I grew up watching the acclaimed 1990’s television show Batman: The Animated Series. So for me, the version of Batman portrayed in that series is Batman. Voiced by Kevin Conroy, the character is gruff, physical, and has a temper, but his laudable principles remain steady even in the face of many twisted and powerful foes. These foes often overcome Batman initially—only to fall when he employs intellect and quick thinking to exploit a fatal weakness.
The Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batman movies, for all its merits, is totally inconsistent with this vision of the character. Nolan’s Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale, isn’t a recluse occasionally posing as a playboy. Rather, he’s an actual playboy: he spends shamelessly, dresses handsomely, and socializes smoothly, like Bale’s previous signature role, Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (2000).
This iteration of Batman triumphs not with trickery or understated gadgetry, but instead rolls up in, basically, a tank, aiming to obliterate his opposition. In the most disappointing moment in the trilogy, when faced against a seemingly unstoppable foe, he uses his resources to commandeer all mobile device data in the city, essentially buying a cheat code to victory. Whereas the animated Batman, taking cues from the comics, outsmarts his villains, Nolan’s Batman outspends them.
There are undeniable appeals to the playboy aura—production value certainly among them. But these appeals come at the expense of the audience’s relationship with the character. Perhaps this is why Nolan’s movies are best remembered for the performances of their antagonists: Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow, Heath Ledger as the Joker, Tom Hardy as Bane.
All of these villains are more likeable than Batman himself because their principles are stronger. While Nolan’s Batman retains the character’s classic rules of not killing anyone or using guns (Ben Affleck’s later rendition would discard even these), he’s hardly gung-ho about them. In the first movie, he finishes off Ra’s al Ghul with the questionable line: “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.” The impression is that his principles are burdensome requirements, not sincere values.
Of course, Nolan wanted a morally flawed Batman. He wanted avoid a perfect protagonist who wasn’t relatable. The problem is that a hero who isn’t heroic will eventually spawn a villain who is, creating discomfort with the very premise of the franchise.
This came to a head with the release of Joker in 2019. The hit film presented the Joker, Batman’s most formidable enemy, as a mentally ill, downtrodden loser. He’s shunned by the city and in particular the wealthy Waynes, a family of fat cats too busy in their walled off mansion to care about the suffering going on around it. A subverting like this is inevitable when you paint a hero as too much of a jerk: the villains will catch up and surpass him morally. And indeed, after Joker, it’s hard to watch Nolan’s films without wondering about the many Arthur Flecks scraping by in misery while Christian Bale buys restaurants and hosts fundraisers with the uber-wealthy.
The newest Batman film, The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson in the title role, understands, by contrast, what the character is all about. The film is the closest Batman has come on the big screen to his original persona: cerebral, stealthy, honorable. A detective, first; a public servant, second. He’s the kind of Bruce Wayne that bigwigs have to ask, again and again: where have you been?
He’s been fighting crime! Because he’s Batman!
The casting of Pattinson was initially met with high skepticism, as many considered it unlikely that an actor best known for hamming it up in the painful teenage fantasy Twilight (2008) was cool enough to embody the Caped Crusader. But here’s the thing: Batman isn’t cool.
Or, he’s not supposed to be. No superheroes are cool, really; they’re all a little nerdy and weird, which is why their comic book source material was originally enjoyed, notoriously, by an audience that related to these traits. Pattinson’s supposed defects are actually strengths when it comes to the role of Bruce Wayne: he shuffles around moodily, hiding mounting bruises and scars (both physical and psychological), a far cry from the strutting dapperness of Christian Bale. We’re so much better off for this: Pattinson’s lack of coolness allows us to rediscover the core of Batman.
His adversary in this film, Riddler (Paul Dano), is an anarchist revolutionary with a philosophy similar to that of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). But whereas Bane is a scene stealer, oozing charisma and repeatedly outsmarting Batman and his allies—just call the movie Bane Rises, why dontcha—Riddler is pathetic, grating, and not incredibly original: he directly pilfers aesthetics from killers in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Saw (2004), and Halloween (1979). (An obsessive loner, we can imagine him watching and worshipping all of these films.) Therefore, we find ourselves not thrilled by his victories, as with Nolan’s villains, but cursing his success. Damn you, Riddler!
And this isn’t a black and white morality tale, which I hope I haven’t given the impression of advocating for. Riddler undeniably does the service of exposing corruption in Gotham, and Batman on several occasions appears to sympathize with his enemy’s actions, if not condoning them. But then Riddler targets Bruce Wayne himself and later reveals that Batman is the inspiration for his crimes—disturbing developments that necessitate reflection. When a radicalized goon parrots Batman’s own preferred identification late in the film, it’s clear that our hero needs to reexamine his approach to the fight for justice. He appropriately does so, completing a meaningful story arc.
This is how to portray a morally flawed hero: with pure intentions but, perhaps, misguided tactics, which, of course, he vows to modify once they’re shown to be wrong. There won’t be any Joker-type movie that leans on the callousness of this version of Bruce Wayne, because this time, we actually like him. When he prevents ally Selina Kyle (Zoe Kravitz) from going too far in her quest for revenge against a loathsome mafia sellout, we’re certainly glad that he doesn’t tell the poor sucker: “I won’t kill you. But I don’t have to save you.” Instead, he advises Kyle, like an actual hero, that when you stoop to that level, “You become like him.”
I could go on about the other successes of this movie. The car chase. The rooftop visuals. The acting, especially that of Colin Farrell as one of Batman’s lesser foes and Jeffrey Wright, who grounds the movie with working class steadiness. Sure, The Batman isn’t a masterpiece, becoming a little clunky in particular toward the climax, but we shouldn’t expect a Batman film to be one, whatever Nolan’s fanboys might tell you. I had a great time watching Reeves’ film and connecting with the vision of Batman that drew me to the character as a kid, and I recommend it to anyone who thinks they might respond similarly.
–Jim Andersen
For more movie commentary, check out my thoughts on Daniel Craig’s James Bond.