The Batman review – Robert Pattinson’s emo hero elevates gloomy reboot

Matt Reeves’ film is spectacular and well-cast but an intriguing saga of corruption devolves into a tiresome third act

That definite article means it’s the genuine article. Adding “the” to Batman’s name has become a huge part of the brand identity, a sign of how elemental and atavistic this shadowy figure is supposed to be. You can imagine some growly voice saying “the Batman” – but not Tom Holland putting on a deep baritone to say he’s “the Spider-Man”, or Henry Cavill booming he’s “the Superman” (although maybe you could have Billy Joel stride into a dark Gotham City bar to raspingly confront “the Piano Man”).

Director and co-writer Matt Reeves has created a new Batman iteration in which Robert Pattinson reinvents billionaire Bruce Wayne as an elegantly wasted rock star recluse, willowy and dandyish in his black suit with tendrils of dark hair falling over his face; but Wayne magically trebles in bulk when he reappears in costume and mask as the Dark Knight, his whole being weaponised into a slab-like impassivity. And this of course is happening in the sepulchral vastness of Gotham City, the brutal and murky world which Christopher Nolan thrillingly pioneered with his Dark Knight trilogy and made indispensable for imagining Batman on screen.

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Robert Pattinson: the heart-throb who dared to be repellent

Playing Batman finally puts the boy from Barnes on the A-list, after years spent sabotaging any hope of mainstream success

At first glance, it looks like a neatly managed movie star career path: the graduation from teen-franchise heart-throb to a starring role in a superhero flick. But Robert Pattinson’s journey from Twilight – which made him, along with co-star and sometime girlfriend Kristen Stewart, one of the most famous people on the planet – to the latest incarnation of the nocturnal vigilante Bruce Wayne in The Batman, has been intriguingly circuitous.

He took a decade-long detour through arthouse and auteur cinema, through offbeat roles – the freaks and weirdos, the feckless and the fundamentally untrustworthy – before he finally circled back, via scene-stealing supporting performances in The King and Tenet, into the kind of lead role which cements an actor’s A-list status. It could be viewed as a risky strategy, but it is one that paid off handsomely. Pattinson, who is now 35, has honed his mercurial talent. He is not just a movie star, he’s a thrillingly unpredictable and daring character actor. And he has nurtured something that is in short supply in his generation of groomed and polished media-savvy contemporaries: a refreshing oddball eccentricity.

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Robert Pattinson was told to change his ‘absolutely atrocious’ Batman voice

The star of Matt Reeves’ upcoming film says he spent two weeks experimenting with vocal delivery. It did not go well

Robert Pattinson says he originally tried doing a different voice when playing Batman, but was told to stop because it was “absolutely atrocious”.

Speaking to American talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel, Pattinson – who stars in the new Batman film directed by Matt Reeves – said there was something about putting the suit on that meant “you have to speak in a certain way”.

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Batman star Robert Pattinson ‘tests positive for Covid-19’

Actor will reportedly self-isolate as Warner Bros halts UK production of The Batman

The actor Robert Pattinson has tested positive for Covid-19, according to US media reports, halting production of the film The Batman just days after it resumed following lockdown.

A spokesperson for Warner Bros, the Hollywood studio behind the film, said: “A member of The Batman production has tested positive for Covid-19, and is isolating in accordance with established protocols. Filming is temporarily paused.”

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Face masks, time travel and James Bond auditions: discuss Tenet with spoilers

Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster creates a palindromic origami of bizarre physics inside an 007-style thriller. If you’ve seen it, what did you think?

Charged with the twin missions of kickstarting cinemagoing post-lockdown (outside the US, at least) and out-Nolanning every previous Christopher Nolan movie, Tenet carries a lot on its shoulders. The fact that it made it into cinemas is an achievement, but does it deliver? The critical consensus has been a qualified, often confused, “yes”, although opinions have differed widely, even among Guardian and Observer critics. One thing all will agree: as well as a fresh jolt of spectacle to revive the flatlining movie business, Tenet provides plenty to talk about and plenty to think about. Too much? Let’s talk about that.

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Tenet review – supremely ambitious race against time makes for superb cinema

Go with it, and Christopher Nolan’s high-concept action romp will leave you ripping off your face mask for air, even as you wonder what it was all about

Who shall save cinema? Not James Bond apparently. There’s been a brand-new Daniel Craig spectacular ready to go since Easter, arguably just the thing to get punters’ actual bums back on actual seats. But Team 007 is wimping out, unwilling to splurge their product irreversibly into some potential new ruinous lockdown – and Disney has suffered a comparable bottle-loss, dumping its live-action version of the Mulan legend on to streaming services.

So it’s up to the mighty Christopher Nolan to take the heroic, morale-boosting gamble and open his big new film in cinemas. Tenet is a gigantically confusing, gigantically entertaining and gigantically gigantic metaphysical action thriller in which a protagonist called The Protagonist battles cosmic incursions from the future while time flows backwards and forwards at the same time. There’s a 747 plane that crashes into a warehouse and then uncrashes back out of it, for reasons that are not immediately obvious.

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Robert Pattinson: ‘I don’t really know how to act’

He’s about to appear in what might be his best film yet. So why is one of Britain’s finest actors so convinced he can’t act? Robert Pattinson talks to Alex Moshakis about stage-fright and why he couldn’t say no to a role in The Lighthouse

Do you want to hear a funny thing about Robert Pattinson? Robert Pattinson is convinced he doesn’t know how to act. Willem Dafoe can act, Pattinson thinks. Willem Dafoe can act the socks off anyone in the business. And Joaquin Phoenix. Joaquin Phoenix could tie his shoelaces on film and be nominated for an award. And Bruce Willis – Bruce Willis! – now there’s a leading man. But Robert Pattinson? Nope. “I only know how to play scenes, like, three ways,” he says. Three! That’s all. Despite more than a decade in the industry. “I’m nervous on, like, every single movie.”

Pattinson, who is 33, is sitting in a booth in a low-lit restaurant in Notting Hill, west London, dunking table bread into a pot of something. It’s the early evening, dark and cold outside. He has arrived from rehearsals for The Batman, which started not long ago and which are taking place, to his delight, in the studio in which he filmed Harry Potter in the mid-aughts. The Batman is the first time he’s worked in a studio in “like, forever,” and his first mainstream leading role since he retired his best-known character, Twilight’s Edward Cullen, sexy vampire. That was in 2012.

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Kristen Stewart roasts Donald Trump with sexuality confession: ‘I’m so gay, dude’

The Twilight actress has been open about dating women, and is believed to be currently seeing Victoria's Secret model Stella Maxwell . The 26-year-old was the host on SNL and used her opening monologue to rip into President Donald Trump.