The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema
UNDER normal circumstances, three hours of run time is very long for a movie.
However, you will not notice if the film has names like James Cameron, Martin Scorsese or Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, attached to it.
Since the early 90s, only these filmmakers have crafted movies that have passed the three-hour mark and still be universally adored.
The movies in question are “Titanic”, “Wolf of Wall Street” and “Avengers: Endgame”.
But it seems we can now add Matt Reeves to that list, especially after the near-flawless work on “The Batman”.
To best illustrate how awesome this movie is, “The Batman” (in theatres now) has long passed the US$300 million mark on the box office.
It is holding steady at 86 and 89 percent among critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
And that is just the quantitative success of the film.
From a quality point of view, the movie has a strong ensemble that mostly delivers collectively. There is great action and it tells a rather inventive origin story of one of DC Comics’ beloved characters.
We meet up with the famed caped crusader during his second year as the masked vigilante Batman.
It is Halloween in Gotham City and the mayor Don Mitchell has just been gruesomely murdered by a man who later reveals himself to be the Riddler (Paul Dano). The killer leaves a message for Bruce Wayne’s Batman (Robertson) disguised as a riddle and goes on a rampage, killing corrupt and evil high-ranking officials.
Given that it is early days into his reign as Batman, Wayne has to rely on his intellect to first solve these riddles and then catch the serial killer.
The trail leads him on a path to meet up with future foes like Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin (Colin Farrell) and even The Joker (Barry Keoghan).
I should warn you that Keoghan’s appearance is a ‘blink-you-miss-it’. Also, it is not really confirmed that it is in actual fact the Joker.
However, there is enough evidence to support this theory as we see the scars and hear the strange laugh.
It is definitely him!
Back to the movie, there are three main things that Reeves does that could possibly make this one of the best Batman movies ever.
Firstly, the decision to make the movie all about the character’s formative years was sheer genius.
This strips the character of the nifty gadgets, deep resources and forces him to rely on his brains.
Bruce Wayne has always been known as the greatest detective, some even equating his intelligence to that of Sherlock Holmes. But we have never seen it on the big screen.
The year two story even goes to justify giving the nod to the Riddler as the film’s main villain and Dano hits it out of the park with his sublime performance.
We have all seen how one great performance can save a film or movie franchise.
What with the late Heath Ledger’s legendary performance as the Joker in the “Dark Knight” trilogy.
If not for Ledger’s performance, I doubt many would still hold Christopher Nolan’s work with the same esteem.
Dano here is the standout performer, a feat made more remarkable by the presence of great actors like Farrell (Penguin), Andy Serkis (Alfred Pennyworth), Peter Sarsgaard (Gil Colson), Jeffrey Wright (James Gordon) and even Pattison.
This is not a knockdown on their performances, by the way, as the five actors play their part to the letter.
It is just that Dano was much better despite officially appearing in the movie three-quarters in.
The character is just so well-written.
Lastly, the fact that this particular movie is not part of the DCEU was another great idea.
It allows Reeves’ vision and style to flourish without necessarily being held back by the shackles of the films that came before and those that will come after.
Take Riddler’s character, for instance, Reeves paints him more like the jigsaw killer from “Saw” rather than Jim Carrey’s cartoonish take on the character in the 1995 “Batman Forever” movie.
This is also a Batman movie unlike we have seen before, with Reeves’ take on the character very dark.
The violence is extreme while the more dramatic scenes are very intense.
In short, everything just comes together to make this movie as close to a masterpiece as we will ever get.
