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  Batman Begins Reviewby Ray Garton Batman Begins -
2005 I have been a Batman fan my whole life. I like superheroes, and I enjoy reading superhero comics and watching superhero movies. But I enjoy Batman even more because he’s not a superhero. Oh, he hangs out with them, has his picture taken with them now and then. He knows Superman. But Batman doesn’t have any superpowers. Batman has to rely on his body and his intellect and some cool gadgets. He relies on something else, too, something the superheroes don’t really need – Batman relies on fear. That’s the whole idea behind the get-up – Batman’s out to scare the crap outta the bad guys. He’s a brooding hero, and that dark side of Bruce Wayne has always appealed to me. He really is the Dark Knight, hidden in his armor, staying in the shadows, sneaking up on criminals and making them wet their pants. That Batman is back on the big screen in Christopher Nolan’s urban nightmare, Batman Begins. Gone is the gothic imagery of Tim Burton’s films. Gone is the gay carnival of the Joel Schumacher entries – and gone are the ridiculous nipples on Batman’s body armor. This Batman movie is lean, mean, and at times even scary. I found myself still thinking about the movie the day after, then the day after that. It lingers in the mind, which is rare for a summer blockbuster these days – most blockbusters are quickly forgettable. This one sticks to the ribs because Bruce Wayne is given some depth and gravitas before Batman even shows up, which doesn’t happen until the second act. We’re shown pivotal events from his childhood – the murder of his parents and his encounter with a swarm of bats that created in him a phobia. As an adult, he’s given an opportunity, by a shifty guy named Ducard (Liam Neeson), to join something called the League of Shadows and fight crime, violence, and injustice by destroying the cities in which they are prevalent. Wayne doesn’t like the idea and refuses to join, but he learns a lot from Ducard. He learns he can affect more change as a symbol than as a simple person, and he decides to come up with some ominous, threatening symbol under which he will fight crime and injustice. And the rest is bat-history. Although Wayne puts Ducard behind him, he has not seen the last of him – and Ducard is not one of the good guys. Christopher Nolan’s first move was the right one – to make his movie as if it were the first and only Batman movie ever made. This Gotham City is sleek and shiny when seen from above. Down below, though, in the dark places – that’s where Batman hangs out. That’s where crime is the worst, where the defenseless are preyed upon. Wayne discovers a man named Lucius Fox in the recesses of his company, a scientist whose department comes up with lots of nifty gadgets that Batman finds useful, including the Batmobile. It’s not the sleek Batmobile we’re used to – it’s more along the lines of a small tank. As we watch Batman’s origin unfold, we get to know Bruce Wayne well. He’s a man haunted by the murder of his parents, who feels impotent in the face of all the injustice in the world. But hey, at least he’s doing something about it, even if it is a little wacky. That impotence leaves him once he dons his armor. He lurks in the shadows. He drops on criminals from above, and the ones he doesn’t catch run away screaming. He’s a nightmare figure in a city so bad that anything seems possible – even a big man-sized bat. Christian Bale digs in his heels, pulls back his lips, and buries his teeth in this role. I had no idea what to expect from him, and I got everything I could’ve hoped for. He plays his Batman with a palpable rage. Bruce Wayne is a man torn apart by guilt and anger, and when he puts on that suit, they meld together into this fiery rage that turns his voice to a ragged growl. Jim Gordon isn’t Commissioner yet, he’s still a cop, but he’s good cop, the only one, it seems. For that reason, Batman contacts him personally. The bat signal is crude and blurry. The Bat Cave is an enormous cavern beneath Wayne Manor with a waterfall and lots of bats, and there Bruce Wayne sets up Batman’s headquarters. It’s hardly finished, though, it’s still mostly just a cave, nothing special. This time Hollywood got it right. Thanks to Christopher Nolan and company, Batman Begins is a summer blockbuster that was carefully guided along to tell a slam-bang yarn with dark, glossy, fast-paced images. The performances are all uniformly top-notch, from Michael Caine’s turn as Alfred the butler – a much more involved Alfred this time out – to Cillian Murphy’s creepy Dr. Jonathan Crane, and the downright scary Scarecrow. If this is the new face of the Batman big-screen franchise, then I can’t wait to see the next one!
[Out of a possible four Bloodshot Eyeballs.]
Batman Begins
~~~~~~~ Readers have been waiting for nearly two decades for Ray to continue the story begun in his vampire classic, Live Girls. Now, the wait is over. Don't miss Night Life by Ray Garton.
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