A Dour Delight

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2005)

Let's get one thing before we go any further - this is not your father's Batman. Actually, let's make that two things - this is not the superhero movie to take your kids to. That's probably going to be Fantastic Four when it arrives. Kids will be bored witless by Begins, and will spend the first half relentlessly asking you where Batman is. Get a sitter.
Batman of course has been featured on both the big and small screens for decades now, from the camp insanity of Adam West and Burt Ward, through Tim Burton's twisted Gothic vision, and Joel Schumacher's neon disasters. When you take your seat for Begins, however, bear in mind that all of these previous incarnations are irrelevant in the Begins universe. This is not a sequel, prequel, or other -quel to any previous Batman instances. This is a Batman movie that literally starts again.
The movie spends a good portion of time delving into the origins of Batman. It starts out with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) in some far-east country, where a great many of the natives apparently speak English - despite being so far off the beaten track that nobody seems concerned about the enormous training facility built atop a snowy mountain. Bruce's history is shown through a short series of tight, well edited, flashbacks. We see the death of his parents, the guilt, the anger, and the inevitable preludes to a love interest. Unlike previous incarnations, Begins feeds you enough information to truly get across the reasons for Bruce turning into the crime fighting tour de force he becomes. In this respect Begins is the movie that the Batman comic book fans have been longing for.
In this mountain-top fortress the making of Bruce into something that is almost Batman is achieved at the hands of Ducard (Liam Neeson doing his best while handing out some heavy-handed dialogue full of creaky portent, and fortune cookie wisdom). It is here that the real focus of Begins is hammered home. This is a movie about fear, and this theme is thundered about for the remainder of the two and a bit hours. From Bruce's conversations with Alfred (Michael Caine), through the main villains and their plans, Begins ties fear into everything it shows.
Upon Bruce's return to Gotham, he truly builds the Batman persona. Begins shows us where Batman gets his toys. It shows us the first, tentative, steps into the night as Batman battles Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy in a startlingly creepy performance that truly highlights the fear both the role and the movie demand).
Begins sports a famous ensemble - with Caine, Oldman, Neeson, Murphy, Holmes, and of course Bale himself. The cast does well, with Oldman making a surprisingly good Gordon and Bale doing largely great work in a role that demands the display of two distinct personalities. Murphy, as noted, is perfectly creepy as Scarecrow, though the effects used to display his hallucinogenic effects fail to support him to the level he deserved. There are lows, however. Caine does what he can with Alfred, but the butler seems to lack warmth. Holmes is simply empty in a character that is little more than a shell.
Effects were intentionally as devoid of computer generated tomfoolery as Nolan could get them, which really strengthens Begins' grounding in a reality. Not our reality, of course, but a reality that is predominately believable. From Batman's first real fight - shown with great effectiveness by keeping Batman indistinct as the goons become more and more terrified - through to large chunks of the requisite batmobile (sorry, tumbler) chase, this movie feels solid. Far more so than the cgi excesses of the recent past. The action  when it arrives  is mostly well shot, and well played out.
There are, however, ludicrously impossible parts to Begins. And while it wouldn't be a superhero movie without them they feel curiously out of place, even in a world where a man dresses as a bat, because so much effort has been directed into making Begins real. Ducard's machiavellian "master plan" reeks of nonsense, from the intention through to the fundamentally impossible machine used to implement it.
There are some ridiculous parts to the tumbler chase, wherein the machine  which must weigh at least a couple of tonnes  nevertheless manages to flit across rooftops like a hummingbird (or a bat). Even amidst the final climax the structures of Gotham seem strangely permeable and insubstantial when the action requires it. These drag the movie kicking and screaming out of its serious, rather dour, yet highly effective atmosphere and dangerously close to the camp it otherwise seems to be so studiously avoiding You can't help but wonder if the makers needed a little more time to edit these kinks out of the screenplay, or if they were left to satisfy the Hollywood mogul's desires.
The most glaring problem was Bruce's declaration that he will not be an executioner, and the moral cachet the movie pins to this frame of mind for the rest of the film. Yet almost immediately kills an unknown number of men through deliberate action, whilst later he endangers the lives of numerous police officers, and kills by deliberate inaction. Begins speaks of a morality Batman claims, yet shows he is not in fact so hard and fast in applying it.
But Batman Begins manages to rise above or gloss over these errors, and remains an excellent movie. This is a dark, and mostly earnest, take on the Dark Knight and it should be approached with that in mind. This is not Schumacher, and it's not Spiderman. Whilst not really a "psychological thriller" (as it has been billed in some places...) Begins takes itself seriously and demands that the viewer does too. If you're willing to invest that much you'll be assured of a superb cinematic event.
8/10.