The Batman (2022 film)

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The Batman is a 2022 superhero film based on the comic book character of the same name. It was directed and written by Matt Reeves and featured Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Collin Farrell as Penguin, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone. It will have a spin-off show based on the GCPD on HBO Max. It is not part of the DC Extended Universe.

Two years into Bruce Wayne turning himself into the Batman, a mysterious masked man known only as the Riddler is attacking the elite of society in Gotham and dragging their names through the mud. As Batman races to stop the killings and solve the taunting puzzles left by the supervillain, secrets get unearthed that will force him to reconsider what it really means to help clean up his city.

Tropes used in The Batman (2022 film) include:

Adaptational Heroism: Selina Kyle's driving trait in most canons is her greed, selfishness, and willingness to use lethal force. She usually scoffs when the Bat-Family tell her not to be a killer. Here, she agrees to team up with Batman to rescue Annika when he keeps her from being busted by the cops looking over the mayor's hideout and lets her go with Annika's passport. Unlike most versions, Batman convinces her to put the gun down at a crucial time, and she can see he's truly looking out for her.
Adaptational Sexuality: This adaptation implies that Selina is bisexual. She's attracted to Batman, kissing him a few times. The way that she fights to help get Annika out of town, and how she strives to find her indicates that Annika is more than just her roommate, calling her "Babe" and reassuring her.
Ambiguous Situation: The movie hints that Riddler has figured out Batman's identity, but it isn't confirmed one way or the other. He sends a letter bomb to Bruce Wayne intended for him, and a card to Batman that reads, "See you in hell." He ought to have known that Bruce, who rarely leaves the mansion, wouldn't be the type to read his own mail. Riddler also has a vendetta against Bruce Wayne for being the poster boy orphan, while ignoring the starving kids in the system who barely got enough to eat. When it seems he reveals that he figured it out, it's deliberately kept mysterious if Riddler knew the poster boy is the one in the costume.
Archnemesis Dad: Falcone is Selina's father, not that he knows it initially, and she tries to kill him for his murder of her roommate Annika.
Big Bad: The Riddler.
Bittersweet Ending: Thanks to the Riddler and his cronies, Gotham has been flooded, with countless casualties and needing assistance from the National Guard. Howver, he's crying in Arkham because he failed to make the city destroy itself through despair; mayor-elect Bella Real rallies from being shot and personally helps with the evacuation efforts, with a pledge to restore faith in public officials. She and Batman team up, meaning he is no longer just a symbol of fear, but also of hope. Meanwhile, though Catwoman and Batman deeply care about each other, she leaves to go upstate to start afresh, find a new source of income, and properly mourn Annika. While Batman declines to go with her, because the city still needs him, he asks her to take care of herself and stay in touch. Selina warns that the job will eventually kill him, and she doesn't want to be there when it happens, but she encourages him to go help, because that's what he does. Then he sees her off as she leaves the city, before going to answer the next Bat-Signal.
Both Sides Have a Point: The question of what Thomas Wayne should have done about the journalist that wanted to talk about the Arkhams covering up his wife's mental illness. On the one hand, the Arkhams did some sketchy stuff to maintain their reputation, including covering up that Martha's trauma on seeing her mother kill her father meant she needed serious treatment. As Alfred puts it, however, Martha didn't deserve to be at the center of a media scandal just because her husband wanted to become a politician. Mental illness should not be a scandal, period, and the journalist didn't care about the impact it would have on Martha and Bruce. If we believe Alfred, Thomas was going to go to the cops to confess about what happened with Falcone, withdraw from his campaign, while keeping his wife and son out of the even bigger scandal.
Bottled Heroic Resolve: After Batman is downed in the final battle and Selina gets in trouble, he injects himself with something to get back up.
Character Witness: The mayor's son notices Batman looking at him with sympathy while the Dark Knight is helping the police investigate who murdered the mayor. Batman even nearly goes to comfort him before he's interrupted. In the climax, Batman lights a flare for scared people trapped in the dark, and gestures at them to follow. Who is the first person to take Batman's hand? The mayor's son, giving him a look of thanks for helping.
Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Averted with Batman, Penguin and Riddler. Played straight with Catwoman as Selina is never called that, though several indirect allusions like "the Bat and the Cat" do come up.
Continuity Reboot: The second reboot of the 1989 Batman film series.
Darker and Edgier: The film itself is more gritty than previous live-action Batman films.
Does This Remind You of Anything?
- Ridder talks about how thanks to the killings, people will remember him. Batman points out he's basically a nobody: another killer that went and hurt innocents in the name of his twisted form of justice, and he will die alone in Arkham, with no family or friends to come visit him. This seems similar to how mass shooters and serial killers want infamy and the greatest justice seems to be denying them that.
- Riddler gathers a bunch of armed white men to don sweatshirts and goggles, take up their positions with firearms as panicked crowds enter a room, and gun them down in the name of self-righteousness, including progressive leaders and the cops assigned to protect them. This is eerily similar to how a certain 2021 coup attempt and other altercations nearly happened, only with Batman in the mix.
- For all of Riddler's noble talk about fighting corruption among the cops and politicians, one part of his ultimate plan is to blow up the seawall protecting Gotham, causing damage and death to the poor who won't be able to evacuate. This mirrors how the "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" in the name of George Floyd, Jacob Blake and Black Lives Matter did a lot more damage to the selfsame black communities and businesses they were supposedly fighting on behalf of than any assets of white supremacy and police brutality. The Riddler followers' aforementioned lack of discrimination regarding their targets also mirrors violence commissioned adjacent to and in the course of said protests, like the black-on-black Murder of David Dorn.
Even Evil Has Standards: As Penguin tells Gordon and Batman while they interrogate him, he's not a rat, let alone a snitch. There is such thing as honor among thieves. Also, whoever gave them a message about "El rata alada" is probably a gringo because it's "la rata" in Spanish. This leads to Batman realizing "You are el" is "URL," as in, a website, and types in www.elrataalada.com.
Evil Counterpart: Invoked by the Riddler, who tells Batman that he was inspired by the latter showing the power of fear and violence to make things happen. The two of them are eventually revealed to be Foils - both are orphans who grew up to put on a mask and fight what they considered to be evil in their own ambiguous ways, but while Batman was a rich kid who takes on street crime, the Riddler was a poor orphan boy who attacks the elite of society.
Fantastic Drug: "Drops". The shadow of Maroni's drug operation continues to loom in the present day, especially after it's revealed that new management simply took over following the old boss's takedown.
The Ghost: Maroni is never shown onscreen or even heard in sound only, but the takedown of his drug operation years ago and the repercussions thereof continue to reverberate in the present day.
Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: The way that Alfred tells Bruce, Thomas simply could not believe that a man like Carmine Falcone was a killer. He thought he knew the man on whom he had operated to maybe be a little bullying but not evil.
Gratuitous Spanish: A plot point; Penguins points out that "el rata alada" isn't proper Spanish, in the message that Riddler gave to Batman and Gordon. It should be "la rata alada" because "la rata" is feminine. He says whoever gave that clue must be ignorant and not fluent in the language. Sure enough, the Riddler is a very white guy that borrowed from another language to write his clues.
He Who Fights Monsters: Whatever the Riddler might have been claiming about striking blows against the corrupt system with its Dirty Cops and Sleazy Politicians, by the time of his final plot - blowing up the seawall protecting Gotham so that the city floods faster than the nearby areas can be evacuated and causing people on higher ground to squeeze into a shelter that will make a perfect killing ground for his supporters - it's clear that he's doing at least as much as if not more harm to the common folk than his victims.
Homage: An implacable Black Knight strides down a dark hallway, curb stomping unfortunate underlings. Rogue One, is that you?
Ironic Echo: A Riddler supporter says "I'm vengeance" when the police ask who he is, echoing how Batman introduced himself at the start of the film.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: If the Riddler had limited himself to purging cops and politicians on the criminal payroll, he might have been able to play on the moral ambiguity of being an admittedly vicious Vigilante Man making sure that Asshole Victims hiding in positions of authority get what they deserve, which is the kind of thing that most people probably have dreamt of at least once. Come his final plot, though, it's no longer possible for him to claim that he's just seeking justice through radical means anymore.
Misplaced Retribution:
- Most of Riddler's targets make sense when you learn they are corrupt cops or politicians. Bruce Wayne, however, was basically targeted because of something that Thomas did. Riddler outright calls it Sins of Our Fathers and he's going after Bruce since Thomas has been dead for decades. What makes it really misplaced is that Alfred ended up opening the bomb, and barely survived thanks to his quick thinking to toss the bomb away.
- Mayor candidate Bella Real is a Gotham native who is revealed to be Good All Along and takes the murder spree in stride, all things considered. Riddler wants her dead simply for promising to enact actual reforms, because her predecessors lied before.
Moral Myopia: Riddler has a good reason for hating the mayor, since the mayor was indirectly linked to a drug scandal that overtakes the whole city. He also leaves the mayor's body, blood and all, for the guy's preteen son to find after trick-or-treating, and puts his innocent wife through a Trauma Conga Line when Ridder's machinations reveal he was having an affair with Annika. There's also the fact that he spares Gordon and other cops from being killed; when Gordon wonders mildly if he should be afraid, Batman points out that Gordon is not corrupt and new blood. That doesn't change the fact that in the climax, Gordon and the cops with actual integrity are in great danger of being killed.
My Greatest Failure: Alfred is still haunted by his failure to protect Thomas and Martha even 20 years later.
Non-Action Big Bad: While the Riddler gets the jump on his victims with the aid of surprise and a weapon, he ultimately doesn't get a big fight with Batman. He even lampshades how his strength lies in his head.
Private Eye Monologue: Batman does this a few times, in line with the more noir direction of this film.
Race Lift: Both Catwoman and James Gordon are black people in this film compared to the comics.
Reality Ensues: In The Dark Knight (film) Gordon pulled some strings to allow Batman to do his version of interrogation on the Joker, so as to find out what he did with Harvey Dent. He was only able to because Joker was in a holding cell with many cops hating his guts for killing, kidnapping and impersonating one of their own, meaning no one wanted to save the Joker when Bruce hit harder, except for Gordon. Here...the Riddler when he's caught is protected by a heavy-duty door and interrogation cell when he reveals to Batman that he's got one more surprise for Gotham. Arkham is a hospital, not a prison cell, and they give their residents due process. All Batman can do is futilely bang at the glass window, demanding answers.
Revenge Before Reason:
- Catwoman doesn't care that avenging Annika would be a Suicide Mission once she finds out who made her roommate disappear. She goes in with a gun, ignoring Batman's legitimate concerns that it would be a one-way trip. Batman manages to talk her down, telling her that it's not who she is.
- Riddler is a worse example of this. All of his destruction, while uncovering the festering corruption, is going to destroy Gotham City. As we saw, he had the evidence to start outing the scandal the whole time, and merely didn't know who the rat for Sal Maroni was. He outright admits to Bruce that he sees it all as a fireworks show.
Riddle for the Ages: When recounting the circumstances of Thomas and Martha's deaths, Alfred wonders aloud if it was a mob hit ordered by Falcone to silence Thomas before he could tell on Falcone or just a random mugging gone wrong.
Sequel Hook:
- In Batman's final monologue, he talks about people taking advantage of Gotham's situation while the camera focuses on the Penguin.
- In the Riddler's last scene, he talks with a man who is Laughing Mad and talks about clowns.
- When talking about future plans, Selina mentions Bludhaven.
Shotguns Are Just Better: Rifles do little more than slow Batman, but a double-barreled shotgun knocks him down.
Spanner in the Works: Riddler planned for his revenge carefully, including that Batman would play a part in his games. Catwoman was not a part of that bargain; she teams up with Batman to find Annika and helps him capture the dirty cop who outs the real rat. In the climax, she risks her life to save Batman when he gets overwhelmed.
Spiritual Successor: To both The Dark Knight (film) and The Long Halloween. You have a villain that wipes out the authority figures in the city, recruiting the desperate while going against one potential candidate that can change Gotham for the better. In fact, this movie takes a lot of notes from The Long Halloween, with a Batman villain serial killer that starts with the dirty and corrupt, a Catwoman that risks her life to save Batman and do the right thing.
The Stool Pigeon: A large part of the film revolves around the Riddler's hunt for the person who ratted out Maroni's drug operation.
Stuffed Into the Fridge: Annika ultimately serves this purpose not to Batman, who merely wants to protect her because it's public decency and she's in danger from the Riddler's machinations, but rather to motivate Catwoman to team up with Batman to find her roommate and girlfriend. Later Catwoman goes on the warpath when Annika shows up dead.
Suddenly Shouting: The Riddler has a tendency to suddenly raise his voice at times.
Suspiciously Similar Song: Batman's leitmotif sounds a lot like the Imperial March, something that has not escaped the notice of fan composers.
Terror Hero: Deconstructed. The first time Batman appears onscreen to save a guy from a gang, the person he's rescuing begs to not be hurt.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else: The unmasked Riddler turns out to look just like any bespectacled nerd you might find in the neighborhood or office. One cop even mentions he's an accountant.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Batman, Gordon and Catwoman find the rat while Riddler surrenders. Seems all the main plot threads are wrapped up...why is there an hour of movie left, and why does Riddler want an audience with Batman in Arkham? Turns out Riddler wanted to be arrested, and he has one last plan in motion.