Not quite back to Burton's, but a good fresh start to a dead series

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2005)

"Batman" began well in its most recent film incarnations with Tim Burton's dark, dramatic film in 1989. However, things started to go bad with a dull sequel despite the return of Michael Keaton and Tim Burton and then Joel Schumacher, as is his wont, managed to make it boring despite a parade of then-big-name talent including Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Val Kilmer, and Chris O'Donnell (okay, to be fair, Schwarzenegger, Kilmer, Silverstone, and O'Donnell were on the downswing but they were still marketable stars at the times of their films). Schumacher ignored the darker side of his hero and even went so far as to introduce copious amounts of bright blue light into the costuming and the Batmobile, which was admittedly attractive but didn't match the character. He also added two sidekicks to Batman, again weakening the dark nature of the hero.
In Christopher Nolan, the series returns to the hands of a capable director (much as I dislike the choices Burton has made, he is a visual master) rather than Joel Schumacher. Nolan brings back much of the dark vision of Burton's film, except that his film seems vaguely futuristic and really reminded me of the earlier release "Sin City" in its presentation of Gotham where Burton's is more of its own vision (which is certainly true of Burton in general). However, Nolan does not portray the fight scenes well, relentlessly moving the camera around and cutting so that it's difficult to follow the action, and with the number of action scenes that he does this way, it ends up being a rather jumbled, overly loud film--especially in its conclusion.
It was also noticeable that the film flatly contradicted with the other Warner Bros. Batman films--giving the franchise a completely fresh start. The most powerful and interesting part of Burton's original film is the beautiful murder scene, which was completely different and much less powerful--though admittedly more real--in Nolan's vision and thus the motivation for Batman has, perhaps necessarily, changed. It never quite made sense for him to continue after killing the Joker before, did it? But here, he has reason. Still, his journey to becoming Batman is rather heavy-handed and somewhat silly. The fear of bats that he develops and then uses is a piece of, as Orson Welles would call it, "dollar-book Freud" that is too obvious and something subtler would have been an improvement. However, the reality of this film may have been overdone. While Burton's film could be called cartoonish in some ways, that may be necessary to really believe it--this more realistic vision makes a few points unbelievable, most notably the silly weapons (Crane's spray and the water gun), the bat-signal, and the psychiatrist (Why must film psychiatrists always be either stupid or insane?).
Christian Bale deserves tons of credit for pulling off a wonderful Batman. I am one of the crowd who never wanted to see anyone not named Michael Keaton in the role, but Bale was perhaps even better for the role, with his gravelly Batman voice (which is very different from the Bruce Wayne voice and a nice touch) and square jaw creating a more menacing Batman and his not being Michael Keaton creating a less menacing Bruce Wayne (Keaton is scary without trying). The other roles required little and were all well cast well with the possible exception of Michael Caine's Alfred, which doesn't quite have the dignity or intelligence of earlier versions of the character. The most notable supporting performances were Katie Holmes, who even managed to be sweet and endearing enough to make her frankly annoying character palatable (and her looks didn't hurt, definitely); Tom Wilkinson, who was a great and infinitely hatable creep; and the unrecognizable Gary Oldman, who had perhaps less to do than anybody but seemed so different from his more typical roles that it was a shock to discover it was him. Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman, two of the greatest screen icons of our time, were almost sad to see so wasted in their roles.
Overall, this film still isn't quite up to the standard Tim Burton's original "Batman" set which no comic book movie will probably ever reach (although with the death of Christopher Reeve, "Superman" takes on more poignancy), but it's quite good. The film, like Batman himself, has a dark realism to it that other comic book movies just don't have, and that makes it more interesting. Its weaknesses are comic book weaknesses: some unbelievable plot points, dull characters, overly conventional storytelling, and perhaps taking itself too seriously. These weaknesses are difficult-to-impossible to overcome for a comic book film and yet they aren't enough to pull down one of the strongest attempts ever (I'm thinking "Batman," "Sin City," "Superman," then this) at doing so. Hopefully if they continue, they've learned to put the films in capable hands . . . or at least not Joel Schumacher's.