Sadly, a disappointment

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2005)

Don't you just hate it when you're watching a movie and you get to a point, maybe about halfway or two-thirds through, when you think to yourself, "Ah, f--- it, it's not going to get any better, is it?" So it was, alas, with Batman Begins. It's not a bad movie - far from it. If anything, the movie failed for me because it probably has too much ambition. The "Ah, f--- it" moment for me was the car chase, and herein lies the problem of any Batman movie. You have to have a Batmobile. And so you have to have a car chase. This is all well and good if you can produce a really good car chase, but apart from the neat idea of starting it on the rooftops, this one isn't much good. The other thing going through my mind at this point was something like, "Now, did that car really have to flip over like that?" Alfred the butler shared my displeasure, at least. Then of course there's the whole seeing-his-parents-being-murdered thing. I accept that a reasonable chunk of the audience won't know this already. But there comes a point where you have to say, "OK! We know! Now get on with it!" There are so many little flashbacks here it's like being bludgeoned with the complete works of Sigmund Freud. But I'm conflicted - there's plenty of good stuff here too (the prototype batsignal being my favorite). Problem is, there's too MUCH stuff. There's probably enough material here for about 4 or 5 hours worth of movie without adding any extra plotting. Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine - these are actors who could easily carry very long scenes with actual character development, but we seem to be served the minimum possible to hold the complicated plot together. Actually the plot's not complicated, it just seems that way. I have a sneaking suspicion that Christopher Nolan (whose work until now I've loved) was trying, underneath the superhero hype, to make something reminiscent of the classic seventies New York crime movies, like French Connection or Serpico. Unfortunately, he has to spend too much time on explosions and exposition. So we're deprived of more Batman (why do the movies concentrate on Bruce Wayne? Read the title, guys), more Gordon, or more Scarecrow (acting honors ultimately go to Gary Oldman's understated cop and Cillian Murphy's inordinately creepy Crane). By the time we got to the monorail bit I had lost most of my interest, although Bale and Oldman saved it in the dying seconds. I suppose I should be grateful that a summer blockbuster should aim so high, but if you'd told me 6 months ago that Batman Begins would have been nowhere near as enjoyable as Star Wars 3, I'd have thought you were insane. Perhaps the sequel will be everything I want.