The Batman’s Fists Get a PG-13 Rating

The Batman is, currently, my most anticipated movie of 2022. After years of waiting for an actual detective story for Bruce Wayne on movie screens, I’m just excited to actually get to see a Batman doing the ground work and being translated onscreen from the comics I grew up with. I love Batman, and while I think we’ve had some fun films about him, it seems as if Matt Reeves’ take on the Dark Knight is the most accurate yet.

And now, we learned that The Batman will have a PG-13 rating for “violence and disturbing content.” That isn’t shocking for a Batman movie. All of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies are rated PG-13, including the incredibly twisted and violent take on the Joker in The Dark Knight. So, it’s pretty on par for the course for The Batman to have the same rating as previous takes on the character.

If the movie were rated R, I would be a little worried about how dark the film was getting because that’s the trick to a Batman story. The world of Gotham can be strange and exciting and at times campy, but Batman and Bruce Wayne are incredibly dark characters balanced by the outlandish ways of his Rogues Gallery. Pushing it too far into the darkness could alienate audiences, so I think that this PG-13 rating is the best move for The Batman.

Twisted Batman

While I do believe that the Nolan trilogy made critics believe superhero movies had to be that dark (they don’t), I do love what they established in the world of Batman onscreen. Bringing his arc more into the grounded reality of our world versus the cartoonish ways of Gotham in the past showed how sinister Batman’s villains can be. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote about the campiness of them earlier in this piece and I love that camp that comes with people like the Riddler who loves riddles. But I also like the darker sides to Batman’s story as well.

The reason I think The Batman is going to be so fun is because even with their take on the Riddler’s costume, it is still over the top even if it is rooted a bit more in reality than Jim Carrey’s. And all of that with a PG-13 rating means we’ll still have the violence and the disturbing nature of these foes while not being gratuitous with it to the point that it takes away from Bruce Wayne and Batman as a character.

I fully trust Matt Reeves and his vision for Gotham right now and every bit of information I learn about The Batman gets me more excited. And yes, that includes a PG-13 rating for the film. The Batman is going to give us some of our favorite villains, a new Bat, and more and I can’t wait!

(image: Warner Bros.)

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Rachel Leishman

Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She's been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff's biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she's your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell's dog, Brisket. Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.

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