The Case for Robert Pattinson’s Batman

We’re nine months into a new decade, and there’s already another Batman movie reboot on the horizon. At this point it seems like a great American past-time, taking the Caped Crusader and throwing him into the arms of another ambitious director who is determined to show the world a side of Batman that has “never been seen before”. 

This time around, director Matt Reeves has been handed the proverbial torch of the Batman Cinematic Universe, the BCU if you will, and has enlisted the acting chops of Yahoo’s 2008 Top Movie Heartthrob, Robert Pattinson, to don the pointy-eared cowl. When Pattinson was first chosen for the role, many people were skeptical of the decision due to Pattinson’s unsavory connection to the Twilight movies, however his detractors are now being put in their place following the release of the first trailer for The Batman.

The DC Fandome online event that occurred in late August brought news on many of the projects that DC currently has in the works for the next couple of years, including trailers for multiple video games, TV series, and the long-awaited Snyder cut of the Justice League movie. But the one trailer that seems to have stuck in the minds of fans is the first teaser for The Batman, which is set to release in October of next year. We finally got to see Robert Pattinson act his little heart out as the World’s Greatest Detective, and we got a sense of the film’s overall tone. And to the surprise of no one, it seems it’s going to be even more gritty than past film iterations of the comic book character. 

The version of Batman seen in this trailer seems very different from others, as this Batman is portrayed to be much younger and rougher around the edges than Ben Affleck’s Batman, or even Michael Keaton’s original film portrayal of the character. It would appear that Pattinson is going to lean even further into the dark and brooding aspects of the character, as he’s often seen with a kind of thousand-yard stare when he’s not fracturing the cheekbones of street thugs. In the comics, Batman is often a character haunted by his actions, or lack thereof, in the face of injustice. He carries the heavy burden of wanting to help every person possible and doling out justice to those guilty of heinous crimes. Pattinson’s Batman can be seen carrying this burden in nearly every scene that he is shown in, whether he’s actually dressed as the crimefighter or not. It brings a layer of depth to the character that is rarely addressed in other adaptations, and even if it is addressed, then it’s in a one-off line that goes something along the lines of, “My parents are dead so I need to stop all of the crime.” Pattinson’s Batman is different in that he doesn’t need to tell us all about his brooding, we can already feel it in his performance.

After this trailer, it’s clear to die-hard fans and more casual viewers that Robert Pattinson is no longer the same bedazzled-abdominables-having, definitely-too-old-for-high-school vampire from twelve years ago. He’s been trying to distance himself from the Twilight brand ever since the last Breaking Dawn film premiered, and no matter how hard Stephanie Meyers tries to renew interest in Edward with her newly released Midnight Sun, Robert Pattinson has found a new home behind the mask of Batman. Fans will just have to wait until October of next year to see just how well Pattinson does as the Dark Knight.

You can watch The Batman trailer here.

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