Batman Begins
Ratings: 6 by Al and 12 by Caryl.)
(2005—Christopher Nolan—USA)
Here’s the movie which may define summer 05. A dark, somber, sinister and fearful paranoia marks this entire movie. Even the luxurious locations of Wayne Manor and the Gotham Opera House are filmed as darkly as the cave in which Batman makes his home. This attitude makes for a very effective, moody movie. It’s one from which you walk out into the daylight feeling as if the bright summer sunshine has somehow been ratcheted down several notches. You feel grit and fear in every scene of the movie. That’s the sign of a well-done movie, even if it adds a debilitating hue to your Sunday afternoon.
In “Batman Begins” we are shown how Batman came to be who he is. It’s not a pleasant story, in spite of the huge house. As a child, Bruce Wayne fell down a well on his parents monstrously large and wealth-ridden estate. While in the well, young Bruce was swarmed by hundreds of bats, an episode it takes him a long, long time to get over. Growing up he is a cowardly, milk-toasty boy, the type of thing you’d expect of a coddled rich boy. He is not, however, spoiled rotten, as you might also expect.
The eastern training he later receives allows him to breathe in and absorb his own fear, as well as the fears that his enemies have. This Batman reigns through intimidation as much as Ka-Pow!
Wayne’s father is a multi-millionaire who is the source of brightness in Gotham City. He uses his money to continually improve the transportation system, the health and medial facilities, and the generally well-being of Gotham’s citizens. When Bruce’s father (and mother) are murdered in an alley, Gotham begins an immediate period of decline into darkness. The murders are especially terrifying for young Bruce since (1) his parents are murdered right before his eyes, and (2) Bruce feels total responsibility for the two murders. (He asked his parents to leave the opera because there was a fake bat on stage which terrified the young boy.) (Why they didn’t all leave by the front door is anybody’s guess.)
After the murders, the teenage Bruce runs away from his fears and his home. He eventually lands in an eastern monastery where he spends what seems like cinematic eternity learning the eastern mental and martial arts upon which his eventual crime-fighting talents are built. (We wonder if this training was in the original comic, “Batman Year One.” We guess it was because this screenplay was written by Michigan’s David Goyner, a Batman comics historian and freak.) It turns out that this bat-training is delivered by a group called The League of Shadows, a morally self-righteous group which takes it upon themselves to destroy the world’s great cities when they feel the cities have strayed from the path of righteousness. Among other things, The League of Shadows takes credit for the sack of Rome and the burning of London. Nice.
Gotham is the next city on their list. They attempt to enlist the now-trained Bruce to help them but the well-trained Bruce elects to return to Gotham City to try to save it from the evil that is now smothering it.
We quickly learn that Batman will never be out of work attempting to rid Gotham City of evil. The city is slime-gob-slithering with bands of roaming thugs toooo numerous to mention. As Carmine Falcone, the Mafia boss, Tom Wilkinson is totally convincing in creating fear and loathing. (He did the same thing as the art patron in “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” didn’t he?!) (Come to think of it, he could also be thought of as evil in his role as Dr. Howard Mierzwaik, the guy who invented the process to erase memory in “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”) Liam Neeson is also wonderfully evil as Ducard, Bruce’s trainer out east and also the spokesman for The League of Shadows. Ducard is evil in the best possible way, posing as the righteous man who decides arbitrarily what is evil in others.
The most evil guy in the movie, however, according to Al, is Cillian Murphy, who plays Dr. Jonathan Crane. This is not because of another Crane whom Al knows of in another Gotham, nor because of his self-induced paranoia while studying the precision of organic chemistry while a student of veterinary medicine. The fear and loathing is induced by Murphy’s cold-blooded portrayal of Dr. Crane as a millionaire scientist and head of an insane asylum who plans to destroy Gotham by inducing a paranoia-causing drug into the water supply of its citizens. (No, kids, it is not marijuana.) Cillian Murphy is recently of such wonderful films as “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” such horror movies such as “28 Days Later,” and “Red Eye,” and such horrible movies (in Al’s opinion) as “Cold Mountain.”
There’s also a hint of the criminals to come. In a shot wherein a calling card is left at the scene of a crime, the card is turned over to reveal a drawing of…The Joker! (Can you spell “sequel?”)
Some very interesting characters are aligned with Batman in his fight against the evil of Gotham. First among them may be Michael Caine as Alfred, the head butler of Wayne Manor. Played more toward the Connery sidekick “Peachy” in “The Man Who Would Be King” than toward the stern, austere Alfred we imagined from the comic, Caine is nevertheless wonderful as Batman’s supportive, instructive and course-correcting foundation. (While in the foundation, Alfred helps Bruce set up the bat cave.)
Also inspiring to junior and senior crime-fighters is Gary Oldman, as the policeman Jim Gordon. Not yet known as Police Commissioner Gordon, we see Gordon and Batman team up to forge the relationship that’s gonna save Gotham, both now and down the road. We are even given a rooftop scene in front of a searchlight, in which the famous Bat Signal is created. (It’s giant bat shadow thrown up against grey storm clouds. All part of the movie’s dark karma. No cheery telephone jingle *here* announce another crime spree!)
Kate Holmes is also on the side of good, and plenty, doing a nice walk-though job as Rachel Dawes, Gotham District Attorney. As Gotham’s D.A. she has her hands full of everything but Batman. Rachel seems to do a bit of sleep-walking in this role. Permaybe she is mesmerized, thinking of all the great media hype she is going to get as the new girlfriend of T. Cruise. (A recent opinion poll indicated that 62% of all adults think that this romance is a box-office contrivance.
Morgan Freeman, as Lucius Fox, is another staunch Batman ally. Fox is the technology geek who supplies the hardware for Batman’s agenda. Chief among this technology is the rappelling equipment which allows Batman to fall straight down on his enemy prey. (For the most part, Batman doughnut actually fly, you know.)
The Batmobile is another piece of technology which Fox has out in back of his shop. No finned Eldorado of a cartooned Batman, *this* Batmobile is a Schwarzeneggaring tank. It has alllll the twitchy firepower of an F1 racecar and is not well-maneuvered by mere mortal mortals. Jim Gordon finds that out when he tries to help Batman. In a scene wherein Batman gets sideways with the police (hence the name “The Dark Knight?”) the Batmobile blends in perfectly with the gritty bladerunnerian urban gunk of Gotham City. The police cars pursuing it, however, stick out like gigantic blue-and-white lollipops planted in the Scottish Highlands.
Gotham City itself — a main character in the plot — is portrayed perfectly throughout. In the scenes where Bruce’s father is still alive, the city seems bright and cheery enough that there should be an Eiffel Tower on the horizon. (Sorry, George.) By the time Bruce returns, however, Gotham has taken the smoky dark look of the Dickensque London barrios— without the charm of the accents and the finger-less gloves. The set builders, miniaturists and special effects people have all done a superb job here.
The movie is not played as a parody nor cartoon. The are very few pieces of goofy insipid dialogue. The thing is played as a dark, dark tale.
Batman also takes his time creating his persona. He see him choosing and constructing the Bat cave rooms, grinding metal accessories on a metal-working lathe, and choosing the right materials for his Bat suit. Batman is about showmanship and intimidation as much as he is about brute strength. By the time Bruce has created the full-blown Batman persona, there is enough of all three to go around.
Is Christian Bale the best Batman ever? It’s hard to say, since sooooo much of any Batman is about the Bat “stuff.” “Batman Begins” *does,* however, contain the best Bat “stuff” ever. That alone should be enough to make Christian Bale the best Batman ever.
Caryl, especially, was not impressed by Bale’s Batman. With sooooo much going on in the movie, however, all it takes to play a great Batman is *not* interpreting the role the way George Clooney did.
If you enjoy sinister cinematography, you’ll get enough of it to last you an entire summer in the two hours it takes “Batman Begins” to flutter past you. This is a wonderful movie. Doughnut expect it, however, to delight and inspire you, the way “Spiderman II” did in the summer of 2004. Like box-office receipts during the summer of 2005, and the decline of Gotham City itself, “Batman Begins” is part of The Downward Spiral. (2 hours 1 minute )