Critics are calling "The Batman" the best DC movie in years, but how does it stack up
against the MCU?
Keep watching for how it beats most Marvel movies at the superhero movie game.
Warning: Some spoilers ahead!
With a few noteworthy exceptions, like Wakanda in "Black Panther" and some of its intergalactic
locales, the MCU generally doesn't place a huge emphasis on its settings.
This is in part because the MCU is essentially the same as our world, just with super-beings.
"Mr. Musk, how are you?"
"Hi, Pepper!
Congratulations on the promotion."
"Thank you very much."
This is a fine strategy for making its stories feel real without spending a lot of time on
world-building, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks based on their own experiences.
Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy utilized this strategy as well, simply treating
Gotham as if it were Chicago, New York, or whatever real city the movies were filming
in.
But it's world-building where "The Batman" excels most of all.
Its Gotham is a marvel of production design, as gothic as Tim Burton's version but less
cartoony.
A lot of thought was put into not just how this distinctive city looks, but how it feels,
what it's like to live there, and why this corrupted place needs Batman in the first
place.
The sense of place in "The Batman" not only exceeds the majority of the MCU, but much
of the superhero movie genre as a whole.
The MCU mostly sticks to a formula, with minor variations.
Marvel might talk up "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" as a political thriller, "Ant-Man"
as a heist movie, "Eternals" as a philosophical drama, and so on — but despite these different
flavors, these movies generally end up in the same place, as action movies building
toward a CGI-filled third act battle.
When Warner Bros. hyped "The Batman" as a neo-noir detective film, however, the studio
actually gave us what they were selling.
There are still the action scenes you expect from a superhero movie, but there are far
fewer of them than most of its contemporaries.
The vast majority of the three-hour runtime is spent investigating crime scenes, interrogating
suspects, and struggling to uncover conspiracies.
Critics aren't kidding when they've compared it to the crime thrillers of David Fincher;
it has more in common structurally with a film like "Se7en" or "Zodiac" than with "The
Avengers" or even "The Dark Knight."
"Oh you're really not as smart as I thought you were."
Though the Marvel films have their moments of beauty, the studio's insistence on a consistent
house style has resulted in some pretty bland visuals.
Even when the technical skill on display in these movies is impressive, critics say the
general aesthetic is washed-out, and sometimes flat-out ugly.
This is absolutely not the case with "The Batman," which ranks among the most visually
stunning blockbusters in recent memory.
Shot by Greig Fraser, the cinematographer who earned Oscar nominations for 2016's "Lion"
and 2021's "Dune," "The Batman" is a cinematographic achievement that deserved to be remembered
come awards season.
Filming a movie set almost entirely at night and in the shadows is a challenge, but Fraser
keeps the images clear and beautiful even when the darkness is overwhelming.
"The Batman" is particularly inventive with light sources, using everything from gunfire
to the engines of the Batmobile as substitutes for traditional lighting.
This might not be the most even grounds for comparison, because to-date, Marvel movies
generally aren't trying to be scary.
"Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," directed by Sam Raimi, might change all that.
As such, it's no slight on the MCU to say that "The Batman" is significantly scarier
than anything the MCU has attempted thus far, and it is yet another thing Matt Reeves' film
excels at.
The Riddler's grotesque killings push the limits of the PG-13 rating to the extreme.
If anything, the restraint the film shows to avoid R-rated content makes what's implied
all the more disturbing.
From ticking bombs to topical political nightmares to one of the most startlingly believable
depictions of near-future climate disaster, there are multiple sequences in "The Batman"
that could haunt your nightmares.
Needless to say, think twice before letting the kids watch.
This is also something of an apples-to-oranges comparison, because the MCU's special effects
spend a lot of time depicting things significantly less "real" than anything in "The Batman."
Even with that in mind, however, Marvel Studios can be inconsistent regarding special effects.
Some stuff looks great, but there are many questionable moments of rushed or lower-quality
effects in otherwise high quality movies.
In terms of consistent realism, "The Batman" beats basically every Marvel movie when it
comes to special effects.
Some of the "special effects" in "The Batman" look real because they are real.
The Batmobile driving through fire is a real practical stunt.
However, there's also a lot of CGI used so seamlessly in the film that most viewers won't
even be aware certain shots are effects shots.
"The Batman" makes extensive use of ILM's StageCraft system, previously used on "The
Mandalorian," which combines projections with virtual reality technology to allow for the
most realistic cinematography of CGI backgrounds.
Let's be fair and acknowledge that Marvel Studios has gotten a lot better at villains
from Phase 3 of the MCU onward.
Vulture, Killmonger, and Thanos are all stand-out antagonists and among the most interesting
parts of their respective movies.
In its first two phases, however, the MCU had a major villain problem, with no one aside
from Loki and Ultron providing much in the way of entertainment or interesting personalities.
The focus was on developing a wide range of heroes, with their enemies being an afterthought.
"The Batman" has three major villains — The Riddler, The Penguin, and Carmine Falcone
— and they're all superior to the non-Loki villains of the MCU Phases 1 and 2.
"Whoa!
Take it easy, sweetheart."
Paul Dano's Riddler is the most significant villain in moving the plot along, and he's
also the scariest — but he still has complex motives for why he's committing his horrible
crimes.
Colin Farrell's Penguin is a fun gangster character, ready for his spinoff show, and
John Turturro's Falcone oozes menace as the villain with the most personal connection
to the Wayne family.
The MCU is exceptional at what it does in terms of building an interconnected franchise
where audiences feel they have to see everything.
Even the films that do work as stand-alone stories are designed with call-backs and future
teases in mind.
Between the epic conclusion of the Infinity Saga and the multiverse adventures in Phase
4, the MCU has only grown more confident in its viewers' familiarity with past movies
— and in the case of "Spider-Man: No Way Home," movies that weren't even part of the
MCU.
This is all well and good, but we can't dismiss the value of a well-told self-contained story
that doesn't feel like it's putting off any important narrative or character development
for sequels.
"The Batman" might be the start of a "cinematic universe" of its own, with sequels and HBO
Max spinoffs on the way, but it's successful as a complete story.
Only one particular scene feels a bit too Marvel-esque in terms of playing like a blatant
sequel tease — but director Matt Reeves told Variety that's not actually the case.
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