Batman Begins: The Review

Yesterday, I was up in the city anxiously waiting for a Rilo Kiley concert that was to start later that evening. I got up there around noon and realized that I had 9 hours that had to be killed until the show started. I wandered over to the Metreon, where Batman was playing in IMAX format. That had to be cool. So I went in and bought my 15 dollar ticket to see Batman on 70mm film on a gigantic screen with 12,000 watts of sound. But that didn't start until 3:30. After wandering for a couple of hours, I went back to the Metreon where I was accosed by a Mexican guy who started saying to me: "Hey, you're a wearing a Batman shirt, you must be seeing Batman." Now I've come to realize, that there are certain types of people who feel it is their responsibility to comment on everything and everyone. I'm the kind of person who can see something, such as a guy wearing a Batman shirt, and going to see Batman, and just let it go. Not this guy, he had other plans. But once I passed that little obstacle, I went upstairs and waited in line. I was behind these two guys, and one went off to buy some popcorn and came back and immediately started telling his friend the story of his popcorn purchase. He feels a great injustice has been done because the popcorn is so expensive, and he questions the freshness of it. He said that he complained to the person and they guaranteed it was fresh. He didn't believe it. But still he paid for the popcorn and returned and happily ate the whole bag before the line even started moving. But my question to this man is this: Have you not been to the movies in the last 10 years, and especially in San Francisco? Everything is expensive. Deal with it. You're not the first guy to realize that shit is overpriced, so don't make it out to be some huge revelation. But eventually we started moving and as we got into the theater, I sat in awe at the giant IMAX screen. I was excited.

At 3:30 on the dot the movie began with a quick little ad about the greatness of IMAX. Now after watching the entire movie, I realized that seeing a regular film on IMAX is not impressive. Aside from loud as hell gunshots that made everyone in the theater jump, it isn't much different from your standard 35mm film. Was it worth 15 bucks to see it on a huge screen? No, not at all. Go see this movie at a standard theater and save yourself the 5 extra bucks. And now, onto the movie itself(finally huh?)

Without the benefits of previews to ease you into the movie, this one started rather abruptly. It covered the Bruce Wayne childhood very quickly, moving us into current(?) day where Bruce Wayne was a prisoner in a foreign jail. He beats up some guys and then Liam Neeson approaches him about joining the League of Shadows, a group of ninjas who make it their personal responsibility to ensure that people live happily ever after, by any means necessary. Bruce trains, confronts his past, then to show that he is different from these guys and better than them because he doesn't have to kill bad people, he burns down their temple and kills them because he thinks they are bad people(they have plotted to destroy Gotham to save it from itself). However he saves Liam Neeson who has trained him up to this point. Now we finally get back to Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham City. This is where I'm going to stop just retelling the plot to you because anymore would spoil this movie.

The good: This movie is full of great dialogue, and it didn't feel forced like other comic book movies. Now, I've only seen previews for Fantastic Four, but that is a movie that is going to be full of bad, forced dialogue. Christopher Nolan has a touch for natural sounding conversation, especially when dealing with heavy handed, moralistic conversations that only people in movies have. The dialogue shines, even when being said by Katie Holmes(who I'll get to in the bad sectoin). Christian Bale as Batman was a fantastic casting choice. He has already shown that he can play that cold, callous rich person in American Psycho, and this is a good extension of that. Batman fights the bad people because he wants to save people from them, while his Patrick Bateman character killed the people he thought less of out of anger and hatred towards them not being able to help themselves. Interesting parallels could be drawn between these two characters and it is my guess that his role in American Psycho directly contributed to his casting as Batman, because it sure as hell wasn't his role in Newsies(or Reign of Fire)that did it. Overall, the cast in this movie is spot on. Michael Caine is a bit too high profile to play Alfred, Michael Gough was the perfect Alfred. But Michael Caine does a good job and really shows how much he cares about Bruce Wayne and the whole Wayne legacy. Morgan Freeman does his usual good job, even when not given too much to work with. He's pretty much relegated to a Q like character who only serves to give Batman whatever new technology he needs. Gary Oldman does a fantastic job as a not crazy guy. I didn't know he had it in him. His Gordon is great and it is interesting to see how the Batman/Gordon relationship started and why they both can trust each other so much. I think more people should cast Oldman as a regular guy because he's done the crazy thing so much that it is really interesting to see him in such a subdued role.

The villains in this movie are also excellent around the board. Liam Neeson here being the standout. (sorry, is that a spoiler? oh well, I don't think anyone is ever going to read this anyway) The villains in the older Batman movies have all been extremely over the top, but in the first two it was within the boundaries of their characters, but in Begins, Liam Neeson plays a very calm and driven villain who uses subtlety over sheer craziness. Cillian Murphy on the other hand plays a very crazy Scarecrow who uses a drug to induce panic in people. To shield himself from the effect he wears a crazy looking burlap sack over his head. It is his scenes that are the most surreal and frightening in the entire movie. The scene between him and Batman is sure to scare the hell out of any kid whose parents were dumb enough to take them to a PG-13 movie. The mob boss guy was suitably mob boss like. He gives a decent speech about how he uses fear to control the city, but it's been told before countless times in countless other movies. Overall the villains are very well rounded and seem much more believable in this world than a Mr. Freeze does(this is just used as a bash to Batman and Robin, which I think will never ever be watched by another human being from here on out.)

Now onto the bad: Katie Holmes. I know we should be able to detach her as an actress and her in her normal life, but given the recent "news" about her and Tom Cruise(TomKat anyone?) it's hard to not be pissed off by her presence in this movie. But that could have been easily forgiven if she was good, but unfortunately she isn't. Granted, she has to deliver most of the moralistic speeches that must be difficult to have to spit out due to their nature. But she is a woman that has no sympathy at all for Bruce Wayne until she finds out he is Batman.(sorry for that other spoiler, but it's pretty obvious that she's going to figure it out) And she is just so goddamn goofy looking throughout most of the movie-half of her face seems to be normal, and the other half just seems to sag to one side. It's very strange. But she does wear a white satin shirt on a cold day at the end of the movie. You know right where that's headed.

My other complaint was in the action. It was generally very good, but a lot of the one on one fights used such quick close up cuts that it was difficult to figure out just what was going on sometimes. When he fights the prisoners at the beginning of the film, I didn't even realize he was kicking ass, I thought it looked pretty even. Now I don't know if that's just the IMAX doing that, but it was very distracting. Luckily it fixes that in spots, and once he becomes Batman, it becomes a little easier to tell who is doing what because he is the guy in the costume.

Luckily the weaker elements of the film are never terribly distracting and we are left with a great Batman which has lots of promise for the future franchise(I wonder who they were dropping hints about at the end there?) Let's hope that Christopher Nolan decides to stay with this franchise because he brings great visual style, and a great ear for dialogue to a series that was in dire need of both. Let us now leave the Joel Schumacher Batman's behind us and lok ahead to the Christopher Nolan Batman.

Rating: 9.1/10 (This was a great film, but there is still room to improve to make these even better, and if anyone can do it, it is Christopher Nolan)