Is The Batman Better Than The Dark Knight? | Screen Rant
The Batman is yet another acclaimed reinvention of the Caped Crusader, but is it a better movie than The Dark Knight? Here's how they compare.
Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Batman.
Matt Reeves' The Batman is the best Batman movie since Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, but is it better than the 2008 film? Batman is a character who works in the shadows, and all Batman movies now live in the shadow of The Dark Knight, which has stood as the seminal take on its eponymous hero ever since its release. The comparisons to The Dark Knight have perhaps been even stronger for The Batman, which is the first solo live-action Batman movie since 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, and the marketing for which has promised a grounded take on the character that has, in parts, evoked Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.
The Batman even owes some of its existence to Nolan, who brought Batman back and gave him a serious makeover after the camp of Batman & Robin had turned the character into a big screen punchline. The Dark Knight went even further, challenging and changing notions of what a superhero movie can be: it defined a generation of films, comic book adaptations and otherwise, and even had a wider impact on the industry, such as the Oscars' changed Best Picture rules that came after it missed out.
Of course, Reeves' movie does stand on its own too. This is not just a copycat or an attempt to capture what Nolan's first Bat-sequel did so well, and The Batman's positive reviews and box office show it's worked with critics and audiences alike. Still, the 2008 movie is the standard bearer, so is The Batman better than The Dark Knight? It certainly comes close.
Any Batman movie is going to share some similarities to those that have come before, such is the nature of the character and the world he exists within. There will invariably be overlap, but even beyond the shared elements that are intrinsic to the character - from his supporting cast to Gotham itself - there's a chance to put new spins on familiar concepts, something The Batman does well even while reminding viewers of those previous instalments. Certainly, some aspects of The Batman feel similar to The Dark Knight. Beyond this being a very dark, grounded take on the character much like that movie was, there's also a new sociopolitical context that bears comparison: like how The Dark Knight was very much made in a post-9/11, War on Terror world, and those influences impacted the plot, The Batman, especially with The Riddler's villain plan, can't help but echo news headlines (the attack on Gotham in the end certainly has shades of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol) and general behaviors and controversies from pockets of the far-right online, such as touching on the incel subculture.
In a more micro sense, there are similarities between The Riddler and The Joker (Heath Ledger) and how their plans unfold. Both target corrupt, high-ranking officials of Gotham in ways that are not only brutal, but shocking for how they can happen out in the open; both use news networks and handheld video footage of hostages to spread fear and word of their assault on the city; and both have plans that culminate with a large-scale attack on the city and its people, threatening its very existence. But for all that's the case, The Batman stands apart from The Dark Knight. Reeves had long promised a movie that delivers on Bats' moniker of the World's Greatest Detective, and he delivers with a rain-soaked neo-noir that puts the focus on the mystery. Nolan's movie had slight elements, but was much more grandiose in its themes and epic in scope, whereas there's an intimacy (as much as there can be in a $200 million blockbuster) to The Batman.
Much like any new Batman movie will be compared to what's been before, so too will any new Batman actor. Robert Pattinson is the third live-action Batman actor of the 21st Century, but he quickly establishes himself as a very different presence to Christian Bale. Of course, Bale has three completed movies to fully showcase his growth as Batman, something Pattinson will hopefully achieve too, but the early signs are great: Pattinson is a superb Batman, arguably already better than Bale was in his first movie, and certainly with the potential to grow further (Bale's best performance was in The Dark Knight Rises). The biggest difference between Pattinson and Bale's Batmen is perhaps less the suit, and more when they're out of it. Bale was equal parts Batman and Bruce Wayne, playing the part of the billionaire playboy to perfection and keeping up his public image and the reputation of his parents' company. Bruce may be the real mask in a lot of cases, but there felt a more even split to Bale's Batman; while he had his own difficult experiences and moments of anger, he always felt on a more even keel, as level-headed and rationale as a guy who dresses up like a bat and beats up bad guys can do.
There are no such concessions with Pattinson's Batman; the movie eschews the typical origin story, plunging straight into his Year Two, which is a fascinating place to be: this is a Batman who is still consumed by the trauma of losing his parents, who cares deeply for Gotham yet has nothing but total disregard for himself, who looks upon meetings with Wayne Industries shareholders with disdain. Pattinson hardly appears as Bruce Wayne in The Batman, and that's telling: he has been completely consumed by his idea of vengeance, and by the rage that drives him to nearly (but never actually) kill. In The Dark Knight Rises' ending, Bale's Batman was able to walk away from the suit and from Gotham because he had turned it into something much greater than himself, making Batman a symbol. Pattinson's Batman is a symbol too, in a sense, but mostly of fear, and he is so given over to this persona it's impossible to imagine him ever leaving it behind while alive.
Thanks to his two Planet of the Apes movies, Matt Reeves has established himself as one of the finest blockbuster directors of the modern era, and he shows exactly why in The Batman. With this more a detective story, then there is far less action than in Christopher Nolan's more epic The Dark Knight, but what is there is at least its equal, and even better in parts. There are elements of horror to The Batman, which is present in The Riddler emerging from the shadows in its opening scene, and in how it presents Batman has a terrifying creature of the night, stalking his prey before enacting his brutal, bloody vengeance.
When the fight scenes happen, there's something wince-inducing about how the Batman loses himself in the moment, and the slightly smaller approach means fights that aren't as big nor super-stylized, but offer a great mix of gritty realism and yet a heightened comic book feeling, while others feel more like the Arkham video game series, like Batman stringing up the Riddler goons. The Batman can also lay claim to the greatest Batmobile action sequence in Batman movie history, as his suped-up muscle car gives chase to the Penguin: it's a blistering blend of massive sound, thrilling action, and absolutely gorgeous cinematography; The Dark Knight had its own marvels in this department, of course, especially as it flipped an 18-wheeler truck, but there's an even greater joy and electricity to this.
There are other elements where The Batman is better than The Dark Knight too: Michael Giacchino's brooding theme, for instance, builds both tension and hype and feels so perfectly attuned to its character; Greig Fraser's cinematography perfectly turns this into a stunning, atmospheric noir, capturing one of The Batman's real stars: Gotham itself. Batman's home city was one of the lesser elements (relatively speaking) of the Dark Knight Trilogy, because Nolan's realism meant it didn't fully have its own identity, instead by design feeling more like any major international city. The Batman's Gotham was filmed in places like Glasgow and Liverpool rather than Chicago; it's instantly more gothic, the weirdness more pronounced. It feels like its own living, breathing character and a world full of weirdos where anyone could and maybe does exist, capturing some of the madness of Tim Burton's Gotham and blending it with a touch of Nolan's to create what could be the defining big screen take on the city.
For all its strengths, and there are many, The Batman isn't better than The Dark Knight as a whole. The Batman's near three-hour runtime isn't a hindrance and it moves by swiftly, but The Dark Knight is simultaneously grander in scope yet tighter in execution, which especially pays off in its conclusion. The Batman's ending, or rather its third act, is where the film is at its weakest; Dano excels as the Riddler, but once he's behind bars and things shift to the final stage of his plan, it doesn't quite hold up and the movie sags ever-so-slightly, struggling to bring all of its ideas together in a satisfying denouement, whereas The Dark Knight builds to an incredible crescendo with The Joker, and then somehow picks it up again to deliver an even more thematically fitting defeat of Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart) and a poignant endpoint for Batman himself that was, and still is, somewhat defining of him as a character and what he represents to the people of Gotham. There are plot points in The Batman, too, that feel overly contrived: the discovery of "drive" and in particular "URL" as clues from The Riddler elicit laughs from the audience yet are played too straight.
Similarly, although The Batman's cast is uniformly great, it's outshone by The Dark Knight. In particular, two of the most important relationships in the life of Batman (and Bruce Wayne), are better served in Nolan's movie: Jim Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth. Jeffrey Wright does some great work, though on occasion feels more like he's assisting Batman rather than a partnership of equals; that came through in The Dark Knight, which gave Gordon (Gary Oldman) one of its strongest arcs as it showcased his outstanding virtue, his belief in the Batman, and the tragedy of having to destroy that symbol. Likewise, Michael Caine's Alfred remains the best ever in live-action, and in The Dark Knight there is an ideal balance of fatherly love and wisdom, while also being someone who'll challenge Batman where necessary, that gave the movie a greater deal of heart, humor, and emotion than is seen from Andy Serkis' Alfred's relationship with Bruce, which gets one stand-out hospital scene but otherwise isn't quite as strong.
Then there's the small matter of The Joker, which is the biggest reason The Dark Knight is better than The Batman. That's not simply because he's a better villain - and he is, for all Dano's qualities; Ledger remains the all time great in terms of comic book movie villains, so completely losing himself within the character in a way that is equal parts menacing and mesmerizing. Dano is superbly weird as The Riddler, but he never feels as unknowable as The Joker. As the Clown Prince of Crown himself puts it: "Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos." That is what sets The Dark Knight apart in terms of superhero movies and from The Batman: not only is it jaw-dropping in its spectacle, an astonishing technical feat, and a mastery of acting craft, but it has a terrifying unpredictability to it that allows it to reach greater heights.
It's a superhero movie that transcends the genre, a towering crime epic, and, for all The Batman's own qualities, this is a movie that is quite simply more purely entertaining. The Batman is very good, and great in parts, but The Dark Knight is still the masterpiece, a film so complete and so endlessly captivating that it has not been topped. Even though The Batman can't beat The Dark Knight, there's no shame in that: that is one of the all time great comic book movies - arguably the all time great comic book movie - and one that showed the world they could be much deeper and more complex as works of art; The Batman doesn't match that, but it's an offering that continues its legacy of re-shaping how Batman is viewed, while being different enough (and good enough) that it can still stand apart.
Even though it doesn't beat Christopher Nolan's 2008 movie, The Batman is the best Batman movie since The Dark Knight, and it also beats out Batman Begins too. All movies are impressive in terms of craft, so much so that the differences are almost negligible - especially in contrasting The Batman to The Dark Knight Rises - but again, Matt Reeves' movie gives a great account while doing something so unique. Oddly enough, for all this is the first movie in a possible trilogy versus the last, that is a movie this feels somewhat alike: not in terms of story - although The Riddler's uprising in Gotham has shades of Bane's (Tom Hardy) - but more in how it has some contrivances, stumbles, and ideas that don't fully meld together in the end. Still, The Batman has fewer of them, while Pattinson reaches a sense of hope in this movie that Bale's Batman didn't reach until the third, yet also feels even more earned here.
Likewise, because it skips the traditional origin story, then there's thankfully no new rendition of the Wayne Murders, yet what it does with Thomas and Martha Wayne is more interesting than Batman Begins. In particular, there's the change of how Thomas Wayne is seen, turning him into a more complex figure (much like in Joker), whereas Batman Begins was happier to go along with the established narrative of him as Gotham's fallen philanthropic hero, and Martha's Arkham backstory here offers a sense of something much more interesting, not losing any tragedy but adding more intrigue. The Riddler, even if not Joker-level, is fascinating and poses a unique challenge for Batman, which is more exciting to see unfold than Ra's al Ghul and Bane, respectively, although that's only to build him up, not knock either of those down. The raw, rounded journey Pattinson's Batman goes on and the struggle within, combined with a superb threat and how well-realized his Gotham is, means that The Batman beats out Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, even if it can't top The Dark Knight.