Even Batman was born into this world

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2009)

That's a typical prequel. After a certain number of films about and with Batman and his adventures, the saga felt the need to have an origin, a beginning, and a prequel came out of the box. This prequel really has all the necessary qualities to make it interesting, plus a few extra kicks. Of course the childhood of the dear Bruce. He fell into a well, which was not a well but it looked like one and he frightened thousands of bats who attacked him on their way to some escape. That's his fear. Then he is the witness of the double assassination, or murder, of his father and his mother, and then we jump to his young age when he runs around the world and ends up in some Tibetan ninja-monk-hostel where he meets with some crazy guru who wants to make the world right by killing everyone in Gotham as an example to the world. Our Bruce refuses and comes back to Gotham and tries to set things right, to set crime right, to bring criminals to court and to have them severely convicted and sentenced. It's when the guru comes back and tries to put his plan in action. Batman will stop him of course, and at the same time he will settle his family business right by re-buying the shares of it and taking the control of it directly. Plus a crazy doctor, or mad doctor if you prefer, plus his girl friend from far away, Rachel, and a little bit of sentimental honey. You have it right. It must work if you create fear and panic. As for that the film is superb and the special effects are so special they nearly look natural though abnormal. Of course the formula is not new. I could quote films and books with the same elements, maybe not all at the same time in one book or one film, but all in Stephen King, Anne Rice and many others. The lessons that are behind that story is that you cannot make people happy if they don't want to be; that you cannot trust any unregulated free market economy because there are also some human beings who will negotiate all obstacles to make a bigger profit, and embezzling and corruption will bring the system down; that there is no justice if there is not a court, a trial, a conviction, a sentence, and the possibility of parole; that people need a dream, a symbol, a vision to be set on the right road and to stay on it. And a few other goodies, if you read between the lines and behind the punctuation. Quite great fun all together and if you don't like the philosophy, you can always get detached and fly to some kind of nirvana, even if it is artificial.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID