Dry, Dark and Boring

Rating: 3/10 (29 May 2006)

Is this what passes for a slick comic book movie these days? A movie so attached to the concept of being dark, gloomy and melodramatic that it has forgotten somewhere along the way to entertain us? Movies like this are what happens when producers insist on pandering to fanboys. In an obvious attempt to give the 18-35 male demographic exactly what they pine for, this movie features a lot of mindless combat (hastily edited to avoid the need for any complex choreography), a marginal plot, a lot of wasted talent and a protagonist who literally scratches his own voice in a futile attempt to appear 'tough' inside a latex suit.
The result is a cumbersome movie that looks and sounds a lot like a dark oily calliope. The batman suit in this one is laughably bad, the assistant DA looks and sounds more like a high school prom date and Michael Caine looks as bored as he did in Jaws III.
A lot of rain, some interesting cinematography here and there and some stolen camera tricks from another horror film, make Batman Begins slightly more than awful, but in summary this movie isn't fun, it isn't that violent, it's very convoluted and really strains your attention span. The strain on your attention span would be more than forgivable if it was used to develop character, plot and mood, but instead it's mostly used to just wheeze itself along like a big, rusty tank.
Batman is supposed to be dark, supposed to be violent and in many ways is supposed to represent the ultimate Nietzsche/Fascist fantasy. Batman is a character that owns everything and then physically beats up anyone who tries to steal anything from the very city he owns lock, stock and barrel. You can work with that premise to weave in all kinds of interesting themes, ideas and stories, best exemplified with such comic books as Arkham Asylum and Killing Joke.
Here it just plays out like some giant, rainy offering to fanboys everywhere. It leaves the rest of us bored and pining for the days when action films weren't a dime a dozen and weren't this bloated and cumbersome.
All I ask is a dumb movie like this provide a few laughs and thrills to go along with our bucket of popcorn. Instead I got something that took itself too seriously but then provided so little substance in return for its gravitas.