Much like Eternals, this movie has a way of making the white characters (With exception of Batman and Alfred). morally inferior to the minority characters in the film. All the white characters are corrupt or morally compromised.

A different take for a batman film

I really enjoyed this take/approach to a batman film. Robert Pattinson did a surprisingly good job in this movie. There were a couple scenes where my wife said "Does he have to be shirtless for this montage?" to which I replied "They needed to prove he doesn't sparkle anymore."

I thought the cast did a great job, acting was top notch. Cinematography was also very well done. The action sequences weren't over the top like a typical action film. I loved this films approach to Batman's gear and vehicles.. more ad hoc feeling, especially the bat mobile.

Now to the wokeness. My opinion was a little tainted going into the film, however, there were only a couple moments of blatant wokeness. One in particular is the one everyone has sort of brought up, where Zoe Kravitz delivers the line about Gotham being run by a bunch of "white privileged assholes." I felt that line was unwarranted, because corruption transcends race (if you need examples, look at all of human history).

Overall, we really enjoyed the film, 5/5 for originality and execution.

Wokeness, gets a 2/5 for the blatant dig that was totally not needed to advance the plot or complete the arch of the story. (We don't care that you hate white people, just tell your batman story)

Good

I really enjoyed the movie itself. There were two cringe parts as far as wokeness, a comment about rich white men was one of them. I would watch it again.

Super woke

Why do you all say this is woke?

This film is fantastic. Just fantastic. the only "woke" thing in this movie is when catwoman said the city was ran by "white, privledged assholes" which in her defense was correct. Going deeper-

Robert Pattinson delivered a 100/10 performance in his first stint as Batman. Pattinson's batman is cold on both sides, unlike the previous actors. In the few scenes his backstory was ever mentioned, Matt Reeves was able to fully develop his Batman and make you feel as if you were actually there.

Paul Dano genuinely scared the shit out of me as The Riddler. He is like Heath Ledger's Joker; he had his role down to a science and executed it perfectly.

Usually, race-swapping is done to please the woke mob, but not for Jeffrey Wright's Detective Gordon. I liked this take on a younger Gordon, not yet the commissioner. One of the only times race-swapping has benefitted a movie. My favorite Chief/Detective/Commissioner Gordon.

Zoe Kravitz was absolutely fantastic as Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Like Pattinson, in the short time her backstory was elaborated on, they developed her so well.

Feminism does not exist in Gotham City. literally 99% of the women in this film are damsels in distress, except for Catwoman, who is supposed to be a femme fatale.

To add the icing on the cake, every scene is beautifully shot. The script is so good you can take any line out of this movie, put it on one of those motivational quote things, and it would work perfectly.

Writing-10/10
Casting-10/10
Acting-10/10
Action-10/10
Cinematography-100/10
Wokeness-1/10

Must watch.

No wokeness present, great batman film

Long Bloated Boring Woke Mess

Lots of social justice messaging throughout. All the bad characters are rich white men. Corrupt white male mayor killed and replaced with virtuous good black female mayor. Main villain only kills white rich male characters because their rich and he's poor. We are even told at one point he's not really that bad because he kills rich white privilege characters that are in power. Thomas Wayne was now running for mayor and tied in with the mob? Rich white male I guess. Mobster owns everyone in power and has run the city behind the scenes for 20 years but forgot to buy the news media because of course they are always truthful and to be trusted and can't be corrupted.

The dark gothic atmosphere is almost perfect for a Batman movie. Almost perfect because it's too dark, so dark its hard to see what's going on in some scenes. The acting is good by everyone except Pattinson who is just an awful actor. He has no facial expressions and no range whatsoever. It's just angsty emo blank stare in every movie and he keeps getting hired somehow. The dialogue is all spoken very slowly and in low whispers and scenes just drag on for no reason. This could have easily been a 2hr movie. This is the DC Batman universe in name only. None of these characters resembles their original form in any way. Penguin is barely used and is just another thug. I don't know what the hell that laughable gimp suit villain was bit it was not the Riddler. Alfred is hardly there and that is NOT Batman. Where is the expertly trained martial arts fighter? This batman is just a street brawler. The great detective? Nope. He just bumbles around stumbling on clues or having other characters figure it out for him. Bruce Wayne only shows up a few times to look angsty and brood otherwise no character development there.

We wuz all da good guys n sheit

When the good guys, who were white, are replaced by blacks, it is peak woke. When a movie says f@ck whites, its woke and this does that in a big big way.

Where’s the dichotomy?

Batman is supposed to be ambiguous: is the Batman Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, or vice versa?
This iteration of the character is pure Bat, with Wayne but a thin veneer that he seldom wears.
Also, shirts and socks. He seldom wears them. Because toxic female gaze, I suppose.
By the same token, the villain(s) are supposed to be flesh-out, engaging characters, that in their own way highlight the darkness of the protagonist. Here, Catwoman is just a feline-in-distress, the Penguin a walk-on role, and the Riddler absent for 2/3 of the movie. At least he does his job in the end.

Both the script and the photography remind me of Fincher’s Se7en, which is a good thing in many ways, but also feels generic in a way, or possibly just too realistic. The movie does not bear the mark of the Bat, the slight touch of insanity that has been the hallmark of previous movies, even the bad ones. All dark and orange simply lacks flamboyance.
As another example, fight scenes: they are neither cartoonish (Burton), nor overly brutal (Snyder, Arkham videogames, although they do angle towards that in the end). Here they’re tepid and uninspired. Neither Pattinson nor Kravitz can produce convincing physicality.
This Batman’s voice just doesn’t do it for me either. Too smooth. No grit. The Bat is supposed to growl “I’m Batman”, not croon that he is sorry at someone’s sob story.
The music too often sounds like William’s Imperial March or Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. Originality is hard.

As for wokeness: pretty subdued for current day Hollywood. Yet another black female Mayor, all white males are corrupt (and I mean all, let’s deconstruct icons), hence Gordon’s race-swap, and female saviour. Catwoman hasn’t looked like Michelle Pfeiffer in decades (and Kravitz definitely is not Pfeiffer), and this Selina Kyle is aggressively, well, woke, as is each and every single black female according to Hollywood. She gets a pass for girlbossing, cause that’s part of Catwoman.

Probably the worst Batman I’ve seen since before Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.

The Batman dives headfirst into forced political messaging, and honestly, it’s so out of place it makes you cringe. The film tries to squeeze in social commentary on race and privilege, but it does so in the most awkward, preachy way possible. Take Catwoman’s line about “privileged white males”—it sounds like something straight out of a campus lecture, and it’s not even trying to be subtle. It’s a classic eye-roll moment that yanks you right out of the movie. It’s like the film cares more about pushing a political agenda than actually telling a good story. Throwing around terms like “white privilege” feels more like a checkbox exercise than a real part of the plot, like they were just ticking off social justice trends.

Then there’s the bizarre inclusion of the black female mayoral candidate. The character herself isn’t the issue, but the campaign signs with “change” plastered all over them, featuring a black woman’s face, are just way too on the nose. It’s so obviously trying to be a nod to BLM, crammed into a movie that really didn’t need it. It feels like the filmmakers were checking boxes for progressive topics, no matter if they fit or not. Instead of a Batman movie, it turns into a political ad with a cape.

And don’t even get me started on the hypocrisy. Zoe Kravitz, who plays Catwoman, is the daughter of a rock star and has clearly benefited from her own form of privilege. Yet she’s the one lecturing us about “privileged white males.” Really? Hard to take that message seriously when the messenger’s privilege is so glaring. It’s like a tone-deaf attempt at social commentary, where the very people behind the film’s agenda are the most privileged of all.

In the end, The Batman feels more like a dark, grungy Tumblr post than a compelling detective story. It’s trying to be edgy and progressive but ends up sacrificing actual plot and character development for some hollow political message. Instead of diving into Gotham’s gritty brokenness, we get a preachy, virtue-signaling mess that drags the whole movie down.