From Ground Zero: Batman Begins

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2007)

Bruce Wayne is guilty of his parent's deaths. He seeks to fight criminals. So, he is locked up in a Chinese prison to fight them from the inside. But a man comes to rescue him--Ducard. He takes Bruce up into his mountain mansion to train him and perfect his skills--akin to a ninja. Things go awry, though, and Bruce must get out of that place. He ventures back to Gotham City. With the aid of his butler, Alfred, his ally inside Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox, and his girlfriend, Rachel Daws, he becomes the Dark Knight.
This movie was so hyped when it came up for release. I must admit that I was slightly skeptical when I viewed the trailers. I thought it couldn't get any worse than 'Batman & Robin'. Needless to say, I never saw it in theaters. I regret it so much.
My uncle rented this movie from our local video store. He watched it and told me it was one of the best movies he'd seen in a while (which is surprising, because he is very strict when it comes to movies). He even bought it and watched it twice. So, I had to see it. I was very impressed.
The thing that striked me most about Begins is the realistic take on Batman. This is NOT the Happy-Meal style movie that Joel Schumaker exploited to six-year-olds. This is a much more mature, violent, and scary movie, one with much more mature themes and a much darker storyline. The visuals give the film an eerie and grim quality, one that was lacking in the previous Schumaker schlock-fests. Wally Pfister's cinematography utilizes dim lighting and a muted color palette. The production design by Nathan Crowly is rank and miserable, contrasted with the high-class offices and Bruce's manor.
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard deserve great recognition too for their wonderful score. It is a completely different take than Danny Elfman's wonderful original music, but this is not a bad thing. The music for Begins fits the film perfectly. The themes are tied and give a great mystical and scary element to the story.
Great direction by Nolan, too. I still can't believe he went from directing Memento to Insomnia to this. It's truly a leap--albeit this may be a very conventional movie if you compare it to, say, Memento. Anyway, back on the direction--he truly freaked me out with his reveal of Scare Crow. That scared the hell out of me when I first saw it.
My only two gripes with this movie are dialog and acting. The dialog for this film is not up to Nolan's regular high standards, and this disappointed me. It felt clichÃ©'d in parts and forced in others. But this was all washed over by the great experience I was having watching the movie at the time. My only other gripe was Katie Holmes as Rachel. People were quick to say that her performance was forced and contrived. I agree with them for the most part.
The other actors were fine. Christian Bale as Batman took a while to get used to (for me, anyway), but now that I've seen it, I think he does it even slightly better than Michael Keaton's original. And that's saying something. Moragn Freeman and Michael Cane were wonderful as always. Nothing else to add. I was surprised by an appearance from Rutger Hauer. His performance as the greedy slime-ball CEO of Wayne Enterprises was great. Liam Neeson was pretty good too, but his lines of dialog hampered his ability slightly (Ex: "If you'll excuse me, I have a city to destroy..."). Cillian Murphy freaked me out as the Scarecrow. His performance as said villain and alter-ego Dr. Crane was very menacing and just right for the role.
Overall, this is a much better, mature, entertaining, darker film than any of the previous ones. If you haven't seen this, you haven't seen the real Batman.