With «The Batman» the newest iteration of the cult comic hero appeared on the screen. It is realer, grittier, and darker, definitely darker, than the ones that came before.
Batman always brings a wide array of intriguing villains with him for the story tellers to choose from. The Batman went with the Riddler and portrayed him as an outcast from society, fighting to unravel a conspiracy among the elites of Gotham. The character combines a representation of a serial killer and a far-right advocate who gathers followers with an online-presence and leads them to a terrorist act. The conspiracy does indeed exist and is led by Falcone, a local Mafia-boss, who has everyone from the city’s executive, judicative and legislative in his hand. Rather than taking advantage of the interesting Batman villains’ line-up, the film goes for grounded realism. Which is of course a choice one can make. I personally am just bummed out that in a Batman story about a conspiracy, the Court of Owls made no appearance.
There is one more villain in The Batman, who stands out. The Penguin. Played by Colin Farrell the Penguin is the owner of the club where the conspirators meet, but he seems to be unaware of it. Although I think the Penguin is one of the greatest characters in the movie, I also think he does not fit into the film on multiple levels.
Tonality
First of all, where the other characters try their hardest to blend in into the realism of the movie, Cobblepot doesn’t care. He breaks with the all-surrounding seriousness and cracks a joke here and there. Although I was not always sure if his funny-ness was intentional or not. Nevertheless, the Penguin is a reminder of the comic-origins of batman and seems somewhat out of place in this grounded world.
Story
More importantly, as great as a character the Penguin is, he does not fit into the story. He adds nothing to the overall plot of The Batman, nor does he expand on any theme.
The sequence when Batman chases him down serves no purpose to anything. The Penguin isn’t the rat, the Batman searches for. Which might be okay, misdirects for the audience can be fun, and errors let the heroes learn. Except Batman doesn’t learn anything from it. The Penguin isn’t even valuable in providing a missing clue. All he points out is, that the Spanish of the riddle is bad. Sure that leads to Batman solving the riddle, but why does it have to be the Penguin? Anyone remotely familiar with Spanish would notice that. In fact, Alfred did. Right before Batman went out to chase the Penguin, Alfred pointed out that the Spanish on the riddle is a little off.
Spectacle
The whole chase scene between Batman and the Penguin seems very much shoehorned in, to provide an action sequence to the audience. Is it worth it? In my opinion not really. The chase itself was so boring to me that I forgot the details of what happened. However, it starts with the most silly scene the movie offers and ends with the second greatest scene of the film. When Batman starts the engines of his batmobile and the Penguin reacts to it, the shot reverse shot composition takes way too long, so that it took me out of the movie and I had to chuckle at the scene. If that’s just the way of the Penguin’s comical relief, alright, I’m here for it. But I get the feeling that that scene wasn’t supposed to make me chuckle. Anyways, the last scene of the chase, where Batman approaches the upside down Penguin, makes for a great shot. It was one of the shots making me hyped for the movie in the trailer (the other one being Batman being shot at in the dark). But here again. This shot doesn’t signify anything. It’s empty. The relationship between the Penguin and Batman hasn’t changed. The Penguin was terrified, when Batman started the engines, and he is terrified now. There is now power shift. No one has learned anything. Nothing has changed over the course of this generic chase scene.
For these reasons I think the Penguin doesn’t fit the film nor the story the film is trying to tell. With a spin off series for the Penguin already announced, I can’t help but wondering if this was a pure marketing move.
Lessons:
- An action scene should tell a story: The characters should not only end up somewhere else as when the scene begun geografically, but also emotionally.
- In a story nothing happens randomly, everything has a purpose. It may happen in reality that following a lead is nothing but a waste of time, but in a story it has to serve a purpose.
- Every character mentioned in the story, should serve a purpose in the story.
What did you think about The Batman? What did you like? Dislike? I’d be happy to talk about it in the comments.