Overall Rating
 Awesome: 47.86%
Worth A Look: 25.95%
Average: 16.9%
Pretty Bad: 5.48%
Total Crap: 3.81%
21 reviews, 294 user ratings
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| Batman Begins |
by Scott Weinberg
"Precisely the sort of movie that the lifelong & loyal Bat-fans deserve."
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Director Christopher Nolan pulls off so many amazing things with "Batman Begins" that it's almost impossible to nitpick the few things that he did not. (Katie Holmes as an intrepid district attorney??) Dark, moody, entirely atmospheric, and positively reeking of poetic doom & gloom, "Batman Begins" is not only the most straight-faced super hero adaptation to ever hit the silver screen; it's quite simply one of the very best.Forget Adam West and his kitschy 60's Batman. Fun stuff, to be sure, but not exactly the sort of vibe we're looking for these days. Put aside your affection for the two Tim Burton films -- and do everything you can to forget that the two Schumacher adaptations ever existed. The year is 2005, and we're in the mood for a dark and meaty rendition of the Batman tale, and to say that director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer have combined to pull off the near-impossible, well, that would not be an understatement.
The decision to make a stone-faced serious version of the classic Batman story is a potentially dangerous one indeed. Delve too deeply into the melodrama and you risk becoming laughable; stray too far from the derring-do heroics that we all know and love and you risk becoming boring. Batman Begins is neither laughable nor boring; in fact it's the slickest, smartest, and most dramatically exciting Batman movie ever made.
We begin knee-deep in Origin Story, which is precisely where we want to begin. Young Bruce Wayne, aimless and tortured following the brutal murder of his beloved parents, forsakes the family fortune and climbs aboard a boat to oblivion. After somehow ending up in a brutal prison cell tucked into the deepest mountains of Asia , Bruce is "rescued" by a mysterious man named Henri Ducard. Seems that Ducard is a member of the mysterious and exceedingly dangerous clan known as the League of Shadows, and they see a potential recruit in the miserable Mr. Wayne.
But things between master and apprentice go horribly awry, as these things are apt to do in adventure stories, and Wayne makes the decision to return home to the crime-laden city of Gotham. It's there that the disillusioned multi-millionaire will reacquaint himself with a former love, re-stoke the flames of friendship with his loyal butler Alfred, and butt heads with a variety of corrupt bastards, most of whom cannot acknowledge any sort of justice that doesn't involve a quick smack to the skull.
It's Batman's hellacious homecoming, and his return is an absolute joy to behold. And as I sit here trying to catalog all the components of Batman Begins that thrill and excite me, I feel a logjam forming inside my brain, so I opt to break out the bullet-points -- just so I don't leave anything out.
--Nolan's take on Gotham City is the unholy marriage of Blade Runner, Fritz Lang, and P.T. Barnum. This is a stunningly slick and amazingly run-down location, stocked with keening skyscrapers, perpetually dank & drippy alleyways, and more variegated villains than you can shake a bat-stick at. If "feast for the eyeballs" is a compliment, than Batman Begins is an eternal buffet of stunning sights.
--The screenplay, courtesy of Mr. Nolan and Dark City scribe David Goyer, is not even remotely interested in sticking to the flashy action bits and ever-cackling do-badders. There's a real sense of drama here, as if the filmmakers refused to deliver simple spectacle at the expense of heart, soul, and a story that actually moves you while it tickles your eyes. Themes involving fathers & sons, the devious appeal of vigilante justice, and the ways in which fear & hatred can be honed into something constructive ... there's a lot more going on in Batman Begins than just broken jaws, groovy gadgets, and frequent fisticuffs. Rare that a super hero action flick will deliver something that you'll actually want to think about once the end credits begin to roll, but Nolan & Goyer accomplish the feat with confidence and stylish efficiency.
--The cast, which is quite simply one of the best ensembles you're ever likely to come across. As Bruce Wayne / Batman, Christian Bale hits the ball right out of the park. Those who already love the guy from movies like American Psycho and The Machinist might not be all that shocked by Bale's flawless performance, but they'll be among the ones who enjoy it the most. And to those who are relatively unfamiliar with Mr. Bale, well, prepare to be blown away. The supporting cast is a who's-who of high-end and well-admired pros: Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Rutger Hauer ... it's almost too much for a movie geek to bear. Special praise is due to the scene-stealing performance by Cillian Murphy, who plays as dual a role as Bale does, only with a lot more oozing hatefulness. Alas, the only rough spot in the cast proves to be the seriously miscast Katie Holmes as the damsel / D.A. in distress. Granted, she's pretty much the only female in a testosterone-heavy adventure, but the lovely young actress simply doesn't seem to have the gravity or experience necessary to hang with all these bad boys. Still, she's very cute, which certainly doesn't hurt.
--The music, as collaborated upon by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. While it doesn't necessarily have that "hero theme" that movies like Superman and Spider-Man do, the musical score is a generally subtle / intermittently majestic backbone to all the onscreen craziness. Frankly it's one of the best scores of the year.
--The fun! Much of the early press for Batman Begins has been reporting, quite accurately, that this is as serious and straight-faced as a super hero movie could ever be. But that doesn't mean you won't get a whole lot of kinetic chaos and breathtaking butt-kickin' for your $9.50. And what makes the action scenes so damn enjoyable (particularly the freakishly fun finale) is that Nolan, Goyer, and their army of fellow filmmakers spend a lot of time laying an emotional foundation beneath these characters. You could watch a rock-video-style action sequence and have a damn good time with it, but when a bunch of crafty filmmakers give you a reason to care about the dazzling donnybrooks, well that's just some damn excellent filmmaking right there. (Another relatively infinitesimal gripe: a few of the more "up close and personal" fisticuffs are directed in a style that might incite some confusion and/or visual whiplash; sometimes it's pretty tough to tell who's smashing who in the throat.)
So hats off to DC Comics and Warner Bros. Films for a variety of reasons: they saw what everyone in the world (justifiably) hated about Batman & Robin, and they set out to produce the polar opposite of that malformed abortion. Gone is the camp, the kitsch, the awful dialogue and the irksome tongue-in-cheek tone. In their place is now a fantastic origin story populated by effortlessly engaging characters who spout provocative dialogue in service to a three-act structure that makes as much simple sense as it delivers a supremely satisfying story. This is a deep, dark, and astonishingly entertaining movie -- easily one of the best times I've had at the multiplex in the past several years.You're just not going to find "popcorn entertainment" of a higher caliber than "Batman Begins." You'll pull your hair out trying, so don't even bother. Better to drop your box office bucks on this brilliantly good time, thereby informing the powers-that-be that THIS is what we want out of our comic book movies. Batman now has a movie that can stand alongside the wonderful big-screen adventures of Superman, Spider-Man, and The X-Men. Basically, it's a great time to be a geek.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12435&reviewer=128
originally posted: 06/15/05 21:26:20
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USA
15-Jun-2005 (PG-13)
DVD: 18-Oct-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
16-Jun-2005
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