Gotham City. Millionaire Bruce Wayne spends the nights disguised as Batman to fight crime. Currently he is investigating a serial killer, the Ridler, murdering corrupt city officials and leaving strange riddles behind. Batman teams up with lieutenant Gordon for the case, and thus goes to a secret club led by Penguin, an assisstant to mafia boss Carmine Falcone. Batman meets Selina Kyle, a waitress at the club, and finds out she disguises herself as the Catwoman, since she is searching for her missing friend, Annika. Batman and Gordon uncover a giant corruption ring among the police department, since the police busted drug dealer Salvatore Maroni, but the drug business just continued unabated, having the city officials taking bribes from Falcone, the new drug dealer. Falcone is killed by the Riddler, who on the other hand is arrested by Gordon's men. When one of the Riddler's henchmen admits that he was inspired by Batman's message of vengeance, Batman realizes that revenge is wrong, and thus decides to instead save people from a flooding of a building caused by Riddler's explosions of Gotham dam.
The fourth generation of "Batman" films, "The Batman" is a surprisingly coherent and competently made film despite all the bad rumors surrounding its difficult production, confirming once again that quality is not related to the making-of process. The director Matt Reeves created a detective investigation crime film, a blend of "Serpico" and "Se7en" with Batman inserted inside, crafting a meditation on two kinds of pursuits of justice: violence vs. rule of law. The main villain, Riddler, whose face is not seen until the last 30 minutes of the film (!), has a good motive for killing the city officials—they are all corrupt—but Batman's approach is to respect the rule of law and bring these corrupt people on trial, to jail, refusing to kill. It is about the malformation of a good intention into a bad method tantamount to a crime, reminiscent of "Death Note". The way Batman, who initially called himself "Vengeance" when fighting crime, is shocked near the end when one of Riddler's henchmen admits that he was inspired by Batman and quotes vengeance as his motive, is a moment of enlightenment and "upgrade" for the superhero, who then decides to change and instead become a symbol of hope and kindness, saving people from flood, thereby achieving a unique anti-Tarantino anti-revenge message. Some of Reeves' directorial interventions and little details are great (the question mark on the cream of Riddler's cappuccino; the drawing of a point of explosion of breakwaters on a map cuts to the real-world birdseye view of that area); the movie has only two action sequences, yet it does not matter since the thriller mood is so exquisite it can hold the viewers' attention; while Robert Pattinson is kind of a strange choice to play Bruce Wayne, but luckily he is in Batman costume for 90% of the movie, so it works. The overlong running time of three hours; the rather conventional dialogues; a few obvious compromises to avoid the R rating (when the story leaned towards even darker territory) and a few illogical moments come off as flaws, yet overall the movie is well made and engaging, proving once again that the Batman world is a very thankful material for American filmmakers.
Grade:++
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