Armchair Pundits

An Armchair Movie Review

Batman Begins

What would the summer be without a big budget action movie? Well, Batman Begins fills the need for this summer. For all of you “bat-fans” out there, who follow every comic book line, I’m sure you will be pleased. For those lesser fans who enjoyed previous Batman movies or even occasionally watched the old television show, I think you will like this movie. Finally, for those of you who have spent your entire lives living under a rock and haven’t the faintest idea who this Batman person that I keep talking about is, this would actually be a good movie to introduce you to the Caped Crusader. That is after all, what this movie does.
As the title hints, this is the story of the beginning of Batman. Where did he come from? Why does he do what he does? Well, those questions are answered in this movie. The story begins with the introduction of Bruce Wayne as a child and we discover, surprisingly that he suffers from Chiraptophobia (the fear of bats). We, of course, witness the murder of young Bruce’s father and mother at the hands of a common street criminal. For those of you comparing this movie to the 1989 Batman movie, it is not the Joker who murders the Waynes (“Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moon light?”). Actually there is no attempt to connect this movie to any of the prior movies, which I believe is a big plus. This movie is meant to stand on its own, which it does.
For those of you who have wondered how Batman learned to do all the neat stuff that he does, we learn about his training. We discover that after traveling around the world as a pouty, depressed, trust fund kid. He is plucked from his prodigal existence and trained in the martial arts in order that he may return to society and dispense Star Chamber style justice. But Bruce has his father’s compassion for society and therefore he desires to dispense a somewhat kinder and gentler form of justice, in the form of Batman.
From there on out it is a typical comic book story. Villains running amuck. (amuck, amuck, amuck) Batman dispensing justice with the occasional Bond-esque one-liners thrown in for good measure. For those of you waiting for a repeat of the 1989 line, “I’m Batman” or its Veggie-tale parody, ”I’m Larry-Boy,” you’ll be disappointed. They seem to go to great lengths to avoid using it. This movie’s great line, in response to the frightened question “Where are you?” is the line “right here.” Of course the fact that it is said as he is hanging upside down behind the criminal gives it a little more punch.
Overall, the story is quite well done, considering the fact that they had to cover a vast amount of ground in a short period of time. In the first, half-hour, or so, of the movie, I got the feeling at times that things were getting rushed a bit. But that could have been just me.
For those of you who are looking for more than just gun play and a car chase, the movie provides a good amount of material to think about. About half way though the movie, I had to consciously stop myself from thinking about the socio-political aspects of the movie and just enjoy it for the entertaining piece of film that it was. But, if your interested in more, there is a pretty good internal debate between vigilantism and justice. I also saw some tension between the high crime problems and the socio-economic problems. I kept looking for the intellectual battles. They even cover private funding of public transportation (note the appearance of the monorail when it had just been built by the Wayne family versus its appearance later in the movie after Bruce’s dad has been killed).
For those of you who are interested, I provide the following descriptions of my take on some of the main characters:

I was actually glad that a so-called “unknown” was playing the role of Batman. This causes you not to focus on the actor but rather the character. Christian Bale does an excellent job of portraying both the caped crusader and a young Bruce Wayne.
Where would Batman/Bruce Wayne be with out Alfred. And who better to play an English butler than Michael Caine.
When I saw in the trailers that Liam Neeson would be starring in this movie, I wonder how they would be killing him off. Maybe its just me, but it seems that Neeson has been dieing in a lot of movies lately (and I’m not talking about bad acting). Michael Collins, Star Wars Episode I, and Kingdom of Heaven all see Neeson’s character being killed off. He had better be careful that he is not type-cast.
Katie Holmes did a good job playing Rachel Dawes. A little overly preachy and do-goody, but that was the character. Let’s just be thankful that there was no Tom Cruise cameo.
Cillian Murphy played an excellent villain. The weasely little psychiatrist (no offense intended Grisby) had you squirming.
I was having a mental block when it came to the actor playing Earle. Then it came to me. Of course, its Rutger Hauer. I haven’t seen him in anything in quite some time. He plays an excellent side villain. I was waiting for his character to be pulled into the main evil plot. But, it was probably good that he wasn’t. Instead he is just a stereotypical evil CEO-type.

One thing I really enjoyed about the movie was the new look of Gotham. In the first four movies, Gotham is this dark forboding city where it appears that the sun never shines. In this movie, however, we finally see Gotham in the day light. The city appears “futuristic” in an art deco kind of way. Multi-level monorails whisk the citizens to their shiny glass office buildings. We also see Wayne Manor in the daylight. Even with the vast amounts of sunshine, there is still a “darkness” to the scenery. The city is modern, well lit, but somehow still dark. Christopher Nolan’s lighting and use of rain reminded me of Ridley Scott (Blade Runner and Black Rain).
One thing that I did find annoying was the final action scene. For my taste, there was too much going on and it was all going on too fast. I didn’t catch half of the fight between Batman and the head villain. This was a good martial arts duel and I could catch half of their moves. There was too much fast camera work and too many quick shifts to outside scenes and back again. I know I must be getting old and I’m sure today’s X-box and PS2 fed minds enjoy that Mortal Kombat style action. But I don’t. There is a point where the senses start to overload. Like I said though, maybe its just me getting old.
Batman Begins is a good solid summer action movie. It delivers what it promises. So if you are in the mood for some action, you won’t be disappointed. Leave the little kiddies at home. This is PG-13 for a reason (dark suspense and violent action scenes).

posted by Squirrel @ 9:48 PM