The Batman trailer subverts one classic Wayne family trope
A new trailer for Matt Reeves’ Batman film puts the Wayne family front and center.
The Batman promises to present moviegoers with a very different version of the Caped Crusader than they’ve seen before. Directed by Matt Reeves, the highly anticipated 2022 film is shaping up to be a unique, gothic detective noir, one that will introduce viewers to exciting new iterations of beloved characters like Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), The Riddler (Paul Dano), and The Penguin (Colin Farrell).
Of course, at the center of The Batman is Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne, and the film’s third and latest trailer teases one surprising way that it may alter the iconic character’s comic book backstory.
Scars From the Past — On Monday afternoon, Warner Bros. Pictures unveiled a new trailer for The Batman, which offers some intriguing new details about The Riddler’s mysterious grand plan for Gotham. In particular, the latest Batman trailer implies that whatever Dano’s Edward Nashton is trying to expose about Gotham City connects back in some way to the Waynes.
The trailer opens with a conversation between Pattinson’s Bruce and a reporter about how he is — as far as the public knows — failing to uphold his family’s philanthropic legacy. It’s an interesting opening to the teaser, which is followed up by several shots of Bruce’s Wayne family cufflinks, as well as a moment in which Kravitz’s Selina says, “The Riddler’s latest — it’s all about the Waynes.”
All in all, the trailer does a lot to suggest that Bruce Wayne will uncover something about his parents in The Batman that, frankly, he might not want to know.
“The sins of my father?”
The Sins of My Father — The Batman’s latest trailer confirms, once and for all, that Paul Dano’s Edward Nashton knows that Bruce Wayne is Gotham’s mysterious Caped Crusader. However, the trailer suggests that the Riddler is interested in engaging with Bruce primarily because he’s a member of the Wayne family, telling him that he’s “a part of this too” just moments before revealing his knowledge of Bruce’s secret identity.
Later on in the trailer, Bruce accuses Alfred (Andy Serkis) of lying to him, implying that the longtime Wayne family butler has been hiding something from Bruce about his parents. Of course, it’s unclear right now what exactly Martha and Thomas Wayne might have done to earn the Riddler’s wrath posthumously, but there seems to be no denying that they weren’t the saintly philanthropists both Bruce and most of Gotham’s citizens believe them to be.
If true, that reveals just yet another way Reeves’ film differentiates itself from past Batman movies, most of which have depicted Bruce Wayne’s parents as being wealthy but goodhearted people. That’s especially the case in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which use Thomas and Martha Wayne to show only the positive ways they influenced Gotham City and their orphaned son.
Now, it’s looking increasingly likely that The Batman will do the exact opposite of that.
“You’re still a Wayne.”
The Inverse Analysis — While there’s still plenty that has yet to be revealed about The Batman’s plot, it’s already easy to see some of what Reeves and company have done to make sure the film stands apart from previous Batman movies. That’s especially true in the way it seems to treat the Wayne family’s legacy, which may prove to be far more complicated and corrupt in the film than DC Comics fans expect.
Indeed, The Batman may not just tell a story of a billionaire taking on a psychopathic serial murderer but also one of an orphaned son being forced to clean up his own family’s mess.
The Batman hits theaters on March 4, 2022.
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