Matt Reeves, who had recent success with the “Planet of the Apes” franchise takes over writing and directing duties to give us a much grittier tale than we have seen before. Batman narrates parts of the story, much like he does in the comic book which had not been done before. Here, Batman has been in Gotham for two years and has already become chummy with James Gordon and they have the bat single setup and criminals know of batman, but he is still somewhat of a mystery to them.  It is not until the Riddler (Paul Dano) come on the scene and start murdering high profile people and always leaves a note for The Batman that our hero is truly tested.

Riddler is not the only Batman villain to be introduced into this new Universe. Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), who may or may not be an alley and The Penguin (Colin Farrell) are also present to bring some trouble. Farrell displays a completely different take on the popular character than what we saw from Danny DeVito in “Batman Returns” and it works well for this new story Reeves has set out to make. In fact, apart from Pattinson, the rest of the cast does outstanding work.

You could argue that I went in with such low expectations of Robert Pattinson in the role that I would hate it no matter how he did. I counter that argument with the following. First, I also came in with a low opinion on how Dano was going to do with the Riddler, but he turned me around fast and has shown a side of the character not ever seen before. Plus, when Tim Burton’s “Batman” was announced fans were excited to see Jack Nicolson step into the role as Joker, but no one was happy when they heard Michael Keaton has been cast in the lead role. “Mr. Mom is going to be Batman?!” However, once we saw him in action, he put all doubts to rest.

There were moments in this movie where I felt I wasn’t seeing Batman. I felt I was seeing Robert Pattinson in a Batman costume with a look in his eyes that he was worried if he was pulling this off or not. Batman requires a certain presence on screen, which he never does. When he is on screen as Bruce Wayne it doesn’t get much better. Instead of the suave persona that helps separate him from his vigilante one, he is more like some brooding, emo kid. He fails on all fronts to rise to the occasion. This movie had a good screenplay and overall was a good Batman movie, if they cast someone else in the title role, it could have been one of the best.

2.5 Swords