Gotham’s finest
Cert 15 ★★★★★ In cinemas now
Ten years after Christian Bale hung up cowl and cape, the Dark Knight rises again for a new solo movie, and thankfully, it was worth the wait. The dynamic duo of director Matt Reeves and actor Robert Pattinson have delivered a gritty, achingly stylish detective movie.
That’s right, a detective movie. We’ve had a camp Batman (Adam West), an intense Batman (Bale) and, least appealingly, a morose, middle-aged Batman (Ben Affleck).
Pattinson serves his young vigilante hard boiled in a wildly ambitious, nearly three-hour gumshoe movie. “Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal,” growls Bruce Wayne in a Philip Marlowe-style voiceover as he surveys a rain-lashed, crime-ridden and virtually black-and-white Gotham City.
While he’s earned the uneasy trust of Commissioner Gordon ( Jeffrey Wright), he hasn’t developed the hi-tech gadgets enjoyed by previous incarnations.
His main weapon is his almost-suicidal urge to pick himself up after a beating.
There are no superpowers here. The closest we get is Wayne’s Sherlock-like brain, which Gordon harnesses to track down a serial killer. This is Paul Dano’s Riddler, not a flamboyant loon in a green onesie, but a creep in a gimp mask inspired by the Zodiac Killer.
Wayne’s investigations lead him deep into Gotham’s underworld. An unrecognisable Colin Farrell raises much-needed smiles as a motor-mouthed mobster nicknamed The Penguin, while Zoë Kravitz provides a touch of glamour as slinky femme fatale Selina Kyle. As she leads a double life as a cat burglar with a pointy-eared balaclava, you don’t need to be a detective to decipher her place in comic-book history.
This is the longest and darkest Dark Knight movie ever made.
Thanks to great casting, stylish direction and dastardly plotting, the time flies by faster than the Batmobile.
‘‘ Thanks to great casting and plotting, time flies faster than the Batmobile