Much better than previous Batmen, but still a dumb action movie

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2005)

I must apologize at first - I don't particularly like "escapist" action movies. Fighting, explosions, that kind of nonsense doesn't particularly appeal to me (unless they are in a realistic, perhaps philosophical, and otherwise dramatic movie, in which case I love em - the Thin Red line is one of my favorites). 'Batman Begins' was probably one of the best "escapist" action movies that I have ever seen, but my review (and ranking) are doubtlessly slanted by the fact that I think the genre in general is, well, kinda dumb. And, make no mistake about it, this was an escapist action movie, despite any pretenses to anything deeper.
I was fortunate enough to have tickets to the premiere in London last night, and, since it was a Sunday night and I had nothing better to do, I went.
The acting is solid - few problems there. The casting was quite good, though Katie Holmes, Batman, and the Scarecrow were all miscast. Katie and (especially) the Scarecrow are just too young for the roles that they are supposed to be - while this is standard for Hollywood, here it was pushing it beyond even what would normally be acceptable. Batman himself was fine, but very generic and anonymous looking. I was quietly people watching and getting plastered at the after party at the Royal Courts of Justice and it took me some time to recognize that one of the people I was idly watching was in fact the same guy I had just spent a couple hours watching on the big screen. The guy who played Bruce Wayne's (murdered) father I think is the same guy who played the bad guy in the Ocean's eleven movies. He did a decent job, but I couldn't see his face on screen without instantly wondering "what's terry Benedict doing here?" Maybe that's just me.
The plot had aspirations to greatness and was, for the most part, competently written, save for a few glaring holes (possible spoiler alerts below). As has doubtlessly been pointed out elsewhere, the screenwriters carefully tried to fit as much of the standard batman lore artifacts into the movie as they could. most worked, some didn't. For example, the whole "Bruce Wayne as playboy by day" shtick was left out of the previous movies (as far as my vague recollection of them goes) with good reason, it seems - it seems tacked on and adds-little while diminishing credibility.
The bad guy suffers from classic "idiot genius" flaws, but I guess since this is a comic book movie by definition that has to be ignored. well, sort of .. you can either accept that "idiot genius" is required for this kind of movie OR you can try to pretend that this is an adult, 'intellectual' movie. You can't have both, I think, though lord know this movie tried. if the bad guy's plot was smarter, my review would have been up at least a point.
Speaking of pretenses to being an adult movie, there's a whole lot of what at first pass might appear to be an exploration of the nature of fear. If it actually explored such themes competently (which I'm sure many vapid fan boys will incorrectly insist that it did), then my enthusiasm for this film would be much greater. As it is, while this movie seemed to be about analyzing the nature of fear, it never really gets beyond a few somewhat predictable throw-away lines.
I want to stress that the movie was quite good for its genre. However, since gushing is doubtlessly well taken care of in other posts, I'll just make some random plot observations:
I didn't like the bat car. It added nothing but excuses for stupid explosions, a lot of noise, and plot problems (how exactly is Bruce Wayne going to help stop crime in Gotham by destroying half of its police cars and potentially killing many of its cops, again?). i suspect the director had to include this, but, well, this is not for me.
*Spoiler*. Maybe i missed it, but it was not clear to me what batman actually did at the end of the movie to stop the bad guy. so you have this doomsday train with the bad guy on it heading towards the center of town, where the bad guy will blow it up (well, not exactly, but I'm simplifying for explanation here). so batman gives the bat mobile to his policeman friend who drives to just before the building, and basically shoots out the tracks, causing the train to crash and the happy village is saved. meanwhile, batman boards the train and fights the bad guy and manages to jump out of the train just before it crashes. you might say "well, batman slowed down the bad guy, allowing the policeman friend time to get into position." Not really. the train is going at top speed anyway, and plus we saw plenty of time wasted by the policeman trying to get to grips with driving the car. in other words, batman didn't actually contribute in any meaningful way to the ultimate demise of the bad guy other than giving his friend the car keys.
in a rare moment of bad or unclear acting in this film, it was never really apparent from Katie Holmes actions / expressions / whatever that she had been poisoned.
the sets were spectacular and the cinematography itself brilliant for this kind of fare. the pacing of the movie was superb. special effects were great, if you care for that kind of thing. nice surprise ending to the 'personal' story at the end and a very nice lead in to potential future movies.
best batman ever. maybe best escapist action movie ever. competent acting. a few plot holes. a dumb genre. imagine the results if such brilliance would be used for something other than burger king merchandising fuel!
7/10