After Matt Reeves’ The Batman was met with widespread acclaim from fans and critics alike and pulled in $770.8 million at the worldwide box office, Warner Bros. quickly confirmed that a sequel was in development. There’s a third movie planned, and two streaming spin-offs coming to HBO Max, but Reeves is taking this Bat-verse one project at a time and focusing on The Batman 2 for now. There are many things in The Batman that work great that Reeves should keep the same in the sequel, but there’s also one big area for improvement.
The Batman works best as a character study exploring the damaged psyche of its titular crimefighter. But on top of that compelling character work, The Batman also has a bloated, overcomplicated, decidedly less compelling plot that requires the audience to make a few leaps of logic. It’s impossible to fault the film’s nuanced acting, immersive cinematography, mesmerizing music, razor-sharp editing, or even other aspects of the script like pacing and characterization; the plot is The Batman’s biggest weakness. The sequel needs a less convoluted plot and more focus on character.
The best parts of The Batman have nothing to do with the plot. Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Paul Dano, and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell all bring their iconic DC Comics roles to life like never before with grounded, brooding performances. Cinematographer Greig Fraser created a living, breathing Gotham with rain-soaked streets, minimal lighting, and soft-edged compositions shot on glorious anamorphic lenses. Composer Michael Giacchino’s moody melodies created a beautifully morose atmosphere, and his score has one thing missing from most of today’s superhero movie music: recognizable themes. The three-hour runtime was heavily criticized, but it doesn’t feel three hours long because editors William Hoy and Tyler Nelson keep The Batman moving forward. The upcoming sequel needs to retain all these elements, but it also needs to pare back the plot.
Reeves’ Bat-reboot borrowed from ‘70s neo-noirs whose minimalist storytelling served their character development. His characterization of Batman is drawn from the antiheroes of these neo-noirs: the eponymous socially awkward detective from Klute, the honest lawman surrounded by crooked cops in Serpico, the insomniac vigilante who reads his diary entries as voiceover narration in Taxi Driver. In all of these movies, character takes precedence over plot, and the films are more engaging and rewatchable as a result.
Throughout The Batman’s mammoth runtime, Reeves rounds out his unique portrayal of Bruce Wayne as a three-dimensional human being. The movie offers a glimpse into a deeply disturbed mind: Pattinson’s Bruce rarely sleeps, rarely takes off the cowl, and doesn’t bother to keep up appearances as a billionaire playboy. The complex plot points feel like a distraction from what the movie really succeeds at, and they take the spotlight away from Pattinson’s incredible performance.
A big-screen Batman detective story was a great idea in theory. The hard-boiled serial killer plot put the Bat’s most underutilized trait – the sleuthing skills that earned him the nickname of “World’s Greatest Detective” – in center stage for the first time in his on-screen history. But The Batman’s mystery storyline takes way too many steps to get to its endgame. There are a few unnecessary red herrings along the way. As soon as “el rata alada” has been translated to “the rat with wings,” Batman and Gordon run through all the characters named after winged animals, which is basically all of them: the Penguin, Carmine Falcone, Batman himself.
The meandering murder mystery would be a lot more effective if the payoffs had anything to do with the setups. The carpet tucker clue is a random left turn. The Caped Crusader solves the case because a cop on the scene happens to know a lot about carpets and there’s a carpet on the floor covering up the Riddler’s master plan. That master plan comes out of nowhere, too. Gotham’s seawall is never mentioned until the Riddler suddenly detonates a bunch of bombs along it to flood the city and tack on a big climactic battle sequence in the already-overstuffed third act. The plotting in the sequel shouldn’t be anywhere near as dense and overwrought.
Mr. Freeze has been floated as a possibility for the sequel’s villain. Although he might seem like a one-note villain with ludicrous ice powers and even more ludicrous ice-based puns, Mr. Freeze would be perfect for The Batman 2. Unlike the Riddler, he doesn’t invite complications to the script. He’s humanized by his sympathetic quest to cure his wife’s terminal illness. Mr. Freeze isn’t out to prove a point about Gotham’s corrupt one-percenters; he wants nothing more than to save the love of his life. If Mr. Freeze is the villain, The Batman 2 would have more focus on internal conflicts like emotional pain and personal motivations than external conflicts like riddles and death traps.