Batman Bores  Again

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2005)

There's nothing too terrible here, but its hardly the reinvention we were expecting. When it comes to dark comic-book capers, Sin City seems to have left Batman Begins at the starting blocks. While SC is way too radical for some, BB isn't so different from Tim Burton's Batman, just minus the frills and Jack's mugging villainy.
This is, of course, a prequel, but if this is what we get in finding out a hero's origins, let's hope the next Bond film Casino Royale steers clear of all this. A comic hero's back story is crucial in explaining Spider-Man or Superman. For many non fans, it's the only really interesting part. Here, the back story never really stands up. So the guy has a bat phobia. Big deal.
For the first section of the film, you're just waiting for the action to start. But Bruce Wayne has to face his demons. This involves a trip to the icy tundra and a Fortress of Solitude moment, then lots of training to be a warrior assassin, which we've seen loads of times in The Matrix, Kill Bil Vol 2 and The Empire Strikes Back.
The time scale is confusing - there's a flashback to when Bruce is a kid, then a forward flashback to his early 20s. Michael Caine, who plays trusty butler Alfred, looks all of 70 when Master Bruce is only a kid, and looks the same age (with some grey) when Bruce is adult. Wouldn't Alfred look like Caine did 25 years earlier, in his Hannah And Her Sisters phase?
And when he's in his floppy-haired 20s, Christian Bale looks all of 30something and so does Katie Holmes (who hails from the Charlotte from Sex And The City school of acting). Both actually seem younger when the story flashes forwards a good few years later - not a big gripe, but it is distracting.
Batman Begins takes a while to get going, but while its aim is to show how Wayne 'gets those wonderful toys', it really can't convincingly explain it. Just him and an ageing butler putting together the whole shooting match, even with Morgan Freeman as an insider ordering equipment, just doesn't cut it. C'mon.
And Bond fans will know the drag of a director who just can't set up a one-liner. Doesn't matter that they're not too bad jokes, mostly from Alfred of course, some directors can do it, some can't. Nolan can't.
Despite some nice touches, Batman Begins really is a bit of a bore as more and more characters are introduced and end up shoe-horned into the film. There's just too much going on here for the film to breathe, too many villains who emerge  but none given the space to be a really juicy nemesis. And the Batmobile chase along the rooftops is so absurd, it could be from the Joel Schumacher era. Christian Bale is not bad at all, but doesn't quite have star charisma and nor do any of the other leads, except Caine of course.
Shame.