I know this should really be watched in the cinemas but the three-hour running time put me off at the time. In the event as great as this would have looked on the big screen, I was glad I watched it at home as it’s dense enough that spacing out the experience makes it better. This film has its share of detractors but I think it’s utterly fantastic and certainly better than Christopher Nolan’s version. It’s a portrayal of a Batman that is less superhero and more obsessed ordinary man who puts on a costume to be a vigilante. Accordingly director Matt Reeves has drawn inspiration not from superhero action movies but noirs, political thrillers and spy films. The result is a film that transcends its genre and deserves to be taken seriously.

In his second year as the Batman in Gotham, Bruce Wayne investigates a series of murders of high-profile city leaders including the mayor and the police commissioner. Each time the killer who is called the Riddler leaves behind a riddle directed at Batman. Police lieutenant James Gordon is Batman’s only ally and they follow the clues to the nightclub run by Oswald Cobblepot, also known as the Penguin. He notices that Selina Kyle, a waitress at the club, moonlights as a catburglar and helps her track down her missing friend who also works at the club. As the Riddler continues his murders, he also reveals that every one of his targets is corrupt and ultimately works for mob boss who really runs the city Carmine Falcone. Eventually Batman realizes that the next target is Bruce Wayne himself, chosen due to the sins of his father Thomas Wayne. He accuses the elder Wayne of being part of the same corrupt elite back when he was running a campaign to be the city’s mayor. Batman, always a step behind the Riddler, must also confront the fact that his father may not have been the virtuous man he had always believed him to be.

This is a long film indeed yet it justifies its length by incorporating multiple stories. I was pleasantly surprised that the plot involving Falcone and Catwoman is fully resolved by the second hour leaving the final hour to the final confrontation with the Riddler. One of my favorite uses of the extended running time is showing Batman’s sometimes amateurish efforts and mistakes. He is generally pretty sharp at figuring things out but after a rather spectacular car chase to capture the Penguin, it turns out that he had misinterpreted one of the Riddler’s riddles. It would have been difficult to fit in this tangent in a shorter film. The fight scenes also regularly show him taking hits, stumbling around and generally being awkward. His armor protects him from the worst of course and he powers on through sheer grit and determination. But it’s great to see him being just an unusually determined man in a suit and not superhuman. Even when we see Catwoman struggling against Batman, we can see that she’s a skilled fighter but the moves are slowed down enough that they could plausibly be pulled off by unenhanced humans. The extra effort to tone down the superheroics grounds the film and makes the audience more easily believe that whatever you do see is real.

I liked the visual direction as well with shots that are frequently murky or smoky instead of being crisp. They’re meant to evoke atmosphere and urgency rather provide a clear picture of the action. Overall I’d say the film is tuned to be less cinematically stunning and more artistically cerebral which is just great as far as I’m concerned. There are several ways that I think it could be improved. It really needs a scene of Bruce Wayne needing to treat bruises and all kinds of small wounds or else it looks like the armor allows him to tank hits with no consequences. Another disappointment is that it underuses the character of James Gordon. Casting Jeffrey Wright is a good decision but then he is reduced to mostly exclaiming one-word expletives every time they learn something new during their investigation. The film elevates the importance of Catwoman above him which I feel is wrong. We needed scenes of him working to take charge of the police and weed out the corrupt ones so that he can stand side-by-side as an equal partner to Batman even if he isn’t a frontline fighter.

This particular version of Batman is supposed to get sequels and won’t be part of the wider DC universe at all. It’s quite encouraging to me that this did decently at the box office proving that there is a market for this more serious take on superheroes. I do hope they keep Batman similarly grounded in future films but I know that the temptation is always to go bigger and flashier. The simple and anonymous motorcycle that Bruce Wayne uses at first to get around the city unobtrusively is a great example of this practical approach. It would be a pity if we never see that again after they start showing the fancier Bat-themed cars and bikes.