A good start

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2005)

Going into Christopher Nolan's latest film "Batman Begins", I asserted that my favorite Batman film thus far was Tim Burton's original "Batman", featuring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. After walking out of "Batman Begins", my opinion did not change, but I was left with a lot of hope for this franchise.
"Batman Begins" basically takes the story of Bruce Wayne (Bale) and starts from scratch; pretending that the other Batman films didn't exist (which, after seeing the third film, is probably a wise thing to convince yourself of). Taking cues from the original Bob Kane story, our new Batman still has some of the same background as the Burton/Schumacher offerings, (the essentials, like how Wayne's parents die, etc.) but we now have a truly dark knight. The guilt with which Wayne is wracked regarding his parents' death is so pervasive that he puts himself through grueling and potentially life-threatening events. While in an Asian prison, he meets Ducard (Neeson) who works for Ra's Al Ghul (Watanabe). Ducard convinces him to join their cult, which teaches him the way of the ninja, only their motives and honor are questionable. Returning to Gotham City, Wayne begins to seek his revenge on the mob boss who runs the city, and was behind the killing of his parents. While doing this, he discovers that there is another dangerous villain, Dr. Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane, who drugs his patients and eventually, his enemies, with a hallucinogen that turns them psychotic. Helping Wayne are his trusty friend and butler Alfred (Caine) and Lucius Fox (Freeman), a former employee of his father who creates Wayne's weapons and gear. Since there inherently has to be a love interest, Wayne's childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Holmes) acts as both the object of his affection and a source of grounding.
It was unfortunate that I went into this film having read a lot of reviews, something I generally don't do, because pretty much every review I read or heard was a rave, and called it the best Batman film ever made, and even one of the greatest movies of all time, period. Therefore, I had high expectations going into this film, but came out of it feeling slightly under whelmed. I think I was expecting to do what I did after seeing "Kill Bill" on opening night, and was jumping around, I couldn't contain my delight over the film, whereas I walked out of this one and said, "It was a good movie, but I still liked the first Tim Burton film better." Perhaps it's bad taste or something on my part, but I really liked the art deco and Gothic setting of that film, but more importantly, I relished the character of The Joker. I have always been one to root for the villain (a recent example of my hero worship of the bad guy is my assertion that the coolest character in Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City" was Kevin, a guy who had maybe five minutes of screen time) and Ra's Al Ghul and particularly Scarecrow just didn't do it for me. Cillian Murphy is a great actor, and it was fun to see him chewing up scenery after having only witnessed him in "28 Days Later", but overall I was pretty disappointed in the villains of this film.
Having said that, I think that the character development of Bruce Wayne and his cohorts was definitely superb. By now, it's cliché to say that this was the vision that Bob Kane had of the character of Batman, but it really is appropriate to reassert this. I was a casual reader of the comic as a child and in my teens, so while I really like Burton's style, I can really appreciate Nolan's creation and Bale's depiction. Christian Bale is the best Batman we've had so far, hands-down (sorry Adam West). He brought believability to the tortured and conflicted Wayne, as well as a sense that this could be a real guy. There was nothing cartoonish about his performance; rather at times I was reminded of an earlier role of his, Patrick Bateman of "American Psycho" in his understated ness in certain situations. Rachel Dawes notwithstanding (sorry, Katie Holmes may be cute and all I guess, but she can't act her way out of a paper bag) Nolan creates an excellent supporting cast of characters that will serve the franchise well, including Gary Oldman as a not-yet Commissioner Jim Gordon. Caine and Freeman are both as good as they usually are, and it is great that they are lending their talents and some class to the series.
Understanding that one of the main themes of the film was to create groundwork for future endeavors, "Batman Begins" is a very good film. If you look at it from the perspective of a stand-alone film, it could be lacking some key elements (like the aforementioned villain thing). Then again, I could just be completely picky and I rely too much on certain things to make a film fantastic. I just know that if there were a bit more dynamism in our bad guys I probably would have given the film an additional point on the ratings scale. But in bottom-lining the film, it really is a good movie and it makes me look forward to the next installment, which means that the film did for me exactly what it probably intended. 7/10 --Shelly