Batman Begins Anew

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2008)

Batman Begins restarted the Batman film franchise after the collapse of the 1990s films. I had got a boxset of the 1990s series and enjoyed the films immensely. The Dark Knight was coming out to the cinema soon so I bought Batman Begins on DVD and I do admit, I did enjoy it, although there were some problems (but no film is without them).
Batman Begins is a lot darker than the previous films, and was a lot more realistic, as if it were based in the real world. Batman Begins spends the first half of its plot following Bruce Wayne trying to get over the death of his parents, even though it happened years ago, and how he becomes Batman. The second half is a little plot less and involves Batman running and leaping about fighting badguys and hunting down the source of some drug problem, which reveals to be coming from the Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul.
While the plot is initially good, it seems empty in the second part. Batman himself is portrayed by Christian Bale, a good choice to play him. He makes Batman emotional (but on a lesser extent than other actors) but for some unexplained reason he speaks in a gravely voice to try and scare people. I find the voice annoying, but I suppose it was used to conceal his voice as Bruce Wayne. Michael Caine portrays Alfred, Batman's butler, and his performance was excellent and rivals Michael Gough's portrayal. Morgan Freeman, one of my favourite actors Lucius Fox, the character's first appearance in the Batman films and his performance was brilliant. Gary Oldman takes on Commissioner Gordon, who is only a low ranked cop in this film. He does a great job. The Batmobile takes on the form of a tank vehicle called the Tumbler and the chase scene between itself and police cars is both cool and funny at the same time. The Batcave finally lives up to its name and becomes an actual cave.
New character Rachel Dawes is introduced as Batman's love interest and childhood friend of Bruce. However, I found her to be generally dull and rather generic.
The villains were both new to the big screen and it was interesting to see how they were portrayed. However, I was a little disappointed. The Scarecrow is front and centre, partially, but he seems to have been dumbed down immensely. He now is an expressionless guy who wears a bag on his head but does do a pretty good job of scaring people senseless. However, in the climax of the film, Scarecrow seems to start to kick in when his fear-inducing gas has infected a lot of people and he rides in on a horse, much like the Headless Horseman. Unfortunately, he is only scary for about five seconds until Rachel zaps him with a tazer and he disappears. The other villain is Ra's al Ghul, played by Liam Neeson. I thought he did a pretty good job but his presence blocked out Scarecrow.
Overall, I liked Batman Begins and yet I also was disappointed by it in some ways. For those who wish to see it, I do recommend it. However, to parents, it contains a lot of violence and use of weapons, mentioning of drugs, scary images and Batman is set on fire partially through the film.