Matt Reeve’s 2022 ‘The Batman’ has received massive praise from critics. It has a new take on Gotham making it dirty and knitty-gritty, something we really haven’t seen that much in any of the previous Batman films.

The atmosphere is dark with a dim orange accent making the city feel even more corrupt then it is. This Batman is in his second year patrolling the streets. Criminals are at play, the bat symbol shines in the sky and are horrified at every dark corner and alley they come across, fearful that he’s lurking. The new Batman suit has a modern take, with metallic bullet proof armor, a knife portraying his symbol and a wider cowl. He’s a rookie too because he isn’t flawless in his techniques yet which I like seeing.

Robert Pattinson did a great job as Batman in this film. You can tell he had a lot of fun with the filmmaking process. It’s really believable that this Batman could actually live in our modern world. What I don’t like about Pattinson though is that we don’t really see him as Bruce Wayne often, and when we do he’s dark and broody. That would be fine for a character like Batman, but not so much as Bruce Wayne.

His character is usually classified as the billionaire-playboy, you see his face and he has a slicked back appearance. With other portrayals of the character by Christian Bale and Ben Affleck, you can really tell they’re looking the part. This complaint isn’t really Robert Pattinson’s fault rather just how the director wanted him to appear…Pattinson did a great job doing something different.

Paul Dano as the Riddler was an amazing choice. He is someone you’d never expect to be this mastermind zodiac-like killer. He looks like any average person and I love that aspect. You don’t have to be this goofy-looking character like Jim Carrey’s Riddler, you can be anyone troubled by this world. I just wish we could’ve seen him be more of a villain, but solving the riddles as the movie progressed was enjoyable.

The Riddler even won in a way by (spoiler warning) flooding Gotham City and blowing up the city’s dams. My predictions for the next few movies has to be that Thomas Elliot, or Hush, is going to be the next villain soon enough.

The movie is 2 hours and 57 minutes long which concerned me at first. But I found myself invested waiting for what was next a good majority of the time. Some parts are just filler, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was boring, it was just there for build up. The great parts of this movie are adrenaline jumping. Matt Reeve’s vision is just beautiful to watch on the big screen.

To conclude, I really think that you don’t have to be a huge DC fan or even a superhero fan to enjoy this movie. It’s not only a Batman movie, but it’s a detective-noir. Overall this movie is an 8/10 for me.