If the Riddler and the Penguin aren’t enough, Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Batman’ teases a sequel featuring Gotham’s most notorious comedian.
Simultaneously defiant and respectful , The Batmanis a movie at war with the past tense . In castingRobert Pattinsonin the duple part of the Caped Crusader and Bruce Wayne , filmmaker Matt Reeves chart a unexampled route for this endlessly reinvented funny - book franchise , emphasizing detective work overChristopher Nolan - alike spectacle and moody ambience overTim Burton’sArt Deco surplus . Reeves wants to biff you with plot until you forget Ben Affleck , Christian Bale , George Clooney , Val Kilmer , Michael Keaton , Adam West , or any other cowl - sporting thespian . At the same time , there are element of the Bat mythology that simply wo n’t be cast aside : the wise butler , the play a joke on - out car , the signal pointed to the sky , and the lingering psychic trauma of see the end of your parent , which unavoidably leads to a off-the-wall bat fixation .
And , of track , the Joker . How can you responsibly make a Batman movie without the Joker ? It ’s been done before — occasionally with great results , like with 1992 ’s delightfully unhingedBatman retort — but the degree of difficulty is in high spirits . Since Jack Nicholson gleefully mugged his way through Burton ’s 1989Batman , the role has taken on a special appeal to actors , winning Oscars forThe Dark Knight’sHeath Ledger andJoker’sJoaquin Phoenix in the process . But audiences clearly get a beef out of see the goofy hombre , too .
Even when he ’s not on - screen , the Joker is an substantive part of the Batman experience : As these movies repeatedly emphasize , the Clown Prince of Crime is the psychic snotty-nosed side to Batman ’s tortured do - gooder bit . Even theorizing or pontificating about the meaning of the Joker — what he means socially , philosophically , or politically — exist as its own cottage industry , growing more intense as the discourse around each new motion picture balloons . WhenThe Dark Knightbecame a phenomenon in 2008 , the novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote aNew York Timesop - edabout feeling " brutalized " by the film and end his piece by declaring , " I have no theory who Batman is , but the Joker is us . " Released in 2019 , Phoenix ’s update inspireda wave of moral panicaround incels and aggregate shot . No present-day comic - book character demand the attention of critics and pundit in the same room .
Robert Pattinson in ‘The Batman’|Warner Bros.
At the same meter , the character remains ridiculous , particularly when pushed into the often self - serious territory these moving-picture show explore . ( Never forget Jared Leto’sSuicide SquadJoker ominously declaring to Affleck ’s Batman , " We live in a society . " ) This is all a lilliputian draining , right ? As new Jokers stay on to emerge , a sarcastic tweetby the comic Scott Aukerman might serve as the unequivocal take on the grapheme : " There ’s something almost cool down about the character of the Joker — someone who find the idea of crime to be funny . "
The Reeves pic is pack with villains . In add-on to Paul Dano ’s Jigsaw - esque take on the Riddler , this adaptation boasts a latex - cladColin Farrellas the Penguin , an glacial John Turturro as criminal offense boss Carmine Falcone , and a mischievous Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman , present here as a mostly ethical burglar chum to our hero . The narrative straggle out like an HBO miniseries , thread a personal narrative of Batman get word his purpose with a largercity - widestory of a corrupt system unraveling at the provocation of a puzzler - loving lunatic . It work up to a culmination in Gotham Square Garden , where Batman kill an army of imitator Riddlers and leave a group of citizens to higher ground in the backwash of a flood . For a bit , you might be tricked into thinking the movie will wrap up up in a relatively contained manner , broadcast Pattinson ’s vigilance man out into the night without tease another encounter .
rather , Dano ’s Riddler ends up in Arkham Asylum , the frequent resting space for Batman ’s defeated foes . Tasked with focusing on improving his mental wellness , the Riddler hears a representative in another cellular phone : It ’s a giggle - prostrate inmate offering some advice . " One day you ’re on top , the next day you ’re a buffoon , " says the deep figure , played by Barry Keoghan ( Dunkirk , The Green Knight ) and credit only as " Unseen Arkham Prisoner " in the citation . Ah , a goofball , you say ? This could n’t be the Joker — no , that would be too twisted — or could it ? ( Yes , it ’s the Joker . )
The Joker card from the end of ‘Batman Begins’|Warner Bros.
It ’s a reveal that echoes the closing to Nolan’sBatman Begins , which did n’t sport Heath Ledger at all but did close with Batman receiving a Joker card that offered a warning of rise crime in the metropolis . The manner Reeves draw close this tantrum is indicative of his approach to the fabric : alternatively of just a wind , we get more Joker than you might expect . Inan interviewwith IGN , the theater director described his vision of the Joker this way : " I wanted to create an iteration of him that felt typical and new but went right back to the antecedent . ”
That ’s the twofold bind of making a Batman picture , particularly one that once again returns to the Joker , in 2022 . Each supporting character come with so much history , so many late avatar with their own specific identities , that the filmmakers are immediately working from a defensive crouch . ( And that ’s not even counting the many versions of the case project in comic script and on TV shows . ) Depending on your fluency in Bat - lore , The Batmanis either push back against a fixed idea of how it should be or introducing you to a new varlet ' picture gallery of mayhem - loving miscreant . go back to the roots while attempting to push the character forward , Reeves must run a difficult secret plan that feels rigged from the showtime . At least he has Keoghan ’s Joker up his sleeve .
Joaquin Phoenix in 2019’s ‘Joker’|Warner Bros.
