The Batman

In 2019, we were offered a Joker (losing the definite article) who was obviously a cross between Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin. Here we are given a Batman (gaining the definite article) who is only slightly less obviously a cross between Travis Bickle and Kurt Cobain, as well as a Riddler crossed between Travis Bickle and John Doe (from Fincher’s SEVEN, 1995). TAXI DRIVER (1976) was already, of course, a cross-fertilisation of various Hollywood genres, including the film noir, the western and the horror movie, and Reeves finally takes literally the wish of both Travis and cinemagoers to see a “real rain” brought to the streets of what is very clearly New York City.

All kinds of other cinematic influences (mostly dating from the 1970s) are in evidence, too: they need not be named here, but the main thing is that, as with JOKER (2019), the animating idea seems to be both: (1) a need for filmmakers to continue reckoning with perhaps the greatest example of the Hollywood genre movie; and (2) a need to do so by measuring the distance that has been traversed from 1976 until “today”, in terms of individual, collective and particularly urban life. In this case, that involves addressing the “opioid crisis”, “social media”, and the American propensity for producing strange lunatics armed with deadly weapons and even deadlier ideas (which does not mean that these ideas may not also be, more or less, dead on target). The whole impression is effectively doomladen and deranged: a Bicklesque universe indeed, reflected in good use made of orbs of light and out-of-focus photography, as well as the piano-dominated score.