The Batman: 6 Times This Dark Knight Showed His Inexperience
Mercifully, Matt Reeves’ new Batman reboot – aptly dubbed The Batman – skips Bruce Wayne’s familiar origin story (and the painfully overdone shot of Martha’s pearls hitting the cobbles of Crime Alley) and jumps right into the Dark Knight’s vigilante crusade. But Robert Pattison’s Batman is young, naive, and has yet to become the well-oiled crimefighter seen in the comics.
In exploring a sort of “Year Two” storyline, Reeves had a lot of fun pointing out the imperfections of an inexperienced Batman who hasn’t figured out how to fight Gotham’s criminals gracefully.
6 When He Took As Many Punches As He Threw In The Train Station Brawl
After an innocent commuter is accosted by street thugs at a train station, those thugs are subsequently accosted by the Caped Crusader. He emerges from the shadows, beats one of them to a pulp, and quips, “I’m vengeance,” before taking on the entire gang in hand-to-hand combat. While there’s certainly a badass vigilante at work – fighting this many people singlehandedly is impressive in its own right – the Bat instantly shows himself to be a less-than-graceful fighter.
This isn’t the proficient butt-kicker from the comics; he’s still figuring out how to take on a dozen goons at once. He throws plenty of punches, but he takes just as many. One of the most unrealistic action movie tropes is that multiple assailants take on the hero one at a time. The henchmen in The Batman don’t stand back and wait their turn. While the Bat is beating up one henchman, four others are punching him in the face.
5 When He Deployed A Parachute Under A Bridge
While he’s dazed from the detonation of Gil Colson’s collar bomb, G.C.P.D. officers take Batman down to the station and discuss whether to take off his mask and reveal his identity. Jim Gordon, Batman’s only ally on Gotham’s police force, secretly tells him how to get to the roof so he can escape his inevitable arrest for vigilantism. When the Bat gets onto the roof of the building, he deploys a flight suit that will allow him to gracefully soar through the city – except he hasn’t figured out how to use it gracefully yet.
As he zips past skyscrapers, narrowly avoiding smashing through a window or getting smeared on a wall, the Bat tries to choose the right moment to deploy his parachute. He ends up deploying it at the worst possible moment, just as he sails underneath a bridge. The parachute snags on the bridge and the Dark Knight hurtles through the air and crashes to the ground. Maybe he’ll get another crack at using this flight suit in the sequel.
4 When He Stalled The Batmobile
This grounded Batman’s version of the Batmobile is a souped-up muscle car. It makes a mind-blowing debut in the second-act car chase. The Bat instantly strikes fear into the Penguin and his goons as he fires up the Batmobile and ominously advances toward them. From the red glow of the hood to the deafening roar of the engine to the crackling blue flames of the transmission, this Batmobile gets a spectacular introduction – and then Batman stalls it.
The engine sputters out, the car grinds to a halt, and the Penguin and company have more than enough time to escape down a nearby highway before the Bat can get his superpowered car up and running again. The Batmobile stall is a hilariously anticlimactic moment that sets up arguably the film’s most thrilling action sequence.
3 When He Trusted Carmine Falcone
After the Riddler’s documentary on the Waynes opens Bruce’s eyes to the “sins of his father,” he goes straight to Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone to see if the doc’s shocking revelations are true. Falcone confirms that Thomas Wayne hired him to kill a journalist who threatened to leak Martha’s history of mental illness and Arkham residency.
Bruce immediately assumes that Falcone is telling the truth and as soon as Alfred awakens from his coma (caused by an explosion he took for Bruce), Bruce confronts him about the sins of his father. Alfred instantly backpedals the whole thing, insisting that Thomas just wanted Falcone to intimidate the journalist, not murder him. A more experienced Batman wouldn’t be so trusting of a double-crossing criminal figure like Falcone.
2 When He Got Shot By A Sniper At Point-Blank Range
In the final battle of The Batman, the Caped Crusader fends off an army of sniper-wielding Riddler goons in the rafters of Gotham Square Garden. While the snipers are trying to shoot the incumbent mayor, Batman bursts in through the roof and starts beating them up.
The bulletproof Batsuit does the majority of the heavy lifting in The Batman, getting Bruce out of more scrapes than his quick wits and gadgets are able to. But bulletproof armor isn’t 100% effective, and when Batman allows himself to be shot in the chest from point-blank range by a sniper rifle, he’s almost taken out of contention completely. Luckily, Catwoman is nearby to hoist him back onto the rafters.
1 When He Realized He Strikes Fear Into The People Of Gotham
After spotting a group of survivors trapped in the flood, Batman dives down into the water, sparks up the Bat-flare, and pulls away the wreckage to free them. But as he reaches out to help them, they’re reluctant to take his hand. In this moment, Batman realizes Gothamites fear him.
He hoped to strike fear into Gotham’s criminals, but he just inspires the criminals and instead strikes fear into the citizens he’s trying to protect. This sets the stage for The Batman’s true origin story: the Dark Knight’s journey from a symbol of vengeance to a symbol of hope.