The Batman
2022 · Directed by Matt Reeves
Original language: English
- crime
- mystery
- thriller
The story
In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as the Riddler.
What it’s like
Rain-slicked night streets under sodium and neon haze, with Gotham rendered as a sprawling, decaying city of wet asphalt, flickering signage and fog-smeared headlights. Cinematographer Greig Fraser shoots much of it in murk and deep shadow, so faces surface from darkness only when a flashlight beam or a police strobe catches them. Interiors are lit like confessionals: a single bare bulb, candlelit church pews, the blue-grey glow of computer screens. The score by Michael Giacchino is brooding and sparse, built on low strings and slow pulses, with long stretches of near silence broken by rain and distant sirens. The rhythm is deliberate rather than frantic; scenes linger on a detective's exhausted stare or a masked figure's stillness before a sudden, sharp burst of chase or fight. Violence is frequent and often brutal, with bone-cracking hand-to-hand combat, gunfire, car crashes and a few graphic deaths, and the Riddler's crimes carry a grisly, disturbing edge. The mood is bleak, paranoid and melancholy, a slow-burning noir thriller about a lonely young man sinking into grief and anger while peeling back a city's rot. Best suited to a dark, late-night viewing for fans of moody detective noir who can handle sustained menace.
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