batman and Robin has a sub-plot that suggests Wayne is investing in space exploration to the detriment of Earth-based philanthropy, which feels bitingly relevant right now! None of these aspects are exactly critiqued on; they’re just necessary beats to make Batman work. But The Batman is primarily concerned with the legacy of Thomas Wayne, with systemic issues in the system and philanthropy. It’s not enough for Wayne to just be Batman, he has to actually be Bruce Wayne as well. It also better delves into the issues with the police corruption in Gotham. This has been a present motif in movies like The Dark Knight, but it felt like Reeves was interested in interrogating the concept a lot more in this one than we’ve seen before.

Between this and Dune, cinematographer Greig Fraser is having an insane year.

There aren’t many Batman solo films that I dislike, if any, but it’s really refreshing to see a Batman movie that is actually primarily interested in Batman as a character. The Dark Knight may be the best-made movie with Batman in it, but it’s far more focused on this philosophical debate about order and chaos than on Wayne’s actual character. But this one is all about Bruce Wayne, it’s lasered in on Pattinson’s performance. Which isn’t to say the other characters aren’t important! Zoe Kravitz gives Selina Kyle a lot of depth and subtlety that we haven’t seen from her character in these movies. Colin Farrell is a blast as the Penguin, and Paul Dano is able to play the Riddler as unhinged in a way that only Paul Dano can do. Jeffrey Wright manages to take the well-worn role of Gordon and breath new life in it. This cast is fantastic. The visuals are fantastic. The world is rich and moody. I don’t think Reeve’s The Batman is perfect; I think it has some structural issues and I’m not sure the ending goes as big as perhaps it should. But it has a thematic cohesion that I’m always hungry for in these movies. While these characters have been around for a long time, I’m excited to see what Reeves does next, and I’m still very excited to see where Pattinson’s performance goes. I’m very here for this world that is able to be “serious” while still being very silly and goofy.