The thinking man's popcorn film

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2005)

How do you build a legend, especially a legend that has already been built? That is the monumental task Christopher Nolan takes on in Batman Begins. And damned if he doesn't pull it off. Set pieces, acting, sound design  all impressive stuff, but most important here is the script. Nolan and his co-screenwriter manage to tell a story that transcends the genre  a more intelligent blockbuster you will not find. Perhaps because Batman is just that  a man  the screenwriters are able to avoid allegory and suspend disbelief. The superhero here is exactly that  Nietzche's ubermensch  someone who realizes his potential through discipline and singularity of purpose. He doesn't have any ridiculous powers, so he is always in danger, and his triumphs are all the more impressive. In particular, Nolan explores the concept of confronting that which one fears the most. In Bruce Wayne's case it is bats, but obviously it is much more than that. The man has some serious abandonment issues, which drive him to avenge the death of his father. The bats just symbolize these abandonment issues as his last memory of his father was of him saving him from a bat-infested well. Wayne finally becomes a man when is willing to destroy or seemingly destroy all that his father stood for, including, in the climax, his father's greatest legacy, the monorail. On a meta level, Nolan makes savvy references to historical incidences that symbolize fear in society. There are the shots of bats attacking, an homage to the master of fear, Alfred Hitchcock, to the Lee Harvey Oswald killing that symbolized the seeming anarchy following Kennedy's assassination and to the widespread panic that followed 9/11. (The overlying theme, I'm sure, is captured even more succinctly in the opera which precedes Bruce's parents' death and which is picked up in Hans Zimmer's score, although I'm not familiar enough with opera to place the reference.) These references are subtle so as to add a layer to the film, not subtract from it. They put the Batman legend in context  the act of creation, whether it be art or a symbol of justice, is the best device to cope with trauma. After directing the lower-than-low budget Following, the indie hit Memento and the low-budget- for-a-studio-Insomnia, you could make the case Nolan has confronted his deepest fears by taking on a complex, huge-budget franchise. Other than the miscasting of Katie Holmes and giving in to the blockbuster mentality in the third act, Nolan has succeeded.