Joker, please come back

Rating: 3/10 (25 June 2005)

What a sad affair. I was looking forward to this and was bitterly disappointed. Batman Begins should have been as good as the first in the series but to me it is as bad as Batman and Robin, if for totally different reasons. Let me start with the good things. First Batman. Christian Bale is the best Batman yet. He is good looking without looking ridiculous. The acting is adequate and it is a shame that the script did not allow him to make use of his talent. I liked Gordon/Oldman. Mark Boone was okay. And Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane was brilliant. The others? Caine a caricature, Freeman the same, Neeson is just incredibly bad. In a superhero movie (and I would include the Bond films here) the woman has to be beautiful and she should be charismatic. How anyone could come up with the idea of casting Katie Holmes is a mystery. Gotham was very good, more realistic than Burton's but equally good. When the camera showed us the bad, corrupt and yet beautiful city I really liked the movie. Unfortunately the music spoiled it immediately. Hans Zimmer is just amazing. He is at the same time one of the most successful composers in Hollywood and easily the worst. Every film where he contributed the music is bad (I did not check that but I think I can rely on memory). At best the music is just boring at worst it totally spoils the mood. How he keeps his job and reputation is just beyond me. We learn the origin of Batman. Good idea. But the trip to Asia? Is that not the origin of Dr. Strange? But I could buy that. But what I cannot tolerate is a bad villain. Now I understand that these days the Evil cannot be just evil. It is boring. But there is a world of a difference between a good villain like Joker, Magneto, Doc Ock (and hopefully Dr. Doom) and Ra's Al Ghul/Ducard. I know it is in a good tradition of the Bible but the Evil wanting to destroy because people are bad is just a bit too ridiculous. Finally, the car. Yes, Batman drives in a car. Why? First to make the toy makers happy and second because there is this Hollywood wisdom: If you do not have a story put in a car chase. This is utterly repulsive. If there is someone older than 5 years on this planet who actually enjoys seeing a car jumping from roof to roof I would like to be introduced to him. Chances are he escaped from Arkham.