The time has finally come! The Batman has been released in theaters, and with that comes a sea of posts about the movie and the exploration of our favorite Prince of Gotham. What worked for me in The Batman was Robert Pattinson’s approach to Bruce Wayne and the beginnings of Batman mixed with Bruce’s exploration of his own grief.
The choice to have Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne is one that shocked many (not me, I knew he was talented back in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), but recently, Pattinson has opened up about dedicating his time to wanting to play the role.
“Even like five years ago, I was the last person I would think would be cast as Batman,” Pattinson told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m never normally in consideration for superhero parts at all. Usually [in those roles] you’re either a total unknown or someone who just, I don’t know, seems more obvious.”
He went on to talk about his draw towards the character: “I don’t understand what it was about Batman, but I got really fixated on it and kept pushing my agent about it. I loved Matt’s work on the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies so much, and a lot of Matt’s work. and I was thinking, if you can get that performance out of a monkey … . [laughs] Then I met Matt and just he had such an interesting take on the character, and it just felt very different and kind of dangerous. It felt like a big, big mountain to climb.”
But all of this works to explore Pattinson’s approach to Bruce Wayne.
Sad boy Bruce
Bruce Wayne, at his core, is a sad man who struggles to comprehend his own grief and process it in a healthy way. That’s been an issue with him from the start, and while we have seen Bruce struggle in live-action in the past, he’s not been this incredibly sad soul trying to find a way to uphold his family’s legacy like he is in The Batman.
Pattinson’s approach to Bruce is to bring to us a man that is completely broken. He doesn’t know what to do with his life, and he’s so dedicated to being a vigilante that he’s throwing everything about Bruce Wayne out the window. He’s destructive in his relationships, especially with Alfred Pennyworth. He’s willing to throw the fact that Alfred isn’t his father in his face and doesn’t particularly care that it hurts him. This Bruce is almost unhinged in trying to find “vengeance” and hasn’t yet figured out that he should be a symbol of justice.
I loved Pattinson’s take on Bruce because he wasn’t perfect. He was messy and depressed and didn’t know what to do to try to help himself, and so he lost himself in helping Gotham. And I hope that we see more of this Bruce and his take on Gotham in the future, because there’s something so fascinating about his approach to the character.
Will his Bruce Wayne continue to work on Gotham rather than himself? Probably, and that’s what makes him such a fascinating and perfect Bruce.
(image: Warner Bros.)
