Batman Begins (2005)
Review by Philip
Frey
Young billionaire Bruce Wayne, traumatized by the murder of his parents, wanders
the world attempting to find some purpose to his life. After being directed to
the mountaintop retreat of Ra's Al Ghul, Wayne seems to find some peace with his
past. But Wayne is unable to join Ra's Al Ghul in his quest to topple
civilization and he, instead, tears down Al Ghul's retreat and returns to his
home in Gotham City to become its protector. He takes on the mantle of Batman
and aligns himself with Jim Gordon, one of the few uncorrupted officers on the
Gotham Police Force. But just as he begins to do some good, Ra's Al Ghul comes
back into his life, questioning whether he has chosen the right side for which
to fight...
Batman Begins is a fresh start for the Batman franchise that began
with such promise with 1989's Batman and crashed in flames with
1997's Batman & Robin. It jettisons the ultimately convoluted
continuity of the '89-'97 series in favor of telling Batman's origins from the
ground up. It clearly uses the Batman: Year One comic series as a
template, but finds its own path as far as the details are concerned.
And what details! Batman Begins is superhero-as-epic. From
the vast scenery to the far-reaching storyline, it's easy to see why director
Christopher Nolan has said he was inspired by films from years past, such as
Lawrence of Arabia (1962). This can work against the film, of
course. Some of the early scenes tend to drag on and the film ends up lacking
cohesion because there are so many threads trying to be tied together. Action
sequences also suffer, since Nolan's strong focus on Bruce/Batman seems to make
them almost an afterthought, as if he can't wait to get them over with. As a
result, they often come off as incoherent. Overall, however, Nolan's approach
does a good job of making sense of Bruce Wayne / Batman's place in the grand
scheme of things.
Christian Bale has the task of defining the character of Bruce Wayne before
he defines Batman and this works in his favor. It's clear that, at least to
Bale, Bruce is the real person and Batman the fiction. His Wayne is a complex
portrayal, with nuances that are missing from his alter ego, whose one-note
delivery ends surprisingly flat. Still, Bale makes the two believable aspects
of the same character, tying them to each other well.
Michael Caine brings a bit of the working class to Alfred, keeping his
cockney accent intact. This helps make him more hands-on than Alfreds past,
while still maintaining his nobility and strong sense of loyalty. Almost any
other actor of Caine's stature might think this kind of movie beneath him, but
Caine has never been one to take the job of actor that seriously. He seems to
be having fun with the role and it comes across.
Katie Holmes' strength is her ability to look like a fresh-faced young adult
in one sequence, then portray the same character as older and more cynical
without any disconnect. That being said, she has a hard time portraying a
convincing hard-nosed district attorney. Her scenes with Bale are strong,
however, and on an emotional level her character works.
The smaller roles are something of a mixed bag. Liam Neeson finds himself
mostly in Qui-Gon Jinn mode in Batman Begins. His surprisingly
small, but pivotal role as Wayne's mentor is powerful and it's easy to see how
he earns Wayne's devotion. Cillian Murphy (incredibly once considered for the
part of Batman) brings a smooth sliminess to his role of Dr. Crane / Scarecrow,
but (much like John Michael Higgins in the Goyer-penned Blade:
Trinity) his true nature is far too obvious. More subtlety would have
been stronger. Rutger Hauer and Morgan Freeman are the actors most hurt by the
preponderance of plot. There's a lot going on between their two characters and
I got the sense that there was a sub-plot in there at some point that eventually
got cut out. This leaves the two characters with some snappy dialogue the
director seemed unwilling to cut that doesn't really connect, since we never
actually get to know them.
Young actors Gus Lewis and Emma Lockheart are a real weak point. Both are
far too precious for their own good and Lewis' perpetually pouting face is
grating. It wouldn't be such a big issue with me if they were limited to the
opening sequences, but Nolan's penchant of never-ending flashbacks means I have
to see them over and over again (sometimes in the exact same sequences I've seen
numerous times already).
And then there's Gary Oldman. Oldman is, unquestionably, my favorite part of
Batman Begins. I've enjoyed Oldman's work for years, dating back
to Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). Here, he brings
his usual devotion to the part by making Jim Gordon a real, believable cop for
the first time since Pat Hingle in the '89 film. (Hingle's portrayal was almost
immediately marginalized in the series, much to my dismay.) And the way that
Oldman has captured the look of Gordon is stunning. He's practically a walking
David Mazzuchelli drawing. He also serves as the audience's connection to the
story; brilliantly portraying the awe, fear and respect we are meant to feel for
Batman.
The effects in Batman Begins are remarkable mainly because in
this day of digital everything, Nolan insisted on as many practical effects as
possible. This, no doubt, made the movie more expensive than it had to be, but
it's a price worth paying. As good as the digital effects look in films like
Star Wars Episode III:
Revenge Of The Sith, nothing beats actually building a set or actually
blowing things up. The look of the film charts new territory, but doesn't
really fall that far from the '90s series. Batman Begins owes a
lot more to Batman than many seem to realize. Everything from the
costume to the portrayal of the Batcave has connections back to the earlier
film. One thing that does strike out on it's own (and not in a good way) is the
Batmobile. I'm a bit of a stickler for Batmobiles and the one in Batman
Begins, although a fine vehicle in its own right, doesn't feel like a
Batmobile to me. It looks more like some kind of insect.
The soundtrack, unfortunately, fails to evoke the sense of the world that
Batman Begins portrays so strikingly. The score, composed by
James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer, is meant to connect differently with the
two aspects of the story and Batman's character. What happens, however, is that
neither composer's "voice" comes through, meaning the film has no central
musical theme. There's nothing to grab the viewer and help pull them through.
The music just kind of sits there. There's nothing that says "Batman", let
alone "Bruce Wayne".
There is an old saying in the movie business: shake a film and twenty minutes
fall out. Batman Begins needs a good shaking. This is not to say
it's a bad film, by any means. It's actually very good. But it could be vastly
improved by taking out some of the useless side plots and tightening up some of
the more drawn out sequences. If this film has an Achilles' tendon, it's the
pacing. A more direct film, with fewer distractions (and perhaps a single
composer) would work a good deal better. Still, there is much to admire in
Batman Begins and it stands up well to the best of the earlier
series. But it doesn't quite measure up to the much better balanced
Batman, nor can it approach (as some reviewers have suggested) the
still unequalled Superman (1978) for
presenting a comic book character in all his aspects to an audience.
- screenplay by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer
- story by David S. Goyer
Batman created by Bob Kane
- directed by Christopher Nolan
- music by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer
- Cast:
Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred), Liam Neeson
(Ducard), Katie Holmes (Rachel Dawes), Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon), Cillian Murphy
(Dr. Jonathan Crane), Tom Wilkinson (Carmine Falcone), Rutger Hauer (Earle),
Ken Watanabe (Ra's Al Ghul), Mark Boone Junior (Flass), Linus Roache (Thomas
Wayne), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), Larry Holden (Finch), Gerard Murphy (Judge
Faden), Colin McFarlane (Loeb), Sara Stewart (Martha Wayne), Gus Lewis (Bruce
Wayne - age 8), Richard Brake (Joe Chill), Rade Serbedzija (Homeless Man), Emma
Lockhart (Rachel Dawes - age 8)
|