Believe the hype.

The Batman is a gritty noir detective story, which immediately sets it apart from the previous iterations and the aspect that I loved the most. The grime and desolation of Gotham oozes out of each scene through its immaculate cinematography and injected into your veins through Giacchino's brilliant score. 

Robert Pattinson's transformation into the Batman is as perfect as many imagined and by far my favorite on screen interpretation of the caped crusader. This is definitely the most grounded Batman, one that delivers a beating but also takes his own fair share of physical and mental punishment. Speaking of which, I am confident to say this film has the best action sequences out of any previous Batman films and rivals the action of films outside the comic book genre. 

There are some issues. At 2 hours and 55 minutes, there were moments it felt like it was 2 hours and 55 minutes. This is a non-spoiler review, but there were some characters that had way more screen time than I thought was needed. Which leads to my next real issue, while Paul Dano and Serkis were great in their respective roles, I wish we had more. This was always going to be an obstacle for this film and will be for any Batman iteration, Heath Ledger's legacy is that strong. 

Alas- these are minor gripes for a film that will likely cement itself as one of the best movies of 2022.