Batman Begins review by The Grim Ringler
As a movie nerd and a part time
comic nerd, it’s hard to know how to take it when Hollywood decides that it’s
suddenly in love with comic books. I mean, of late, the movies have been a lot
better than average. Sure, some have sucked, but to me, even a so-so movie like
Daredevil was still fun (especially the director’s cut) and had
something to offer. I think fans have to let go of their need for the comics
and films to directly correlate. I mean, it’s all going to be digested and
processed through the Hollywood machine and all you can do is hope that it
turns out better than you expect and at least true to the comic’s spirit. I
mean, take Spiderman. No, it isn’t accurate, but it’s true to the spirit
of the comic and character and made for a couple great movies. But it’s
interesting, if you step back and look at things. What we have now, with
comics, are fun summer action films. Which is sorta what they are…on a level.
Yes, they are loud and bombastic, and are full of action and are great fun. But
the best comics always had something else going on. Another level. And some of
the movies are getting that, but most are just focusing on the big battles and
action. Which I can understand. But then you have something like Sin City,
which changed the paradigm a bit. It took the comic and molded the film around
it, making the film conform to the world of the comic. It had been tried
before, but never so successfully. And suddenly a comic was as much arthouse
showcase as it was a fun action film (and yes, you have American Splendor and
Ghost World but we are not talking dramatic comics here, which are a
different world altogether). But with Batman – Begins the bar has been
raised even higher. This is not just a summer film, not just an action film,
not just a superhero film, nope, this is a fully realized action thriller with
real characters, real drama, and a completely new take on a familiar character.
This
is what Batman needed, and what comic fans needed even more –
validation. For too long comics have been seen and shown as full color
actioners about men in tights and their hulking enemies. With Batman – Begins
we have a film that works from the character outwards, showing his becoming of the
Batman as a reaction to a world he can no longer believe in. This is not Tim
Burton’s wonderfully over the top comic book adaptation but a reinvention
of the character ala the dark, realistic worlds of Frank Miller, who
brought the Batman into a world of violence where he was as much in the shadows
as those he pursued.
Bruce Wayne (the wonderfully cast Christian
Bale) is a lost man. Held captive in an Asian prison after being caught
during a cargo theft, he is a man who has lost his family, his sense of self,
and his belief in man. It is only when a stranger comes to him and presents him
with a challenge and a promise that there are others in the world that seek
justice that Bruce finds hope. And it is only when he finds the people this man
was speaking of that Bruce takes the first steps towards finding himself. He
joins this group, learning to master his anger under the tutelage of the
stranger, and he finally feels he has a purpose – he will mete out justice to
those that deserve it. But when he is ready to graduate and lead this band of
vigilantes he finds he cannot go as far as they demand him to in order to make
sure justice is served. Knowing that this is not the justice he is ready to serve,
he escapes and returns to Gotham, his home, where he will re-take his place at
the company his father created and will decide how best to serve justice. Using
the training he learned overseas, Bruce creates a phantom, a monster that will
fight crime. A man-bat that will stalk those who would do Gotham harm, always
in the shadows and always watching. Utilizing prototype military material that
has become so much forgotten clutter, Wayne starts putting together the
character of the Batman. As successful as his first operations are though,
Alfred, his man-servant and caretaker (Michael Caine making a great
character here) reminds him that he must also nourish the man, and not just the
beast, and so the billionaire playboy is born, though begrudgingly, in order to
serve the will of the Batman. A cover must be maintained. What he finds though
is that by being this playboy Bruce takes something away from him, away from
what he is doing, though perhaps it’s that the woman he had grown up loving now
sees him as a self-absorbed fool, and not as the servant of justice that she
has become. He is conflicted. But there is no time for questions as while he
has been preparing the Batman and learning how to fight crime, a doctor at
Arkham Asylum has been serving a master that is all too familiar to Bruce, and
serving him well. This doctor has been experimenting with fear and its effects
on the mind and, with the help of a deadly toxin, can now manipulate fear and
cause people to go mad from it. He has been poisoning the water supply of
Gotham and is just about ready to unveil his great masterpiece, just in time
for his master to come calling. Batman is there to stop this before it can go
to far, but can he face down the very man that trained him and vanquish not
just his enemy, but also his own fear?
I was so impressed with this film,
and what it achieves. Wow. Christopher Nolan has re-invented the Batman
mythos and has made him a real man in a real world and with real freakin’
issues. He’s nuts, and is told as much by those that love him. But it is only
through Batman that Wayne can help the dying city of Gotham and find peace in
himself. The best thing about the movie is that Nolan shoots the
sequences with Batman in them as you would a horror film. Batman is an animal,
a monster, a thing to fear, and he is shot as such. One sequence even looks
like it was snatched from Carpenter’s The Thing, and that’s the
feeling you have – dread. He is a madman and deadly because of how driven he
is. There are two villains in the film, but the real foe of Wayne is himself
and his past, something we never saw in the previous films. He cannot stop
blaming himself for the death of his parents and as such cannot let the past
go. It is his past that drives him. But it is the love of Alfred that tethers
him to Bruce when Batman starts to take control.
To me, I couldn’t really nit-pick. The
acting is superb, the action amazing, and the set design was great. This looks
like a real city, like a real New York, and is not art-directed into
submission. I love that this feels like a real city, though one that is a bit
touched up with some Wayne tech gadgets, but a city nonetheless. I think the
biggest gripe I have is that Scarecrow doesn’t get much screen time, though the
film isn’t about the villains as much as this first journey for Bruce Wayne and
Batman. The villains are well portrayed, and important to the story, but only
so far as to push the character forward. Which is what this is all about. Not
grand speeches and jaw dropping action (though the action is great), but about
one man’s quest for himself, for justice, and for an end to his fear.
I adore this film. It blew me away.
It was a deeper, better film than I expected. It is stylistic, but not at the
cost of the story, it is thrilling, but not at the cost of the characters, and
it has resonance but not at the cost of a fun adventure. Welcome back Batman,
we missed ya.
…c…
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