The Batman needed a harder reboot

polygon.com:

Batman is back, and he is pissed as hell. The Batman, director Matt Reeves’ moody reboot of famous comic book hero, launches a new version of the Caped Crusader for the 2020s. After the failure of the Snyderverse to launch a solo franchise with Ben Affleck’s elder statesman take, and the enduring appeal of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, there’s a lot of room for something new. Unfortunately, Reeves’ new take has a lot in common with the old takes.

The Batman is full of moments you’ve seen before, and not that long ago. At its most exhausting, it restages moments from the Nolan trilogy: A mobster tells Bruce Wayne the truth about how the world works, Batman fights his way through a nightclub in a fury or through a hallway illuminated only by gunfire, footage of the film’s villain terrorizing their next victim is broadcast over the evening news. Almost all of the characters — with the exception of the Riddler — are recognizable from previous Batman movies; the new layers on display here are easily derived from what came before. There is nothing particularly bold about The Batman. Its strength is in execution.

A rain-slick mystery in the mode of David Fincher’s Se7en, The Batman is a methodical hunt for the Riddler (Paul Dano) after his grotesque murder of Gotham City’s incumbent mayor in the leadup to the city’s elections. Batman (Robert Pattinson) has been operating in Gotham for two years and has established both a street rep that keeps common crooks scared and a rock-solid partnership with police Lieutenant James Gordan (Jeffrey Wright) that lets him in on crime scenes, even if most other cops hate it.

The case takes the pair on a tour through Gotham’s underworld, crossing paths with crime boss Carmine