Batman Begins, literally, with a flashback sequence of a young
Bruce Wayne playing with his childhood friend Rachel Dawes in the garden at the
Wayne Manor Estate. Bruce stole an arrowhead that Rachel had, and when he goes
to hide from her, the ground beneath him gives way, and he falls down a shaft
that is filled with bats. The adult Bruce Wayne awakens from this childhood
memory to a dire present situation that finds him in a Chinese prison. Yet Wayne
still doesn't let anybody push him around, he's a holy terror among the
prisoners, battling six or seven men at a time-and winning-before he is hauled
off to solitary…for the protection of the other prisoners.
It's while in solitary confinement that Wayne receives a visitor--actually, the
man was already waiting for him in his cell. His name is Ducard (played by the
always great Liam Neeson) a major domo for the mysterious Ra's Al Ghul, the
leader of the League Of Shadows. The LOS is a lethal organization of warriors
that professes to be on the side of light in the never-ending battle against
crime and corruption. Ducard senses that Wayne is a diamond in the rough. With
the proper training and focus, he could be someone special. Once Wayne is
released from prison--by being unceremoniously dumped in the middle of a
wasteland--he follows Ducard's instructions by picking a rare flower from the
side of a hill and making a treacherous climb up the side of a mountain to the
LOS lair. Under Ducard's personal tutelage, Bruce Wayne becomes a devoted pupil
of their ninja-like combat arts, which combines some deadly moves with an innate
skill of stealth, as well as a flair for theatricality--all the better to confuse
and frighten the enemy. Yet Wayne soon finds himself at odds with the League Of
Shadows, thanks to their ruthless methods of dealing with their enemies.
When director Tim Burton made Batman back in 1989, he made the then-wise choice to
ignore Batman's origin story. Instead his film opened with Batman already
established in Gotham City. For Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan and
his co-writer David Goyer (who wrote the Blade movies, as well as directed the
third film in that series) recreates the origin story as a series of flashbacks
between Bruce Wayne as a boy who ultimately sees his parents get killed by Joe
Chill, and as the adult, pre-Batman Wayne. The major danger in presenting an
established superhero's origin in a film is that everybody knows what happened,
and thus it will be boring. But Nolan and Goyer avoid this danger handily by crafting a superb
storyline overall that slowly builds up to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman step by
step. We see, in glorious fashion, the creation of the Batcave, and the
assembly of the Batsuit, and the acquisition of a very special car, a military
prototype that is left forgotten in a Wayne Tech storage room. The result is an
electrifying assemblage of scenes that show the birth of the Batman mythos. And
in the process, Nolan and Goyer have also done something that no previous
filmmakers of a live-action Batman movie have done before: they rightfully made
Bruce Wayne/Batman the most interesting character in the film.
Once Batman makes his grand entrance, attacking a group of armed thugs on a pier
in Gotham City, he is a terrifying Dark Knight avenger, a winged demon who
lashes out from the shadows, leaving the remaining thugs blubbering in fear as
they are helplessly picked off one by one.
Christian Bale is marvelous as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. He easily captures
Wayne's haunted side, and at times is downright scary as Batman. A great example
of this is when, later in the film, Batman's got another thug dangling high over
the street in an effort to get information from him. When the thug, pleading for
his life, swears to God, Batman roars, "Swear to ME!" This moment, and Bale's
delivery of that line, literally sent chills down my spine, and I realized that
out of all the live-action film actors who portrayed the Caped Crusader, Bale
finally nailed the inner dark menace of Batman.
The rest of the cast is made up of some mighty fine actors, as well. Michael
Caine is perfect as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's faithful butler and confidant. Gary
Oldman is great as a young Sergeant James Gordon of the Gotham City Police force.
The aforementioned Liam Neeson makes fabulous use of his limited screen time.
And Morgan Freeman is superb as Lucius Fox, who becomes Bruce Wayne's technical
advisor. Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe are great as the film's villains
Dr. Jonathan Crane, (a.k.a. The Scarecrow), and Ra's Al Ghul. And Katie Holmes
brings the appropriate sweetness to her role as the adult Rachel Dawes, now an
Assistant District Attorney in Gotham City.
I reviewed the deluxe two-disc edition of Batman Begins, which has a second disc
filled with special features. And since this main review has already run WAY
over the standard review length, you can view the details of the special
features on the second disc right here. There has been some controversy over the
new batsuit, as well as the Tumbler, the new Batmobile, but at the end of the
day, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer's overall handling of the Batman legend
with the respect and maturity that it deserved was what really mattered to me.
Is this the definitive Batman? No, in my opinion, Batman:
The Animated Series is
the true definitive Batman on either the big or small screen (aside from the
comics, of course). But Batman Begins is a magnificent film in its own right,
one that will help the Batman legend thrive well into the 21st century.
--SF
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