It Begins...

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2005)

"Batman Begins" is the long-awaited screen return of the Caped Crusader, whose last outing in "Batman & Robin" (1997) met with disastrous results. Here, the DC Comics titan of the title is given a fresh start by director Christopher Nolan ("Memento," "Insomnia") and a new (albeit) unlikely face to boot - Christian Bale. Nolan's (mostly) brilliant film is an exercise of sheer timing and is something that even the most devout of "Batman" purists can (finally) appreciate.
Tim Burton's 1989 film adaptation of the "Batman" legend returned the character to the darker, grittier, more noirish origins Bob Kane had envisioned, and is perhaps the best screen vision of the Dark Knight. The Gotham City in that picture was a decaying metropolis that was overrun with crime and corruption, and though many decried the casting of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne, he nonetheless fit the bill perfectly by exuding the moodiness and torment of the character he was playing.
Burton's film was something extraordinary in the making as well, being that it was influenced greatly by the works of Frank Miller, namely "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Year One," both of which apparently also played a hand into Nolan's picture. But since "Batman Begins" takes place before Burton's films (and Nolan's vision discards that arc entirely), any comparisons are void and a waste of time and therefore, it must be judged on its own merits.
To me, Batman is the most mythical and mysterious of superheroes, being he's a playboy and a brilliant philanthropist but suffers from deep psychological issues and is missing a few screws from an otherwise well-oiled machine. That quality of mysticism, to me, is at the heart of this dark and mysterious character known as the Batman, who "would have to be some kind of a freak to go out at night dressed up as a bat."
Nolan's film dives right into the character of Bruce Wayne and his metamorphosis into the Dark Knight of Gotham City. As the film opens, we see Wayne (played wonderfully by Bale) is being held prisoner by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) and his minions. Recognizing the anger festering inside him, Ducard appoints himself Wayne's mentor and begins training him for his (not yet realized) destiny.
Years have passed since Bruce left Gotham City to travel the globe, never to return, after his parents were murdered and the man responsible was executed outside the courthouse. While here, he enters into harsh training with the League of Shadows, a band of stealth vigilante ninjas who have an apparent organization all over the world, not just in the mountains of Asia.
But when Bruce draws a line between being judge and executioner, he becomes a marked man by the League, and makes mortal enemies out of Ducard and the group's leader Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). Meanwhile in Gotham, things have gotten steadily worse since Bruce forced himself into exile away from the city. On the business front, Bruce must contend with a ruthless corporate raider (Rutger Hauer), and a powerful gangster named Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) controls the city's central criminal elements and assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) - who's also a childhood friend of Bruce - is trying her best to find a way to have him incarcerated.
Falcone's wave of terror, however, is mere child's play compared to the scheme being orchestrated by corrupt Arkham Asylum psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), who moonlights as a hooded maniac called "the Scarecrow" and is unearthing plans to contaminate Gotham's water supply with a powerful hallucinogenic drug that when vaporized and inhaled, will drive the denizens of the crime-ridden Narrows insane and then they'll begin to tear the city apart. When it becomes apparent that Crane is not working alone in his devious plans and that he is merely a pawn being used by a mysterious third party, Bruce is forced to spring into action as Batman.
"Batman Begins," put simply, is a comic book fan's dream; I don't have any other way to describe it. Like last year's "Spider-Man 2," a lot more is done right than wrong. Nolan's film exhibits all of the best qualities of the Dark Knight by shying away from any camp elements and creating a vision that's not only bold and faithful to its source material (and most rabid of fans), but is also quite scary. I guess that I should also make it clear that this is by no means a children's movie, despite its now-kid-friendly "PG-13" rating.
When Wayne first dawns the Batsuit, he's quite naturally clumsy, so it takes him a while to get used to it. And of course with the help of his faithful butler Alfred (Michael Caine), weapons designer Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who first introduces us to the bad-ass Batmobile that would make Hummer and Cadillac both blush with envy, and the only honest cop left in Gotham City - James Gordon (Gary Oldman), Batman is able to restore some order to the city.
Christian Bale is cast amazingly well, almost surely joining the ranks of Keaton, who without any bias is my preferred choice for the role of the Dark Knight. Bale is cool when he has to be playboy Bruce, but when it comes time for action in the Batsuit, he takes on a whole new dimension. This is the first film of Christopher Nolan's that I've truly liked, and his direction here is standout, making this Batman that much more brooding and haunted. He also effectively cast much of Gotham in impenetrable shadows, thus making it the most distinct place of any movie today and almost making it impossible to see what's in that alley some character is walking into.
"Batman Begins" is not your father's Batman, and that's a good thing. It's a triumph of timing and skill, and as the film's ending would have it, sequels are most definitely on the way.
10/10