Batman Begins is a reinventing of Bob Kane’s original comic book hero, and it is generally a successful transition into the 21st century with some nice wrinkles and updates. The comic book hero from D.C. Comics has captured the imagination of the public in print, television, and film. Director Christopher Nolan’s vision cleverly takes threads of the original story and merges them with unique twists and turns.
The wealthy Wayne family of Gotham City is well lauded, and young son, Bruce, lives an idyllic, pampered life with childhood friend Rachel. A chance accident lands him in a cave of bats which begins a cycle of trauma that will culminate in the murder of his parents in the city streets. A wayward, lost soul, Bruce (Christian Bale) grows into a young man who remains distant despite the support of family butler, Alfred (Michael Caine). Seeking meaning in his life, he travels the streets of the world to understand the criminal elements until a fateful meeting in Asia with a mentor, Ducard (Liam Neeson), who beckons Wayne to a temple/fortress in a remote mountain. There, he meets a group of avengers who have great fighting skills and unyielding, harsh justice. Bruce learns from Ducard to shed his inner fears of bats and harness the feelings of his parents’ death. As Wayne masters his physical and mental prowess, his sense of humanity ultimately collides with the shadow group’s ruthless sense of justice.
Wayne returns to and assimilates into Gotham City as a ‘millionaire playboy’ who secretly assumes the symbol of a bat to fight crime as Batman. In a city of increasing corruption and crime enters crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and his cohort, Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) whose alter ego, Scarecrow, will figure in an ever complicated plot. With support from Rachel (Katie Holmes), who works for the District Attorney, and Detective Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), Wayne also finds within his corporation an advanced weapons division overseen by Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who helps to arm Batman with state of the art body armor and sophisticated devices. As Batman commences his crime fighting, Scarecrow and ultimately a figure from Wayne’s past will threaten Gotham with ultimate doom.
This film stakes a claim to its own vision and resists previous, formulaic blueprints like Spiderman for depicting super heroes. With the most recent Batman films reducing the franchise to an uninspired shadow of its former self, someone had sense enough to let visionary director Nolan (Momento, Insomnia) have a crack at it. He has a great knack for incorporating his nightmarish imagery and integrated flashbacks into a brooding, dark exploration of human paranoia, memories and fear. Nolan cleverly traumatizes young Wayne with bats which ironically will be his salvation.
This is a different kind of narrative with more mood, psychological depth, and deliberate pacing. When Batman appears from above, it is an iconic vision of terror and swift justice, the perfect distillation of urban redemption in the guise of a bat facing down evil. Comic book aficionados will revel in a faithful rendering that stays true to the original’s roots and at the same time pays homage to recent updates like the critically acclaimed, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight. Fans will also be amused at the new interpretations and somewhat poetic license taken on such established conventions as the bat cave, the bat signal, the coming to be of future Commissioner Gordon, and Alfred the butler. It is refreshing that the hero and villains are not really superhuman like Superman but rather ordinary people who are driven by a psychological bent.
The only real letdown is that while it starts out on a promising path, it degenerates into a conventional, by-the-numbers action formula in the last fifteen minutes. The story, which admittedly takes its good time to unfold, starts to run out of steam and momentum about three quarters of the way through and drags a bit until the revved up end. One could almost forgive the obvious teaser at the end which is a deliberate setup for a future sequel. It’s ironic that as much as the filmmakers tried to make Batman plausible and grounded in reality, there are credibility gaps especially towards the end. In one scene, Gordon attempts to operate the Bat vehicle, and it just doesn’t ring true. A fight aboard an elevated train (and earlier fight scenes) is at best standard fare.
Christian Bale (The Machinist) has been perceived as a rising talent whose persona is that of dark intensity; who better to portray the Dark Knight? He is surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast. Caine is effortlessly stoic. It is amusing in one scene to see both veteran pros like he and Freeman counsel Bale. Liam Neeson is good as a mentor but he is in danger of being typecast in these kinds of roles. Oldman is cast against type and quite effectively as a good cop. Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai) as the leader of the temple is not given much to do unfortunately.
The luscious musical score by committee is appropriately strong and heroic without leaning on a catchy title theme as previous Batman scores have popularized e.g. Nelson Riddle on TV and Danny Elfman in film. The art direction and set design are impressive in their own interpretation of Gotham City compared to the earlier Tim Burton films which set a new standard.
By the climax, you root for the film to fulfill its promise but it doesn’t quite succeed. Although successes like X Men and Spiderman are good examples of mainstream, pop hero entertainment, the makers of Batman Begins for the most part have raised the super hero film to an art film, and that’s not a bad thing.
*** of **** stars (Add 1/2 * for comic book diehards)
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