A Class Act

Rating: 9/10 (27 June 2005)

'Batman Begins' successfully reinvents and reinvigorates the Batman franchise. Nolan and Goyer's screenplay is intelligently written and tightly structured. Bruce Wayne's relationship with his parents is beautifully crafted in just a few brief scenes, and it's a credit to all involved that a very real sense of grief and despair is conjured from events that take mere seconds of screen time. While in the second half, the story collapses into a certain amount of generic superhero villainy, overall, 'Batman Begins' is a solid and engaging narrative.
The entire cast does a sterling job. The likes of Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson, and Morgan Freeman bring an effective restraint and dignity to the proceedings. Any one of them can make gold of the most hackneyed dialogue and create richly textured characters from the scantest source material. Despite reservations, Bale is by far the best actor to have taken on the roll of Bruce Wayne, able to convey Wayne's tortured soul and his unerring sense of justice without ever seeming petty or dour. His relationship with Alfred contains genuine warmth and affection from the outset and belies a real chemistry between the two actors. Though Cillian Murphy hams it up a little at times, the only real disappointment is Katie Holmes. Admittedly, she is given little to work with in the script, but her more talented costars are able to make more with less. She seems quite out of her depth and the character of Rachel Dawes is never more than one-dimensional.
While the makers seem to have taken Spiderman as their cue, wrapping the superhero story as a subplot around an infinitely more interesting and complex story of an individual's personal growth, the film never appears to be derivative. This is due, in no small part, to the production design. Gotham is stripped of the vaguely kitsch and Gothic trappings of previous incarnations. The bleak urban sprawl, particularly the squalor of the Narrows, almost becomes a character in its own right, and provides a unique backdrop.
All in all, a class act. An exceptional cast of actors make gold of a script that, whilst not great, is far above the usual standards of the genre. A sequel is assured and much anticipated.