Review: Gloomy nights for the Dark Knight in ‘The Batman’

Batman, never a day person, is plunged into perpetual night in Matt Reeves’ nocturnal, nihilist, neo-noir take on the Caped Crusader.

Reeves’ three-hour-long “The Batman” includes plenty of action, character introductions, gadgets and other various superhero accoutrement. But it is no extravaganza. This “Batman” is a morose mood piece, soaked in shadow and rage, that has stripped the comic’s archetypes down to abstracted silhouettes and grubbily human characters. If Jim Carrey’s Riddler were to wander into this movie, he would fit in about as well as Bugs Bunny in “Taxi Driver.”

Scorsese’s movie, with Travis Bickle sneering at societal collapse, was a prominent influence on Todd Phillips’ muddled “Joker,” but it may be more so for “The Batman,” which likewise rests on the precarious psychology of its DC protagonist. Robert Pattinson’s is a young Batman, relatively new to the gig and suffering mightily from the nightly battles with Gotham’s most depraved. A feeling of helplessness consumes him, and a sense that he can never stem the tide.

“It’s a big city,” he says in the movie’s opening. “I can’t be everywhere.”

Reeves, the “Planet of the Apes” filmmaker, starts “The Batman” with numerous such gravely voiced intonations — “They think I’m hiding in the shadows, but I AM the shadows” — in a stunning, operatic montage set to Nirvana’s “Something in the Way.” It’s an electric fusion of imagery and sound, and the movie’s most fully realized section. This “Batman” is a dirge.