Batman Begins




It's not who am I underneath, but what I do, that defines me.

Batman Begins represents a true franchise reboot. After two mediocre movies, two god-awful ones and eight years of waiting, the fifth installment is here.

This movie lays out the foundation of Bruce Wayne in detail. Though it sometimes contradicts what the other movies have laid down, it's still nice to see how Bruce Wayne became Batman.

It starts with a short intro to why Bruce (Christian Bale) is afraid of bats. When fully grown, he's a lost man trying to come to grips with himself. The murder of his parents has made him a little bit confused about what he believes in. When invited to train in a ninja dojo by a mysterious Mr. Ducard (Liam Neeson), he accepts. There, the men believe in absolute justice without mercy. Thereafter, Bruce moves back to Gotham City, which has become a not-so-nice place. He intends to clean the city up and he begins to slowly make his transformation into the caped crusader. He does this with the help of his butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), a scientist who works at his company. He also meets his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), again, providing Bruce's love interest. And there's the sinister Dr. Crane (Cilian Murphy), who becomes the Scarecrow, Batman's nemesis.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I began watching this movie. But any fears I had were put to rest. Though it does start a little too dramatic, it quickly settles into a good pace. Those who say this isn't as good as the originals haven't watched them in a while. Once it gets going, it's a breathtaking ride. It serves up a nice blend of back-story and action.

But the biggest reason that I liked this movie was Scarecrow. He is truly frightening. He makes the Green Goblin look about as scary as a Toy's R Us action figure. Murphy plays Crane as coldly confident, making him cool and creepy all at the same time. Most people aren't familiar with Scarecrow as a villain, but he makes an excellent one nonetheless. However, once you hit the last third of the movie he becomes woefully underused. Which is a shame, hopefully we'll see more of him.

Rachel makes a decent heroine. She's uncompromising and has spirit. Though she isn't as good as Michelle Pheiffer, she and Bale have convincing enough chemistry. But I must say her resolution totally screwed up the ending, but I guess you can't win them all.

Bale, most importantly, does a splendid job as Bruce Wayne. He is given a lot more material than Keaton ever got. Heck, the first Batman was more about the Joker than Batman. His gruff voice in costume is a little overdone, but he makes for a better billionaire playboy. Caine also turns in a superb performance as Alfred, supplying much of the comic relief and giving life to our beloved butler.

This film is probably the best and certainly my favorite Batman yet. It has a lot of awesome action and it's fun to watch Wayne journey towards self-understanding and build up his arsenal of gadgets. Though the beginning and end aren't perfect, the rest makes it all forgivable.

A very good blockbuster indeed. I strongly recommend it, hats off to Nolan and new blood.

P.S. On another viewing, I found that the script does remain somewhat hokey throughout. I still liked it, however.



-The Gnome