Batman Returns

Rating: 9/10 (21 January 2011)

After departing from the screen in 1991 with Batman Returns, the dark brooding Batman has been sadly absent (the less said about Joel Schumacher's Batman movies, the better). However, after rejecting Darren Aronofsky's vision of Batman, citing that his ideas were too dark, Warner turned to the able, if somewhat unknown young director Christopher Nolan. What an excellent idea!
Nolan brought the darkness back to the Batman character but chose to stick closer to the original comics and the result is nothing short of stellar. What he gave us was not only the best Batman movie (at the time) but also one of the best action movies of the 00's. Nolan had the vision that this movie should be for the Batman character, what Superman (1978) was for its title character. A truly larger than life movie with a mammoth cast. Did Nolan fulfill his vision? Yes, and then some.
Christian Bale gives us a nuanced and humane portrayal of The Dark Knight and being the master of subtlety that he is, his portrayal can stand repeat viewings. He brings both great credibility as well as humour to the character and is physically the first actor to truly fill out the iconic suit. He is supported by an unbelievably great cast. Michael Caine is fantastically likable as Alfred and the great Gary Oldman has done another of his patented transformations and truly becomes the character of Jim Gordon. Other great actors such as Ken Watanabe, Rutger Hauer and the always dependable Morgan Freeman fill out the other minor characters with great success. Special mention is reserved for Cillian Murphy (runner up for the character of Batman), Tom Wilkinson and Liam Neeson who all do spectacular jobs with their characters. They seem to having a lot of fun which more than rubs off on the audience. All in all a stellar cast.
Soundtrack-wise Nolan did another stroke of genius in getting Hans Zimmer as composer. Zimmer is in my honest opinion the best composer in the business today and his score for the Batman movies are filled with passion, darkness and intensity. I have a lot of nostalgic love for Danny Elfman's score for the first two Batman movies but I have to admit that Zimmer has him beaten hands down.
In terms of telling the story Nolan can't resist his trademark of jumping in time. But it is done in such a well-rounded fashion that the viewer never lose track of where we are in the story and his efforts to base the Batman character in a much more realistic universe pays off in spades as the villains actually seem to be a genuine threat to The Dark Knight. One could argue that the films' main weakness is that it takes it a long time to actually get Batman on screen and get the story moving forward but I think that the pacing is brilliant and that the origin story is told with a lot of thought and a lot of love for what Batman will eventually become.
Visually the film is very akin to Ridley Scott's masterpiece, Blade Runner and the constant darkness of Gotham city help to underline the increasing darkness of Bruce Wayne's mind as well as the theme, fear.
All in all Batman Begins is arguably the best Batman movie out there. I, myself prefer the much hyped sequel The Dark Knight but one cannot overlook this movie's obvious qualities.
9/10