One of the most highly anticipated superhero movies of the year,“The Batman,”is finally hitting the big screen. It’s the umpteenth take on the revered comic book character, this time with Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader — so is it worth watching?

Well, Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle didn’t like it, calling the film “mostly just a collection of bad ideas,” while fellow critic G. Allen Johnson actually enjoyed all 175 minutes of it.

The story, co-written and directed by Matt Reeves (“Cloverfield,” “War for the Planet of the Apes”), has Batman trying to to track down the Riddler, who is committing a series of high-profile murders. In addition to Pattinson, it also stars Zoë Kravitz as a standout Catwoman, Paul Dano with a terrifyingly topical spin on the Riddler and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as the Penguin.

“The Batman” is the first stand-alone Batman film since Christopher Nolan wrapped up his trilogy with Christian Bale as the masked vigilante in “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012). It’s also the first since Ben Affleck donned the cape in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) and “Justice League” (2017).

Pattinson’s debut as the broody crime fighter was delayed twice from an initial June 2021 release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In advance of the film’s release on Friday, March 4, the Chronicle critics got together to talk about what seems likely to become the biggest blockbuster of the year so far.

Johnson:嘿，这是关于你讨厌“蝙蝠侠”的看法？我爱它。

但是，如果你坚持蝙蝠侠是英雄的角色，那就不是你的电影。

LaSalle:All right, this is going to be fun, because we usually agree, and I know you to be a very astute guy. Also, I don’t think it’s a critic’s job to talk peopleoutof what they like, but the reverse.

So first of all, what you just said about people insisting on Batman being a hero — that’s not me. The电影insists on him being theprotagonist.He can be heroic or horrible, like the Joker in “Joker,” but he’s got to be activated. He’s got to have something to do, some goal, something to sustain him — and us — for three hours of watching the guy. So what has me really curious is what maintainedyourinterest in the movie?

Johnson:What interested me is that at the beginning of the film, Batman’s legend was greater than the man himself. He had this working relationship with Commissioner Gordon (played by Jeffrey Wright). They had the bat signal, which was kind of like his version of shock-and-awe, striking terror into the hearts of criminals. Hehad done his advance PR beautifully. But what did he actually do? Basically, he cleaned up low-level criminals. So he’s rich (as Bruce Wayne), he has all of the hardware, and yet it is only whenCatwomanand Riddler come along that he has to up his game. It’s like the Catwoman and Riddler gave him more solid direction.

But do you think Robert Pattinson was miscast? Or did he just need a better director? How do you compare him toAffleck, the last guy to play Batman?

Review: Robert Pattinson is a big, mopey stiff as ‘The Batman’

While very much beholden to Nolan’s grounded trilogy, Matt Reeves pulls from several comic and cinematic influences to give#thebatman.a flavor all its own. Robert Pattinson more than earns the cowl, and he’s surrounded by a top-notch ensemble I look forward to seeing more of.pic.twitter.com/LxY0yopViB

— Zaki Hasan (@zakiscorner)February 28, 2022

LaSalle:Not miscast just misdirected. This is what sometimes happens when the screenwriter also directs. Reeves concocts a situation in which Batman feels trapped — like he can’t make a move, can’t do any good. And then Reeves directs Pattinson to play theentrapment, rather than play what any director would tell a trapped person to do, which is to play a frantic attempt to get out of the trap.

但是Pattinson可能很好。affleck，不，因为他的本质 - 这是他在某些角色中的力量 - 在道德上薄弱和浅薄。

Johnson:I’ve never read Batman comics, but like many of us I grew up on Adam West in the 1960s TV series “Batman” and felt Michael Keaton defined the role for modern audiences in his two films with Tim Burton. You can throw out the Val Kilmer and George Clooney films, which tried to pull the series back to the camp of the TV series. The Nolan-Bale trilogy I thought was top-notch.

Absolutely no spoilers for#thebatman.但我想这么说：

I never thought I'd see so many thematic elements pulled straight from the pages of some of my all-time favorite stories. As an avid comic Batman fan, I am as happy as can be.pic.twitter.com/j34CV2624q

— BatNick (@BatNick)2022年3月2日

How do you feel “The Batman” fits into the movie canon? For one thing, I thought it was interesting that in this film, Batman was more of a detective than an action hero.

LaSalle:I like your hierarchy. Keaton and Bale at the top, and Affleck, Clooney and Kilmer on the bottom.

Pattinson is an attempt in the tradition of Keaton and Bale, but it’s a bad attempt — it confuses humorlessness for seriousness.

这是a question for you: Didn’t the movie feel really pre-pandemic to you? To me it felt like it was about everything everybody was thinking about three years ago that they’re not thinking now.

Johnson:是的,它完全。我知道这些事情需要是的rs to make, and this film was delayed by the pandemic, so I’m not sure what they could have done.

我会说我对人类潜力感到更加悲观，我们在大流行的第一阶段都不能拉到一起，虽然我不觉得“蝙蝠侠”散发出来的虚无主义的类型。

In a sense, I think Reeves is in his own dark world, and I’m here for it. I loved the “Planet of the Apes” trilogy (he did the last two). I felt he was trying for something original and epic for “The Batman,” and I was really glad to see something like this on the heels of “蜘蛛侠：没有办法回家.” Spidey was a lot of fun, and it was great to see all three actors who played the character together, but it was a pretty sloppy and infantile film. I think Marvel movies are merely becoming formulaic, self-reflexive exercises meant to offend no one and take no risks.

“The Batman” is not that.

Do you at least agree that Reeves and company were swinging for the fences, even if it was a big swing and a miss?

LaSalle:Yes, but the wrong fence. Well made, but made wrong.

Also they assume that anything that evokes Batman is automatically important, like they just uncovered another synoptic Gospel, and so it’s all bloated beyond itself.

30 years ago, ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ offered a hugely influential take on iconic superhero

This is what I’ll say about#thebatman.no spoilers!
This movie is the closest anyone will ever get to making a live action modernized take on Batman:The animated series.

This is the definitive Batman in my opinion. To me this movie is the best depiction of any CB character ever.pic.twitter.com/r1wOWf2Nty

— Connor (The Batman’s burner account ) (@SoapBoxGames)2022年3月2日

But I expect that, coming out of this pandemic period and now maybe heading into a new cold war, a lot of the self-hating, fashionable dystopian pessimism that seemed so wise three years ago is going to fade. It’s easy to act like life isn’t worth living when nothing is actively trying to kill you, whether it’s a virus or whatever. That’s why I think that very soon everything pre-pandemic, whether it’s fashions in clothing or fashions in ideas, is going to seem really naive. To me, this movie was that.

Johnson:OK, we agree to disagree about “The Batman.” Clearly you couldn’t recognize a future classic. (laughs)

Just wondering:You also hated “Venom 2.”Which movie is worse?

Lasalle:Nothing’s worse than “Venom.” I was in pain watching that. “The Batman” isn’t contemptible, just something I didn’t like for specific reasons.

Johnson:Well for me, this was a dark, disturbing, original vision with a compelling cast. I’d like to see where Reeves/Pattinson go from here.

But let’s part on a note of harmony. I, like you, thought Michael Giacchino’s music score was brilliant. It’s one of the only big-budget movie scores I’ve heard that features the piano as its main instrument. It was the best part of the movie.

LaSalle:Agreed.

Johnson:See you again in the dark!

“The Batman”(R) in theaters Friday, March 4.