New problems begin, does that make it better?

Rating: 3/10 (17 June 2005)

It does take a really really long time for Batman to appear as such in this film. The serious and dark theme of the movie "fear" is really hammered into the ground. The word "fear" must be used at least 50 times in the first 30 minutes of the movie and I don't know how many times after that. Bale makes a very good Bruce Wayne, but when he is "finally" in the Batsuit he does sort of a whisper shout line delivery which is sometimes way over the top. Of course being in the Batsuit is about kicking Bad guy ass. In this department we get confused shortish fight scenes against bad guys who obviously have no chance. The cast is full of good actors all of them have their moments, though that's about all they are allowed. Katie Holmes is miscast and not especially good in a not too well written part. Most of the special effects are very good, save a sort of "island of the crazies" part of town that looks like a big half rendered CG thing. This is too bad as much of the later part of the plot takes place here.
Batman begins is a new start but it still has some of the problems of the last series and though it has a newish take on the material it's not so novel or convincing a take not to keep it being just a shade dull as we wait for the big scenes to arrive.
SPOILER WARNING.
Okay there's this whole segment in Tebet to somehow inspire Wayne to be Batman. This seems totally out of place really in the overall lore of Batman. But the thing is Wayne is afraid of bats. There is a very extensive use of flashbacks to how Bruce feels he killed his parents and this is connected to bats also, though I won't give that away I'm only giving enough info to explain my point. So in the Asian retreat section of the film there is talk of fear this fear that. It's all KUNG FU type dialog, but Wayne never makes the connection or assumes the role of Batman during this section. He only thinks of it, almost by accident after all this. Shouldn't they have tortured Wayne with bats to master his fear? They basically babble about fear and then kick his ass over and over that's the training. They don't follow through on their own fear concept they just repeat the basic concept over and over again. Set up an idea. Pay off the idea. That's what the audience is waiting for.
Speaking of set up. It turns out that all the super gadgets that Batman has are just basically lying around in the basement of Wayne Enterprises headquarters. They just happened to make all this stuff for the military but never sold it. Sort of a happy accident isn't it? I don't know if this is convincing, though the new Batmobile is pretty cool its one big car chase scene is long but not too exciting.
So they don't just happen to have Bat helmets in the basement. What is our hero to do. Well the plan is that they will order 10,000 of them from some military producer in Asia. They have to also order 10,000 helmet type things and 10,000 Bat ears with listening devices inside because this will somehow attract less attention. What? Can't they just make one bat helmet in their high tech sub basement where they made the prototype Batmobile. I guess not.
Okay right at the start of the film a untrained Batman beats the crap out of either 6 or 7 guys depending on who you believe. So towards the end of the film the villain ( I won't say who that is) is confronted with Batman and is going to escape by leaving two Ninja type henchmen to fight Batman. Batman makes some remark about "only two"? Suddenly two more super ninjas drop form the sky and the villain leaves. Okay, so what. He kicked the crap out of 6 guys before he knew anything. A short bad fight scene follows. Let me point out that Batman in several other scenes has easily beaten many more men than 4 men every time. If you set up a hero like this you need to also be able to set up real challenges for him and they don't.
Finally the plot hinges around a rather shakily set up but decently paid off super weapon. The villain is racing on a train to the center of the city to turn it on and destroy everything. The device is the immediate and large danger and all you do is flip a switch to turn it on. There is no positive use for the device. Batman gets onto the moving train at last. What should he do? Destroy the device? All it would take it some good kicks to render it useless. Or does he engage the villain in a protracted fist fight. He doesn't even really try to stop the train--though he sort of does--I'm not here to give that away or ruin everything, just to mention odd gaps in the script that ruin some other good ideas. Batman fights and fight and fights and the device just sits there in the middle of the train car. Oh yeah the villain gets to mention fear a couple of times again in case we haven't figured that out by this point in the film now that it's almost over. Here in order to have an elaborate "ticking clock" ending they ignore a simple simple solution. Batman would break the machine and then kick the guys ass given the choice. And the screenplay gives him the choice which is the mistake.