Great Concepts, Poor Execution

Rating: 4/10 (31 October 2006)

I just learned that Memento, this film and The Prestige were all directed by Chris Nolan. I know, "what, have I been living under a rock or something?" Right, but, I really liked Memento, a lot. Now, I can see a lot of similarities directorially between the three films once I thought about it. It also occurs to me that one of the things a dislike so much about Batman Begins and The Prestige is that they have so much going for them and they fail to deliver. They both have great actors, good plots for the most part, very good atmosphere and pretty good story telling on some levels. Unfortunately, they all three rely to much on some type of gimmick. Memento was done before the clever twist was so overused which helped it a great deal. It was also done in a particularly clever fashion with the story telling mimicking an aspect of the protagonist's situation. Batman Begins, while it does not rely on one major plot twist, does rely on a series of gimmicks for its main story. Even though this is typical of comic book inspired stories, Nolan does not handle these elements very well and I found it very hard to suspend my disbelief. The same thing happened to me with The Prestige. I think Nolan likes stories that have mostly dark characters that do not have any of the typical redeeming qualities we are used to seeing in main characters in stories. He seems to like characters that allow their obsessions to overtake all the other aspects of their lives. I have to applaud him for being willing to take on these types of characters. However, I think he spends so much time on their dark side that is very difficult for audience members, or, at least for me, to invest any real interest in the outcome of their story. It worked in Memento because the character had a physical flaw that made it difficult for him to deal with his character flaws. In Batman Begins, as well as The Prestige it falls flat.
Perhaps it is a sad commentary on the time we live in that these films get the high ratings they do. Maybe very few people are able to believe that there is actually good in most people even some that do bad things. We went from having clear cut heroes, to having the anti-hero, to just having different shades of villains all mixing it up with one or the other arbitrarily winning. I know, the Batman fans out there are saying "but this is one chapter in a much larger story". Even though I am a comic book fan I look to the film makers of this genre to make the films episodic for maximum entertainment value. This was very nicely done with the Spiderman series, by the way. On the other hand, Batman Begins doesn't make me sympathetic enough to the protagonist to really care one way or another how things turn out. Save the price of the DVD and go buy some of the comics, I am sure it will be a better experience.