Batman Begins
Movie Reviews | Jun 27th, 2005
Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, Morgan Freeman
Written By: David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan
Directed By: Christopher Nolan
Yeah, I’ll say it..This is one of the best comic book movies to date! Everything just felt right about the movie. The actors, the look, the direction, and more importantly the story. And yes, I think it’s better than Tim Burton’s Batman.
Batman Begins starts off with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) stuck in some Asian prison, beating up inmates for the hell of it. He gets rescued from prison by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), an associate of Ra’s Al Ghul who wants to help Bruce overcome his fears and become a vigilante and fights for “justice.” Realizing Ducard and Ra’s Al Ghul are more evil than first perceived, Bruce Wayne escapes those dudes and returns to Gotham. He takes on his fear (bats) firsthand and becomes a new persona, known as Batman. His butler and father figure, Alfred (Michael Caine), and Lucias Fox (Morgan Freeman), an employee who works down in the basement of Wayne Industries tower; helps him along way with whatever Bruce needs. Eventually, after Bruce does a few test with his new toys like the bullet-proof armor suit, a cap that turns into a glider, and a supped up armored tank vehicle that can smash through walls and run cars over; he has his first real threat in Gotham. Creepy Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy), also known as Scarecrow, and another enemy plan on wrecking havoc in Gotham by poisoning the water systems in the city and making the citizens freak out on their fears and eventually die. That sounds fun. NOT! While all this is happening, Bruce is trying to make up with his childhood girlfriend, Rachel (Katie Holmes) and mack it to her. But he has to save her stupid ass first. It’s always the girls that are always helpless.
I was looking forward to this movie ever since I heard Christian Bale was cast as Bruce Wayne/ Batman because I thought he was great in American Psycho & Equilibrium. Plus I knew the movie was in good hands once Nolan was directing because I knew he was going to do something different. Then even more great actors came on board and I knew this film was going to be something great. Just everything felt perfect, and really stands above the other comic book movies. The only ones I think that are just as good are X2 and Spiderman. Batman has the perfect mixture of action, drama and is probably the first Batman movie where it focuses on Batman & Bruce Wayne and not some wacky villain. You really get to know the character, and I like how the overall theme to the movie was fear. It fitted the characters of Ra’s Al Ghul, Scarecrow and Batman.
For this type of franchise, it was a good idea to start from scratch. It needed a refreshing take on the classic comic book hero and someone needed to clean up Joel Schumacher’s mess. Christopher Nolan has done so and makes me really want to see the next sequel, which is an obvious choice who’s going to be the next villain. They really are trying to erase those movies from history it seems and DO THEM RIGHT. Yeah, I liked Burton’s Batman and still think Michael Keaton is a great Batman, but he sucked as Bruce Wayne. I think this is the first movie where the Bruce Wayne/Batman is done perfect, and we have Christian Bale to thank for that. It’s weird to imagine the guy is British, Welsh, whatever the hell he is. He seems to do his American accent in every movie now except Reign of Fire and Empire of the Sun. Just everyone in the movie, well except Katie Holmes, was great. Katie Holmes was there to show off her boobs and her character wasn’t really a major necessity. Michael Caine was charming and funny, Morgan Freeman was awesome, Gary Oldman was just as awesome, Liam Neeson was incredible, and Cillian Murphy was creepy.
The only batman I really know is the TV show, cartoons and the movies. I never read the comics but I heard this was pretty close to them, and they are dark. This movie was dark, and had some non-kid elements to it and I think that’s great. One of my favorites scenes in the movie is when Batman gives Scarecrow a taste of his own medicine. Batman looks like a black Satan and is just creepy and cool looking! One of the reasons why I liked this movie because it didn’t feel like a comic book movie. Felt like a drama with a guy who dressed up in a bat to fight crime. The action in the film was awesome too! I love the fight scene between Bruce and Ra’s Al Ghul in the Asian country. They don’t really say where his place takes place. The chase scene through Gotham was great, I mean, FUCKING ROOFTOPS! HOW COOL IS THAT! And what’s even funnier is Alfred reaction to it afterwards. I loved Liam Neeson in this movie, and he just played the character so cool and badass. Liam Neeson is probably one of my favorite actors, next to Morgan Freeman. Everytime Morgan Freeman was on screen, you can tell he was just a joy to be there and lite up the screen. If someone else played that character, it could have been boring but he added some humor and likeness to Fox. Like I said above, Christian Bale is the best Bruce Wayne & Batman. He even managed to disguise his voice when he was Batman too! I liked how this story was about Bruce Wayne as a man, and how and why he became Batman. The film wasn’t just some showcasing the newest villain like the earlier films did.
People will probably disagree with me, or they might agree with me about this movie. I feel it’s one of the strongest, and best comic book movie to hit the big screen to date. People will probably bitch saying there wasn’t enough action, or it was boring, but I thought it had a perfect mixture of everything. Go see this if you haven’t already!
Favorite Scenes: The scenes at Ra’s Al Ghul’s place, the tank/cop chase, the creation of the bat cave and other batman stuff, when batman’s backup arrived, scarecrow getting a taste of his own medicine.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 141 minutes
Overall Rating:
