“The Batman” has broken out as the biggest box-office hit of the year. Unofficially, the movie might have also set a new standard for the darkest superhero blockbuster ever made.
Almost 100% of the movie plays out at night.
Robert Pattinson’s
vigilante superhero does his job in heavy rain, dim rooms and a nightclub resembling a bunker. One of the story’s few daytime sequences takes place at a funeral.
“I am the shadows,” Batman murmurs in a voice-over before materializing in a crypt-like subway station to pummel a gang.
For the filmmakers who inherited a movie franchise defined by darkness, the job was to push the three-hour movie to a new level without letting it dissolve into a murky mess. Though fans and critics have debated whether the movie needs more jokes and remarked on the total absence of glitzy black-tie galas…
