The Batman [dir. Matt Reeves]

People have asked me, but I am as of now loath to do a full review of this new version of The Batman. The reason is, this movie tries to be something other than be a cliche costumed hero reboot story, and revealing too many plot elements would spoil the fun. But these are my salient impressions:

• In terms of characterization, The Batman is definitely most inspired by the tone of the preceding Christopher Nolan series, but doesn't try to beat you as much over the head with turgid grandiosity. There are a couple of emocore scenes, but they only occupy a small portion of a 3-hour narrative that flows surprisingly smooth most of the time.
• Full marks for not being another origin story. In this movie the Batman already exists as a young crimefighter, he has got his gadgets, and he has an ongoing liaison with James Gordon in the police force. No tedious exposition about who's who and what's what...and no fakking flashback recreation of when mommy and daddy were killed, hurrah for that.
• Most of the movie is a cop mystery-action drama like L.A. Confidential, except where one of the cops dresses in a bat-suit.
• They don't fetishize the bat-gear. Batman uses his stuff - batmobile, batarang and the other shit - but they're not haloed in a special spotlight for the fanboys to slaver over. During a large part of its introduction scene, the Batmobile is mainly seen as a pair of headlights coming up from the rear, and the sole 'hero' moment when it bursts through an explosion feels well-earned. One thing I felt they should have done is be even bolder in the costume department and remove Batman's cape - it serves zero purpose other than looking cool when he stands atop windy skyscrapers. Better still, they could have had a stiff kevlar-type folded structure that serves as backside armor and unfolds into a bat-wing glider when he leaps off buildings.
• The action, when it happens, is furious and grounded. The scope is not overblown and it's executed with panache. The lighting of some of the set-pieces (Greg Fraiser) is stunning, but not in that self-adoring manner of Zack Snyder movies. Trust me, it's not a movie where the only exciting bits are in the trailer.
• Catwoman is hot, she has a proper place in the story, and a relationship with Batman that's not just their common taste in S&M leather fetish. Heck, in this movie she seems a lot more confident in her skin than Batman does. She is played by Zoë Kravitz, who with this movie and Kimi seems to be the "it" girl for 2022.
• On the other hand, it's not quite cinematic genius. People have compared it to David Fincher's Se7en, and I can see strands of similarity in the narrative, but really, that's like comparing the work of Frank Miller and Alan Moore. One of them manages only a superficial imitation of the other. But the best examples of that imitation are actually fun, and so is this movie.
• Nirvana - Something in the way...this one was definitely a Zack Snyder grade eww moment.
• Robert Pattinson's cool enough as the bat-eared hero. His Bruce Wayne is still iffy - that all-too obviously prepared goth chic hairdo makes him look less like a character and more like a sweater model.
• Alfred (Andy Serkis, not playing a monkey this time, but wearing a monkey suit) is still the most useless valet in the world. I can only surmise that he and Thomas Wayne were lovers and he has incriminating photographs, the sole reason he's still keeping his job.
• Without spoilers, the Riddler's grand scheme of villainy is really dumb. It is almost as dumb as whatsisname's from Skyfall, but it doesn't derail the film because the script is a lot more nimble and not striving as blatantly for symmetry and portent.

So for me, this was a good bit of entertainment, certainly more so than Batman Begins. I just hope that the cameo character that comes in at the end is not going to be the focus of the next picture when there are so many more interesting possibilities to take.