Great Popcorn Movie that sometimes excels at being a legitimate great film

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2005)

Batman Begins....Two Words.....Nolan And Goyer....Two creative forces that brought the film to the screen after many years of false starts and a changing roster of personnel.
Nolan & Goyer...The two reasons why this film becomes one of the handful of great comic book movies.
I could try to deconstruct the film and analyze why Nolan And Goyer were successful. I could say in retrospect that Nolan and Goyer created a check list of things not to do in the movie that would make it seem like another one of a zillion comic book movies. But to be honest, they had me hooked with the first image on the screen and I honestly didn't think about all the mechanics that go into making a movie. I just sat back and let the story envelope me.
Yep. Good story telling meant that nothing would kick me out this cinematic world Nolan and Goyer had created. And in this day and age of largely set piece inspired CGI driven films, this feat is remarkable and should be applauded.
Pretty good for and ole comic book movie...eh.
Still it is a comic book movie and as such suffers from the limitations of the genre. This is no Godfather, Goodfellas, Citizen Kane, Star Wars (refering to 70-80s movies) or even Blade Runner (which Batman Begins homages quite frequently) Yet Nolan & Goyer have moments in this film that try to transcend the genre material and they nearly pull it off. Two phrases come to mind. Tone Shift and non-linear storytelling. Nolan as a director shifts tone throughout this film. And the first part of this film has all sorts of structural shifts. To pull these things off is a daunting task for any director in any genre of film. To pull these things off in a genre comic book movie even more so. And you know what...Nolan mostly pulls it off and makes Batman Begins a great comic book movie (my favorite film of the year so far...but it has not been a good year for films) that reaches for the skies (and a more European way of storytelling) and mostly succeeds. Highly recommended.