The Batman is now playing in theaters, inviting audiences to a grimmer take on the story of the Caped Crusader and his personal dilemmas. In a chat with The Ringer, director Matt Reeves has now touched on one of these inner character conflicts that challenge Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, ultimately lending more meaning to the iconic “I am vengeance!” phrase in the comics and in the new film.
Explaining why this version of the World’s Greatest Detective is different from anything we’ve seen so far, Reeves says that his Batman is channeling all his anger and trauma into making sense of his identity. In his own words,
“As much as he wants to think he’s doing this to make the city better, it’s really for himself also, to make sense of his life. And I don’t think he understands the degree to which he’s driven in this way that’s really a personal vendetta. And that’s why he begins in this when he doesn’t say, you know, ‘I’m Batman,’ like the Burton movies, he says, ‘I’m vengeance,’ which does come from the comics and from the animated series. And I thought, well, what I’d love to do is I’d like to see him have an awakening over the course of the story, so he starts to understand that he has to be more, that he has to change, that it’s not enough to take this path of vengeance.”
Reeves had also recently described his Dark Knight as an “emotionally stunted 10-year-old,” so if you haven’t already had the chance to watch the film, you should probably go in expecting an inexperienced and emotionally volatile hero, rather than the stoic and calculating version we see in many other stories.
By leaning into the traumatic undertone of Batman’s life, Reeves has managed to put a truly unique spin on the trope-filled story of the Dark Knight. Think of Pattinson’s iteration as a rowdy vigilante who’s still dealing with the dark history of his parents and their fate, on a journey of self-reflection to find his inner heroic side. Though ultimately, whether he manages to fulfill that archetype at the finish line will be up for the viewers to decide.