The Batman: Is It Any Good?

I remember when news came out of yet another Batman reboot. (Or perhaps it's supposed to be part of the latest universe, but with a different actor for Batman? Can't tell.) And when I heard it was going to be Robert Pattison, my first reaction was -- ugh. Like many other fans, I asked, "Is Batman going to sparkle?"

But then when I heard it was actually good, I decided to give it a try. So, it was another trip to the local IMAX.

And yes -- it was on the most part good. It was like they took all the weaknesses of Pattison and turned them into strengths, and it actually worked. Instead of the playboy Bruce Wayne who's happy-go-lucky Bruce in the day and brooding Batman at night, we get the brooding Bruce and brooding Batman, which makes for a darker movie.

The main villain -- very scary in a different way, because it feels -- real. In the opening scene, he is looking through binoculars at a family getting ready for Halloween. And he's breathing hard. Cut to perhaps an hour later, the dad is alone in his study walking around and we see someone in the shadows all in black. At first I thought it might be Batman, but it's clearly an ad-hoc costume, and we see someone's eyes looking around creepily. And then he attacks -- so nope, not Batman.

Another development involves a very scary concept that has happened before and is likely to happen again in real life to some degree. Some good chills at that moment.

As the show continues, Batman encounters the Penguin, the Riddler, and other villains. And what is totally awesome -- they are not shown as campy caricatures, but rather as real down-to-earth gangsters. Even Batman is shown not to be invincible -- well, kinda.

I think there may be more violence in this movie compared to other incarnations. I hear that they started with a Rated R movie and took out scenes until it got down to PG-13. The one "PG-13" F-bomb was believable and somewhat organic. What remains seems to make for a fun action-filled movie.

Though, there are a couple of scenes that are slow and could have easily been edited for time.

My main complaint is -- well -- the music. It starts out pretty fun. There's an "Ave Maria" unaltered at the beginning -- a nice choice for the scene. And then throughout the movie there were a couple of variations -- sometimes major, and sometimes minor. And then -- it kept coming -- and again -- and again. It started becoming, "Okay, we get the idea."

The main Batman theme is cool at first, but then becomes very repetitive. We can do thirds in the bass! Yay! And then I started to notice that most of the chords were root-position chords and so many parallel fifths. I was disappointed to learn it was the work of Michael Giacchino, one of my faves.

In short, the music is probably perfect for the desired mood, but whatever you do -- don't analyze the music.

Danny Elfman's music remains my favorite Batman soundtrack.

But yeah -- I know most of you aren't going to analyze the music (though I do have a lot of musical friends). Go catch The Batman. Have fun. Enjoy a "realistic" Batman movie.