Overall Rating
 Awesome: 48.27%
Worth A Look: 25.87%
Just Average: 16.4%
Pretty Crappy: 5.54%
Sucks: 3.93%
21 reviews, 307 user ratings
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| Batman Begins |
by Todd LaPlace
"Holy rusted disappointment, Batman!"
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A great movie will make you walk out of the theater and want to discuss the film’s subtle thematic elements, while a bad one makes you want to discuss that night’s dinner plans. Walking out of “Batman Begins,” the only 2 topics of discussion were how much Gary Oldman looked like Charles Bronson and whether the phone calls received by the man sitting next to me — Rob Cordrey of “The Daily Show” — were from Jon Stewart on some fake news show emergency.Do you remember the old Adam West version of “Batman”? The movie and TV series that added “Bam” and “Kapow” into the pop lexicon, and made sense of phrases like “holy jumble,” “holy atomic pile” and “holy haberdashery”? It’s one of those completely ridiculous phenomena that has cemented itself in low culture history by being one of the campiest, crappiest, funniest things ever to come out of Hollywood. Anti-shark repellant? That’s just comedic gold.
Now imagine the complete opposite of that. That’s Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.” All of the lightness and brightness that colored West’s version has been replaced by black and misery and heavy-handed drama. Sure, Tim Burton’s version of “Batman” contained a heavy telling of Bruce Wayne’s traumatic childhood, with the thug who would be The Joker shooting Wayne’s parents in front of him. Now replace The Joker with an average guy and imagine that three-minute scene lasting for 141 of them. That’s “Batman Begins” in a nutshell.
The revamped origin begins with a 8-year-old Bruce blaming himself for the death of his parents. He retreats from his posh lifestyle and treks to remote regions to escape his tortured past, which leads him to an unspecific Asian prison. In it within that desolate place that an adult Bruce (Christian Bale) meets Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and his aide Ducard (Liam Neeson), a pair of men that head a shadow empire bent on destroying international corruption. The group lucks out with Bruce, as they have their eyes set on taking down Gotham City.
So far, the film is a great rethinking of a sagging franchise. It seems that Warner Brothers took the elements of the first four — iconic characters and a stellar cast — and mixes in a proven director that lacks a fondness for rubber nipples. On paper, it seems like they actually got things right this time. Alas, the film falters under the same problems that its predecessors did. “Batman” was simple because it was just a simple Batman vs. the Joker story. “Batman Returns” slipped a little, but maintained quality by keeping it Batman vs. Catwoman vs. the Penguin. Then all hell broke loose with Joel Schumacher, as the casts ballooned for parts three and four. One of the biggest problems with “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” was simply too many characters crowding the story. “Batman Begins” suffers from the same syndrome, as the core cast is ten people strong.
The congestion begins when Bruce refuses the League of Shadow’s required killing and he returns to his childhood home in the States. Bruce is immediately given a romantic interest (Katie Holmes), a local gangster enemy (Tom Wilkinson), a business rival (Rutger Hauer), an iconic father figure (Michael Caine), an obvious future enemy (Cillian Murphy) and two sympathetic friends (Gary Oldman and the always amazing Morgan Freeman).
In a character drama, this large of a cast might work (see the films of Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Altman), but in what is essentially an action film, many of the characters get lost in the shuffle as the story is forced to progress. The worst part about “Batman Begins” is the most neglected character is its protagonist, Bruce. During his early training with Ducard, the teacher tells his student he must become more than a mere man if he is going to put an end to corruption. The problem is Bruce is never drawn out enough to actually confused with a real man. It’s not Bale’s fault; Michael Keaton was a great Bruce, Val Kilmer was a great Batman, but Bale put together the most complete combo. Instead, Bruce’s 2-D personality exposes an extreme weakness in the film’s screenplay. Because the film is dealing with Bruce’s origin, the first half of the film should be more concerned with characterization, but it just wants to spout off cliché phrases about fear and desperation instead.
But what the film lacks in the first half, it does make up for in the more action-heavy second. Much of that credit should go to the strongest supporting cast since Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin, even if they do tend to trip over each other. Having already turned a small British flick into the best zombie movie outside of George Romero, Murphy has shown himself to be a strong addition to any film and this one is no exception. As Dr. Jonathan Crane, he oozes with sleeze as the psychiatrist head of Arkham Asylum that’s in the pocket of Wilkinson’s mobster boss, and takes his evil alter ego, the Scarecrow, from cheesy villain that ranks just below Mr. Freeze and lifts it to psychosomatic suffering personified. Even in his cheesy costume (a burlap hood), Murphy is much more terrifying than the disappointingly dull Ra’s Al Ghul and his henchmen.
Still, I can’t help but compare certain elements of the movie to those of the past. It’s nice to see this one admit that Bruce couldn’t have put together his entire alter-ego by himself, but it seems likely writers Nolan and David S. Goyer (writer of the “Blade” trilogy) were just looking for more ways to utilize Oscar winner Caine as trusty butler Alfred. If only Caine wasn’t disappointing when compared to former Alfred, Michael Gough, one of the few people to stick through all four early films. Perhaps it’s unfair to make such comparisons, as Nolan has done quite a bit to distance his film from the earlier incarnations, but any character that his own chain of national roller coasters has become too iconic to be distanced from what’s come before. In terms of being a franchise film, it could have been stronger. In terms of the grand history of cinema, the film probably won’t achieve the category of everlasting greatness. Still in a lackluster film year, “Batman Begins” is a pretty decent popcorn flick that has enough high quality elements to make it worth a look.No rubber nipples. No Batgirl. No bad riddles about being blind as a bat. No George Clooney. All speak highly for “Batman Begins.” But no Prince soundtrack either. Sorry, Christopher Nolan. With that last one, you might have had the best of the bunch.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=12435&reviewer=401
originally posted: 06/26/05 02:48:37
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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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