A Summer Blockbuster . Nothing More. Nothing Less

Rating: 6/10 (7 August 2010)

BATMAN BEGINS rejuvenates if totally regenerates a film franchise . After Tim Burton's idiosyncratic vision of the comic strip , the film series became very stuck with the Joel Scumacher version . You wouldn't really blame Warner Bros if they'd ended the franchise there and then due the law of diminishing returns .Indeed it might have been seen as something of a risk casting so many big name ( Read expensive ) actors in one movie . The fact that on its first week of release it only entered the top ten weekly box office must have frightened the studio executives , only to have their fears extinguished where the movie rallied strongly spending two weeks at the top followed by several weeks in the top ten
Certainly it's a film that reboots everything that's gone before . It tells the early life of Bruce Wayne while never referring to a need for a sidekick in the shape of Robin the boy wonder . Instead we see some one whose life is ripped apart by murder and is later perceived to be let down by the justice system and Bruce Wayne is not someone who will meekly let this go . In effect Bruce Wayne is now written as a comic strip version of an avenging angel along the lines of Travis Bickle /Paul Kerzey / John Eastland and all your other favourite vigilante anti-heroes from cinema
Or at least that's what should have happened . Unfortunately after this motivating incident , which also takes in an involving sequence set in a Chinese gulag the film then starts playing out as a Hollywood Summer blockbuster . In many ways it's like the old blockbusters from yesteryear featuring a host star names and highly regarded not so big name character actors all brought together in one film . The great shame is that most of them are given little to do . It's a film that has a plot written around its set pieces and the characters are just as mechanical . They're not characters like people are in real life , they're generic action hero , generic action hero's sister , loyal butler , stand up police chief who is slightly dumb etc etc by actors who could be have been unknowns . This is a great pity for a film whose reputation suggested to me it was going to be much better than a simple Summer blockbuster/franchise movie
Christopher Nolan is a good director , though the recent hype with INCEPTION with claims that he's " the greatest director of his generation " might leave him with some baggage . What Nolan has always been good at is editing and continues this with BATMAN BEGINS . The way he inter-cuts scenes is what makes them effective . But at the end of the day it's merely a Summer blockbuster with big names , car chases and the occasional explosion