Fair warning- there will be movie spoilers in this article.

The 2022 adaption of The Batman was a cinematic piece of art.

The Batman is just under 3 hours long with a lot of scenes filled with drama and a sense of heaviness.

But it’s not all sad and gloomy.

There are parts of the movie that bring a lot of action and mystery. The Riddler, played by actor Paul Dano, was the major antagonist in the movie. He put on an impressive performance, presenting a terrifying and bone chilling character throughout the movie.

Not only did he succeed in most of his doings, a lot of his riddles were also very hard to solve. There was always a letter to be given to the Batman that held another clue to a riddle inside.

The Batman, in this movie played by actor Robert Pattinson, was portrayed much differently than we have seen him before. Instead of  the superhero figure were used to seeing, they hit hard on the masked, lawless vigilante.

This Batman didn’t really have any high-tech equipment, besides some advanced contacts and a booster on his car. But other than that, he played a very realistic Batman.

He didn’t always win a fight, he didn’t have many weapons to help, and he even got scared when he went to jump off a roof and glide down, where he then crash landed and limped away.

There were many secondary antagonists and protagonists in this movie as well.

On the antagonists side, The Penguin and Mr. Carmine Valcone played a major roll in Batman’s quest to solve who the Riddler was and why he was doing the things he was.

And for protagonists there was Lt. Jim Gordon, played by actor Jeffery Wright, and actress Selina Kyle, played by Zoë Kravitz.

The Riddler’s motives were getting rid of the corrupt politicians and law enforcers. He would either capture his victims or just kill them immediately. He took out three politicians before coming for his last victim: Bruce Wayne.

Once Batman and Lt. Gordon figured out The Riddler’s next target, Bruce Wayne, Batman rushed towards his home to see if Alfred was okay. As he was calling his maid picked up and told him that tragedy had already struck. The Riddler had sent a letter to his house that was actually a bomb. Alfred was sent to the hospital and eventually recovered.

Bruce Wayne was targeted because his father was corrupt, paying people off to protect his wife’s image. Bruce Wayne had to pay for his father’s sins. Bruce Wayne’s father made a plan to help the city called the renewal plan. Which was a giant fund that was full of millions of dollars.

While they were playing The Riddler’s games, they were trying to snuff out the rat who was making all of the law enforcers and politicians corrupt. The people that were killed by the Riddler didn’t give any information, no one would talk, because there were so many corrupt people.

That is, until Catwoman kidnapped the corrupt law worker who killed her friend. They used intimidation to get him to talk about the whole thing- revealing that Valcone was the one who killed her friend and that he was the rat. He was the one that was controlling the city, and that why there was so much crime.

During the whole movie Catwoman was fighting a different battle. She wanted to know who killed her friend and why. She thought that it was just one of her clients from the club.

Her friend had learned too much, she knew who the rat was and what happened, so she was killed by Valcone. When Catwoman found this out, she went to kill Valcone, but Batman wanted Valcone alive.

The movie ends with Batman leading the way in recovery of the city after the Riddler blew up the sea wall and flooded the city. He sees that his way of trying to help the city was actually working the wrong way.

People were doing acts of terrorism out of vengeance. The Batman changes his ways and the movie ends. After the end credits, there is a secret message given to the audience to solve.

The movie did very well financially. In its opening weekend it grossed $134 million and internationally it gained $120 million making it $254 million for the grand total so far.

My thoughts on the movie are overall positive. It kept you on your toes because you didn’t know who the Riddler’s next victim was. There was action, mystery and romance. There were 2 different plots going on that turned out to be connected in a twisted way.

Rotten tomatoes gave The Batman 86%, while the audience score is at an amazing 93%. IMDb gave The Batman an 8.5/10.

Senior Cuyler Yager enjoyed the different take on batman.

“I thought that the different approach on batman was super intriguing. I loved the scene with the Bat Mobile, it was cooler because the Bat Mobile was kind of realistic,” said Yager.