Become The Fear

Rating: 10/10 (5 November 2014)

It's Interstellar week so my quest to go back and review all of Christopher Nolan's previous films continues.
Batman Begins is the film that really brought back the superhero genre. Sure the X-Men films were darker and more realistic than previous comic book films but Batman Begins brought a whole new audience back to theaters. It's my least favorite of the trilogy but believe it or not it's still in my top 10 favorite films of all time. It's a brilliant origin story that gave us the beginnings of the greatest trilogy of all time, in my opinion. And without this film we wouldn't have had Inception. Christopher Nolan made these smart superhero films in order to gain studio trust to create his own ideas like Inception and Interstellar.
For how great The Joker and Bane are in this trilogy it's Ra's Al Ghul that gets overlooked the most. Liam Neeson is at his best and gave Ra's depth. He's truly terrifying because he's the type of villain that believes what he's doing is actually good for people and he's not the typical twirl your mustache evil villain. That's what this film and the trilogy did so well, it gave layers to each of it's characters and is by far the most intelligent superhero franchise.
What's fascinating is that you don't see Batman until nearly an hour in, but it's not less intense because of it. It's beautifully written and paced so that audiences are on the edge of their seats even without anything really happening on screen. It be wrong not to mention Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow as it was the first time he put on the mask. They perfectly brought Scarecrow from the comic book pages to the big screen without making his character seem too comic-booky. Batman villains are hard to make appealing to a mass audience but Christopher Nolan perfected it.
Rachel was perhaps miscast and I may be one of the few people who actually prefer Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance over Katie Holmes any day. But she is serviceable for being a completely made up character. It's fascinating to watch Bruce' struggle to overcome his fear and his haunting tragic past. It's even better going back and watching the film after you have seen the entire trilogy because of how many things tie into each other. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine were great in the supporting roles and Christian Bale truly shined.
So in all Batman Begins may be the worst of the trilogy but still a masterpiece of a film. It brought back the genre in a way previous films failed. It gave us the most realistic look at a character who most thought could only thrive on the pages of comic books. After all who could forget the easter egg at the end?
+Brought back the genre
+Paved the way for Nolan's forthcoming films
+Dark, gritty, and realistic
+Well acted film all around
+Hans Zimmer's score!!!
+Ending easter egg
10/10