The Batman is the best Batman movie ever made. Full stop.

For Maddy’s birthday this year, all she wanted was to have an ice cream cake and watch a movie as a family. We had all been wanting to see Thor: Love and Thunder so that seemed like a solid choice. We loved Ragnarök, and pretty much everything Taika Waititi has done, so we made sure to avoid spoilers and went into L&T with a complete blank slate. I wish we had watched a couple reviews because it would have saved us the utter disappointment. I’m not sure how far we made it into the movie before we stopped it, but it wasn’t too far.

This video is actually a perfect example of how terrible the fourth Thor movie was.

All three of us then scoured the streaming services to see which movie we could watch instead, hoping to end Maddy’s birthday on a note that didn’t leave a bad taste in our mouths. My suggestion was The Batman, even though I wasn’t particularly excited about yet another Batman revamp that, if the trailers were to be believed, was going to be quite boring. But there was no way it was going to be worse than whatever nonsense that was Thor.

All it took was the first scene in The Batman to know this wasn’t just a movie, this was a film. The first scene had more tension than any other super hero movie I had ever seen. It felt like a psychological thriller and the cinematography was breathtaking. And, get this, not only could I hear all of the dialog, but I could see everything. They didn’t just hide Batman in the darkness. Heck, even one scene he was in the sunlight. Crazy huh?!

And I loved all of the characters: from Pattinson as Batman and Bruce Wayne, to Kravitz as Catwoman, to Wright as Gordon, to Serkis as Alfred, to FREAKING COLIN FARRELL AS THE PENGUIN!! Honestly, I even knew it was Farrell going into the movie and I had to look it up again afterwards because he was unrecognizable. I loved what they did with the relationships between Batman and Alfred, Batman and Gordon, and Batman and Catwoman. Everything felt real, earned, and true to the characters.

And here’s the kicker. Batman earned his title of World’s Greatest Detective. Ra’s Al Ghul doesn’t constantly call him Detective for nothing. Batman is the only superhero with no superpowers, so he has to use his brain. He’s super smart and is a detective. He solves crimes. And in The Batman, they finally let him do that. This was a detective movie at its heart and it’s exactly what Batman fans have been asking for for YEARS.

I loved it!! Seriously. Best. Batman. Movie. Ever.