The Batman Wrestles With a Gloomy, Problematic Billionaire Version of Batman

Did you ever stop to consider that Batman might be…problematic? After all, he’s a handsome billionaire white guy born into privilege who has apparently decided that the best way to improve the lot of his fellow Gothamites is to engage in some pretty cringe rich-bro cosplay that, at minimum, skirts the law and definitely makes the whole thing about him. If you think about it, shouldn’t Bruce Wayne step back and let the city’s true heroes—young reformist mayors, nightlife workers who moonlight as catburglars—take center stage? You have to admit, he could be a better ally. Again, I would just remind you: He’s a billionaire. And billionaires are, well, you know, kind of bad.

If you’ve been on superhero Twitter too much recently, you’ve probably encountered a smattering of this sort of talk, at least some of which is surely working at some level of irony such that even its authors aren’t really sure whether they mean it. But the filmmakers behind the new Batman movie, The Batman—not to be confused with A Batman—appear to have given these questions a little bit of thought too. And thus we are treated to the spectacle of a massive Hollywood tentpole production about one of the most popular fictional characters of the post-war era that at least entertains the idea that perhaps this character, the ostensible reason for the movie’s being, is kind of, maybe, a little bit bad. It’s a Batman movie that comes across as somewhat uncomfortable with the whole idea of Batman.

I include these qualifiers—a little bit of thought, somewhat uncomfortable—because The Batman isn’t an anti-Batman screed, nor is it an overt identity politics rant. The nearly three-hour movie is too sprawling, too messy, too structurally awkward and unfocused to seriously explore a single Big Theme. And director and co-writer Matt Reeves, who previously gave us Cloverfield and two truly superb Planet of the Apes installments, does at times traffic in moody Batman essentialism.

Perhaps more than any other entry in the Bat-film franchise, this is a Batman movie steeped in darkness and gloom and grimdark signifiers, mor