The Batman: 6 Ways Colin Farrell Is The Best Penguin Yet
Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Batman (2022).
Matt Reeves’ The Batman subverts the audience’s expectations of the Dark Knight’s big-screen adventures in a few key ways. It’s a neo-noir leaning more on the Bat’s instincts as a detective than his brute force. Catwoman is depicted as a straightforward ally as opposed to a villainous femme fatale. And, above all, the film mercifully skips the Bat’s well-worn origin story.
But it also adheres to a few of the series’ traditions. Like almost every Batman movie before it, The Batman adapts more than one iconic villain from the Caped Crusader’s rogues’ gallery. Paul Dano’s heavy-breathing, serial-killing Riddler is backed up by Colin Farrell’s Penguin as a secondary antagonist – and it might be the best live-action version of the Penguin so far.
6 Farrell Disappears Into The Role
Farrell’s performance as the Penguin is one of the most acclaimed turns in The Batman because, like Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, he’s a well-known actor who disappears into a fresh take on an iconic character. The most obvious way that Farrell disappears into the role of the Penguin is by wearing so much makeup and prosthetics that he’s physically unrecognizable. But the actor takes it a step further with a completely unrecognizable performance.
Channeling the short temper and dry humor of De Niro’s mafioso performances, Farrell fully embodies the role of the Penguin in this movie. Farrell’s spot-on comedic timing often arrives as a fun reminder that it’s him under all the makeup.
5 This Penguin Wouldn’t Be Out Of Place In A Gangster Movie
From Burgess Meredith to Danny DeVito, the actors who have played the Penguin in live-action have rarely steered away from the comic book villainy. This is typically a ridiculous character and the actors cast to play him tend to treat him as such. But Farrell’s turn is different. He plays Oz like he’s a dry, nuanced, volatile gangster in the line-up of a Scorsese crime epic.
Farrell’s Oz isn’t a straightforward supervillain. This low-level mafioso wouldn’t feel out of place next to Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill in Goodfellas or James Caan’s Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.
4 He’s Responsible For The Movie’s Funniest Moments
The Batman has been accused of lacking humor, but there are plenty of darkly comedic moments to lighten the mood, like the gruesome “thumb drive” wordplay. Thanks to Farrell’s signature dry wit and a couple of subtle sight gags, the Penguin provides the film’s funniest moments.
After Batman and Gordon abandon the Penguin with his wrists and ankles tied, he waddles like a real penguin. Farrell nails the deadpan delivery when he’s confronted with the “El Rata Alada” clue and quips, “A rat with wings – you know what that sounds like to me? A friggin’ bat!”
3 The Penguin Is At The Center Of The Best Action Scene
There are many riveting action sequences in The Batman, from the opening train station fight to the hallway shootout with bullets pinging off of the Batsuit to the big finale up on the rafters of a flooded Gotham Square Garden. But arguably the most thrilling set-piece in the film is the middle-act car chase in which Batman pursues the Penguin in the wrong lane of a busy highway.
There’s a refreshing clarity in this chase scene, with shots taken from the cars themselves to put the audience in the characters’ perspectives. The stakes are always changing, with the Penguin causing a huge gas tanker explosion, prematurely declaring victory over the Bat, and then having his car flipped. With the grit of The French Connection and the dizzying camera movements of Bullitt, this car chase is easily the most exciting action sequence in the film – and the Penguin is at the forefront.
2 He’s Set Up For A Larger Arc
When audiences meet the Penguin at the beginning of The Batman, he isn’t yet the criminal overlord of Gotham City that he is in the comics. Reeves and co. will chart this Penguin’s rise to power over the course of a solo trilogy and, intriguingly, his own streaming series. HBO Max recently ordered The Penguin to a full series with Farrell reprising his role as Oz and acting as an executive producer.
Inspired by classic gangster movies like Scarface and The Long Good Friday, this Penguin series will chronicle Oz’s takeover of the Falcone crime syndicate. The Batman gives this Penguin an unforgettable introduction, but his on-screen journey is far from over – it’s just getting started.
1 It’s A Realistic Take On A Cartoonish Character
Matt Reeves’ vision of the Batman universe is defined by taking a grounded approach to familiar comic book archetypes. The Batcave is an abandoned railway station underneath Wayne Tower. The Batmobile stalls on its first crimefighting foray. The Riddler is a cold-blooded, duct-tape-using executioner in the mold of the real-world Zodiac Killer.
With a monocle, a snarly voice, and a loyal army of penguin minions, the Penguin is traditionally one of the most cartoonish characters in the Bat-canon. But Reeves and Farrell managed to ground the character in a tangible sense of reality as a low-ranking, money-grubbing mobster trying to climb the power ladder. For once, Oswald Cobblepot seems like a real human being.