The Emperor's New Clothes

Rating: 2/10 (30 March 2006)

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
So sayeth Jack Nicholson in a riveting performance as The Joker in an earlier film about the caped crusader. There is not a line, a performance, a character, a joke or an idea that comes close to matching that single piece of sublime brilliance here. Burton's "Batman" of 1989 had class. It had vision. It had style. It had character. Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" is the antithesis of that former picture in almost every conceivable way. As a fellow film fan put it: "Batman Begins" is like eating dry toast with nothing to wash it down."
But what is the problem here? Surely this is the film, according to critical and fan response, that has brought Batman into the light? Well, sort of: only in the literal sense of taking him out of the shadows and placing him where he does not belong. Nolan has crafted a picture that works against the inherent absurdity and twisted elegance of Batman. Like scaling Mount Everest with one's nose instead of one's feet, he has attempted performing the impossible and only proved that it cannot be done. Many people have cheered a naked emperor and his picture. It is a picture that embodies the faceless studio system that spawned it and aggressively sells itself as vapid entertainment disguised as "art".
A good comic adaptation needs a good protagonist. In "Begins", which seems only natural, it doesn't get one. Bale physically looks the part as Bruce and even brings some reckless charm to the part - but he's ultimately too bland and joyless. Even worse is his Batman: a sinister, angry, uninhibited creature who blunders and blusters his way through the film's second half. Keaton may have looked less imposing and suave as Bruce Wayne -- but his eyes did acting aplenty. Keaton, like Christopher Reeve as Superman, knew that understatement was the key to suggesting immense intelligence and grace. But Bale's Bruce lurks as a non-entity and his Batman is ultimately overplayed (that gritty voice, some pained imitation of Alec Baldwin or Clint Eastwood, takes the cake).
Not even the presence of other heavyweights saves this film. In fact, in many ways, it works against it. What is the collective might of Liam Neeson, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman doing in the same picture? This is Hollywood product. Of the three, it's Caine that fares the best: he brings real authority and palpable humanity to butler Alfred. Neeson, however, delivers a villain as lifeless and flat as Morgan is cool and collected (I don't see Lucius Fox -- I see Morgan Freeman playing Lucius Fox). Katie Holmes, Rutger Hauer, Cillian Murphy and Gary Oldman are the best picks here: smaller names with real talent that work to the film's advantage. But it's not enough. Not a single person gets under the skin of their characters and actually does something memorable.
It's not that Nolan hasn't tried. There are some inspired touches. Several early scenes between Bruce and Rachel, when Bruce is a foolish young man with a gun in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder, hit their mark; several later scenes between Bruce and Alfred are also infused with genuine warmth and emotion. Nolan also concocts some clever visual pieces - young Bruce watching stage performers morph into bats, the Scarecrow's vile hallucinations - that suggest a depth and power otherwise muddied or missing. The early cinematography, where the bleak Asian mountains are used to represent Bruce's cold psyche, is incredibly effective. There's even a moving line here and there: "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up".
Batman is a dark hero - but his cinematic outings should inspire. The other big pictures of 2005, "Revenge of the Sith", "Sin City" and "King Kong", are rich in style and substance. Begins just flaps about in its own excrement. In attempting to be so literal, it forgets how to be abstract and entertaining. Bruce's training is a prime offender. Why, in six films, did George Lucas not once show any of the Jedi training to fight or construct their lightsabres? Because it wasn't necessary! Ra's Al Ghul repeatedly attacks Bruce and rattles off hollow soundbites like: "Training is nothing. Will is everything". All well and good - but Yoda said a similar thing in "The Empire Strikes Back" and then put his words into action. "The Empire Strikes Back" didn't just tell, it showed, and in lifting the X-Wing out of the swamp, Yoda taught Luke and the audience more than they thought possible. Such awe and wonder are alien to this film. Hollow sentiments like, "It's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you," again spelling things out, just rub salt into the wound.
The film's narrative wants to be epic and serious - but it undermines itself at every turn. Bats don't attack people. People don't fall hundreds of feet and live to tell the tale. The technology that Bruce wields wouldn't have gone unused. Bruce refuses to kill a prisoner but then blows up an entire gathering (complete with said prisoner) and later leaves the villain to die. In fact, Ra's Al Ghul has no believable motivation for wanting to destroy Gotham (his explanation is downright laughable). The climax then plays out like "xXx" or the poorest of the James Bond features. People who crave good film-making are advised to look elsewhere. As if the other problems weren't enough, the horrific editing and tepid scoring kill the flow and scale of the film dead. But that was never going to be difficult. Even the woefully excessive "Batman and Robin", the previous nadir of the series, wasn't shackled in pretense. Nolan definitely danced with the devil in the pale moonlight. This isn't art or entertainment - it's mutilation.