Satisfying resurrection of a dead series

Rating: 8/10 (14 August 2005)

Christopher Nolan must have felt a weight on his shoulders greater than Atlas when he signed up to revive the Batman franchise. After three films which successively spiraled downhill in overall quality since Tim Burton's 1989 original, Nolan, along with comic-book friendly screenwriter David S. Goyer ("Blade," "The Crow") and a younger, stronger, more intense Bruce Wayne in Christian Bale, had nowhere to go but upwards following the bottoming out of "Batman and Robin" in 1997. He has wisely gone back to the beginning of the series and sought out the dark knight's darker roots in an effort that, though it plays out its story safely, succeeds in raising the series from the bowels of Gotham City.
In a build-up edited to the speed of light, we are introduced to Bruce Wayne as a young boy, the son of a millionaire Thomas Wayne (Linus Roache), who lives at an enormous manor outside Gotham City. The young boy faces his first confrontation with fear when, playing with childhood friend Rachel, he falls down a well and faces a traumatic experience that haunts him into adulthood.
Cut to Mongolia. Bruce Wayne (now played by Bale) is now an aimless wanderer, seeking respite from Gotham City following the murder of his parents and the city's subsequent fall into the hands of criminals and corruption. Recovering in prison, he is taken under the wing of Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson, who has now officially been typecast in the role of father-figure and trainer to younger heroes), a member of the secret brotherhood the "League of Shadows", and trained to combat fear under the watchful eye of the menacing Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). Ducard gives him the lesson that "in order to overcome fear you must become fear" and is placed through a series of rigorous exercises, including some spectacular sequences which include a sword fight on ice as well as a breathtaking fight scene above a bed of ashes. Through his training with the shadowy brotherhood, he slowly restores his confidence in order to return to Gotham City.
His spirit restored, Bruce Wayne returns home and rekindles his relationship with family butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and Rachel, who has grown into the gorgeous, yet bland guise of Katie Holmes. He has returned to a city which suffers still under the corrupt rule of crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), who has made some dangerous dealings with Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), a scientist at Arkham Asylum who as the "scarecrow" plans to unleash upon Gotham a chemical that induces fear in the minds of his patients. Wayne, meanwhile, has confronted fear face-to-face in the furthest corner of the world, and is not primed and ready to fight crime in the guise of the most fearsome creature to stalk the streets of Gotham City - the "Batman".
An epic narrative that crams itself with some trouble into 2.5 hours, "Batman Begins" is one of those rare cram-jobs that works. And how! Nolan wisely returns to Batman's darker origins, giving us the tortured, haunted Frank Miller hero rather than the Barnum and Bailey version of the latter sequels. Perhaps the wisest decision was the casting of Bale, one of the most intense actors in Hollywood who previously terrified audiences with his assaulting performance in "American Psycho" and his self-destructive preparation for his role as an insomniac in "The Machinist". He brings to Bruce Wayne a haunted countenance that explodes into fits of brutality and violence as his fearsome alter-ego. Bale puts forth a character who scares the audience more with his relentless crime-fighting tactics than any one of the film's numerous villains.
Likewise, Nolan was an appropriate choice at the film's helm, moving the action along at a swift pace, sometimes too briskly for the audience to fully comprehend. The film's early moments are so eager to complete Bruce Wayne's transformation into Batman that the audience barely has a chance to breathe. So, too, is the case with the editing, which appears to suffer from the "Gladiator" syndrome, sometimes disallowing the viewer from understanding at all what is happening.
Nevertheless, despite too much quick-cut editing and a Hans Zimmer score that refuses to shut up, Nolan hits his target. Perhaps a little off-center, but he successfully resuscitates a series which just 8 years ago seemed it would never recover. 3.5 stars on a 5 star scale.