A good Batman story.... A Bad Ra's Al Ghul, Scarecrow, and Zsasz story

Rating: 4/10 (18 June 2005)

I was impressed with the majority of the story behind Bruce's traveling around the world. I'm not much with this whole Ra's Al Ghul trained Bruce. Why couldn't they have just made Ducard a separate element? Hired a different actor for Ducard, Ken Watanabe as Ubu, and Liam Neeson as Ra's Al Ghul. The whole deception and parlor tricks crap of duel identities was a waste of screen time and a waste of Ken's acting talents. He would've been much better used as Ubu. The flashbacks of Bruce's youth were very nice, except Linus Rouche seems wooden and just isn't interesting at all. Trying to make himself seem like he's helping the problems of the city when it's easy to tell that he isn't. It's a shame that this whole monorail storyline had to be focused on so much.
Why is it that the majority of Gotham looks so clean and beautiful, while when Rachel takes the car down a different road, all of a sudden we have something that looks like it came out of Blade Runner? If Gotham is full of corruption, the whole city should be showing this corruption, not just certain back alleys and the Narrows. It just seems out of place for everything to be so beautiful in so many large parts of the city if Carmine Falcone and other mob bosses are causing problems.
I enjoyed the attack on the Narrows where the fear toxin comes up from the water supply. It was quite well done, especially the shots from up above where we can actually see what the Narrows look like and how they connect to Gotham. I really like how that much was set up for the film. I felt that Katie Holmes was better then I feared she would be. She was a poor love interest, but a nice character that I hope will evolve in the sequels to greater lengths in the sequels. I was also impressed that Ra's was allowed to talk about his wife who had died. That at least gives me hope that Talia will be involved in a sequel. I liked Batman as a whole as well. This is the Batman that I know and love with the dark interrogations, the attacking from the shadows, and disappearing silently after talking to Gordon or someone else that is involved on his side. I enjoyed his interrogation of Arnold Flass very much. I liked Batman's relationship with Jim Gordon, which I must say, Gary Oldman does marvelously playing the role. I also enjoyed Gordon trying to drive the Tumbler. That was pretty hilarious I thought, but I could live without the clichÃ©d line "I've got to get me one of those!" There is something entirely missing here though. I knew from the start that the villains were going to be screwed over in this film to better create a good story for Batman. I honestly feel that if they wanted to focus so much on the beginning of Batman, the meeting of his allies, and the beginning of the end to the corruption of Gotham City, then they flat out shouldn't have used two very important and wonderful Rouge's Gallery members for this film. There were many villains that could've been focused on for this film that wouldn't have made the need for a character's total destruction.
The changes made to three very important Batman Rouge's Gallery members is what I find to be completely appalling about Begins. Of course, we don't really get to have a story behind Victor Zsasz... That's the point to why he's mentioned here! They turned Zsasz into a lackey for Carmine Falcone!?!? Are they insane? Zsasz doesn't willingly work for anyone. He is an insane stand alone man who has no remorse for anyone and would kill anyone that he pleases without a second thought. The real Zsasz would rather kill Falcone then work for him. I see no logic to Zsasz working for Falcone. Also Zsasz's looks are wrong. He's supposed to be a blond hair guy with no facial hair. It's the opposite in Begins: Bald and with facial hair. Horrible. It just doesn't appear to be the Zsasz that I remember.
Scarecrow: No longer a professor of Psychology at Gotham University, no longer kills the professors and deans that fired him, no longer kidnaps his own former students for his fear experiments, no longer has a full costume, and when he finally becomes The Scarecrow, he's only on screen for a minute or two at most riding around on a horse. However, I am at least happy that he had another line besides "Scarecrow" like in the script. I do like the voice change when Crane becomes Scarecrow, but that's the only thing that I actually liked about Scarecrow here.
Ra's Al Ghul: No longer has gray streaks on the sides of his hair, no longer has his long menacing cape and suit, no longer has the Lazarus pits, no Talia for Batman's love interest, and the last being Ra's calling Batman "Detective". It makes me cringe to hear Ra's calling him by his real name. By the end of the film, Ra's should be calling him "Detective". Oh, and one more, if Ra's is really dead, I shall be extremely upset. I keep hoping that he managed to jump out of the train before it hit and exploded. It is repulsive for Goyer and Nolan to kill off Batman's most powerful nemesis, who is immortal to top it all off! That's just as bad as Burton killing Joker off in Burton's movie.
In conclusion, I'm not entirely disappointed in Begins. I liked a lot about Begins, but my negatives outweigh my positives. The villains just didn't equal up to what they were supposed to be and some of the dialog was quite bad as well. David Goyer needs to be replaced badly if and when the sequels are made.