The Batman

Matt Reeves' take of the caped crusader has to be the most realistic one till date. From Adam West to Ben Affleck, there has not been a dark knight who's more human than the one played by Pattinson. The story is set in Batman's second year of delivering vigilante justice in Gotham. In that Reeves has managed to address almost all the questions about the dark knight's operation. He has tried to explain the unexplainable things about the superhero genre by covering every single element to the very last and minute detail.

And considering that batman was just in his second year, the naivete was there. His fighting style was raw and had flaws, his base was not very advanced, he was yet to figure out that in order to maintain his cover as batman, Bruce Wayne had to keep up appearances as well. Reeves also went on to unravel Batman's gadgets. He covered everything from the batmobile to the batrang and made them look and seem very realistic instead of having some over the top covert technology.

The movie was very unorthodox for the superhero genre when it came to its shots, specifically the camera angles and colour palette that was used. It had been some time since I saw horizontally shot fight sequences and Reeves used a black and red colour palette resembling the Batman Beyond comics. The story, although it was linear did manage to engage me for the whole ride. There were no big plot twists, reveals or larger than life characters which was the beauty of the screenplay. It didn't need to have those elements as it was a complete story in itself.

I was always amazed and caught by surprise by the casting for this film. From Pattinson as Batman to Dano as the Riddler, the casting was quite brave and perfect. Strong performances were delivered by each and every member no matter in which capacity they were involved in the movie.

I would like to mention that contrary to popular belief Pattinson's Batman is not as dark as Affleck's version. Although he was more vulnerable and distraught than Affleck's version, he didn't quite qualify as a darker character because of his strict adherence to not killing anyone. Dano's Riddler has to be the best iteration of the character that I had ever seen, the only one coming close to it would be Cory Smith's version in the Gotham television series.

Overall The Batman is an enthralling experience that doesn't disappoint and also sets up a lot of storylines for future spinoffs and sequels. One thing is for sure, Reeves' vision of Gotham city and its protector is here to stay.