The start of a franchise

Rating: 9/10 (3 February 2017)

Batman Begins opens with Bruce (Christian Bale) in a jail. We then learn through flashbacks that he has dropped out of Princeton seeking the means to fight injustice, on a sort of extended gap year. He's having a pretty miserable time, being continually challenged by the other inmates, but he's learned to hold his own with some pretty rough street-fighting skills. He meets a mysterious stranger (Liam Neeson) who offers to show him what he wants to know, and travels to the academy of a mysterious ninja-style academy where he is trained in the way of the warrior. On graduating, he discovers that the leader of the group, Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), is less about justice than he is for killing, and Bruce cannot shake off his innate decency and compassion.
Several moments later, Bruce returns to a decaying Gotham where, since the Depression of his childhood, things have gone from bad to worse, the criminals, led by Carmine Falconi (Tom Wilkinson) and his pet psychologist, Dr Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), run the city, the police force is utterly corrupt, and the good people do nothing. Handily, Bruce still owns a large share of Wayne Enterprises, which happens to have a really useful science department, run by the disaffected Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). Formerly a member of the board, Fox is happy to help Bruce in every way he can. With the help of his loyal butler, Alfred (Caine), and Fox's gadgets, Bruce creates Batman, and begins to fight back. Throughout we then meet more characters and the film begins more as a drama with less action, though it does work in well favors. As a rewatch 03/17/20' Batman Begins remains an entertaining and thoughtful start to the Christopher Nolan Batman films.