The Dark Night is born

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2005)

I am very proud to say that this film was very closely related to Frank Miller's (writer of the Sin City comics) 1997 graphic novel, "Batman: Year One". The story of a fearful, angry, grief-stricken Bruce who is still, after 18 years of the event, trying to cope with the murder of his parents. In the book, Bruce has returned to his hometown after being away for 12 years (in the movie this time is shortened to 7), during which he trained to become a vigilante. Wayne's first attempt at crime fighting ends in disaster, but leads him ultimately to adopt the bat motif so as to inspire fear in criminals. So for all who have experienced the movie, you can see the similarities in both. I was talking with a friend about successful movies made from books, and we came to the agreement that the closer the book is written into the script, the more efficient the movie will be. Specially with a fanatic audience. Nolan was very intelligent in knowing that.
One thing I did notice was missing from the movie were some scruples on Gordon's side. According to the comic books, Gordon as a cop is trained in hand to hand combat and although he is a bit rusty, he's still better than most. He doesn't so much at all fight in this movie; he doesn't do much more than cower. But hey, he's about the only cop who isn't corrupt, right? Good for him. And Gary Oldman's acting was great, to say they least...it just seems so hard for me to say anything bad about this film.
I spoke with some people about what they didn't like about the film...and the arguments were these: 1. Too many cheesy one liners; and 2. Fight scenes were hard to follow. Although these are good reasons why not to like the film, my answer to them are 1. The one liners were there to pump up the comic book lingo and motif; and 2. As you can recall, the fight scenes with Ra's Al Ghul (KEN WATANABE) were easy to follow, but when he became the Dark Nigh, they were a little less clear. My assumption is that Nolan's technique was to create a relationship between the villain and the audience based on fear and confusion. Batman's purpose was to mimic the shadows, and it is never an easy task to follow a shadow.
I have to say, I was a bit worried on the outcome of this film. We can all remember the tragedy that was 1997's Batman and Robin. That film is arguably the worst of all Batman movies, but in reality...there is no argument. Batman and Robin was a terrible movie, and I was not ready see the fate of batman fall into that sad category.
When talk of this new movie came about...roughly three years ago, crazy batman fans such as myself have anticipated the growth of this project with much fear. It all sounds really good, but somehow, they're going to mess it up, right? Christopher Nolan was a great choice for directing this movie. Memento was a wonderful film and one of my favorites. In Batman Begins, the casting was picked very well. The acting is superb. The stylistic choices are very successful for this movie. Gotham city has never been depicted in a truer light. The villains, although still menacing, are more common than the fantastical versions that have come before, and thats because of the solid fact that batman created his villains. This is very well put towards the end of the movie, during a conversation between Jim Gordon and "the" Batman. Overall, I recommend this movie to anyone, everyone, and their mother.
Thanks to Chris Nolan, Batman finally Begins from here....