Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 2.0
Brooding and Pretension
Batman Begins is exactly what it sounds like, the early years of Bruce Wayne/Batman and his motivations. The film tries desperately to be more than what it really is, an okay action film.Christian Bale is the perfect choice for Christopher Nolan's Batman and I am not saying that like a good thing. Bale is a totally un-charasmatic and bland actor who does little more than brood. His Bruce Wayne is not much of a human being, he is a machine operating on vengance. The real tragedy of Batman is that he is destined not to have a normal life in his persuit of his rather un-obtainable goal. Not once during this film do you feel that he is split, he simply has a one-track mind goes down one path. Not much genuine character development ever occurs, it's really just Bruce Wayne learning how to fight and then later acquiring his gadgetry.When Bruce finally dons the mask, it's an introduction of an action film character and not so much a myth or a legend. True Batman uses fear and confusion to defeat the crowd of thugs by lurking and picking them off one by one; I wish I can only say the thugs were confused because the poorly shot fighting bewildered me as well and it's sadly evident through out the film. This again a case of trying to be "realistic" in a film that certainly needn't bother itself with such concerns. Batman is suppose to appear in full view of his victims so they, and the viewer, could absorb that he is the creature of the night come to attack his prey. Of course this could not work with this particularly banal costume Batman wears, it's really meant to conceal one instead of appearing as a theatrical figure; Totally wrong for film or comic books.As for supporting cast, a lot of talent here is wasted. Liam Neeson is cast as the main anatognist as a very banal Ra's Al Ghul. Al Ghul, in the comics, was depicted as larger than life figure who is looked up to by his minions as a god and speaks like a biblical figure; He posses fantastic wealth and power beyound the common man due has lived longer than any human being in history. He wants to rid the world of man entirely so he can restore to it's natural beauty. This underwhelming counterpart in Nolan's film is little more than an angry man who lost his wife. Like Wayne, simply a machine for vengance but simply takes it one step further. Neeson does well with a banal role and the same can be said for Cillian Murphy. Murphy is not as boring as Al Ghul but he certainly is wasted. He plays a creep with burlap sack over his head, dubbed Scacrecrow, fascinated by fear and uses a gas to induce fear among people but he really is used as a tool in this film for Al Ghul's plot to destroy Gotham. I would like to have seen Scarecrow as a genuine threat but he fails to be as much when he only successfully has one victim that no one has sympathy with. Finally we come to the allies and there isn't much to go on here. Everyone here is just "meh". Alfred and Rachel Dawes spout prentension about Bruce's obligations every five secounds and Gary Oldman does a good job as a young Jim Gordon not having much else to say because everyone else pointed out the obvious but he does do so at the end. Oh and Lucius Fox played by a Morgan Freeman on auto-pilot was a nice touch for some decent humor.Now does this film hold up ? Not very well. The action is badly shot and editied, when people fight or get shot it's all in a blur. This seems to be the popular thing in film, bad presentation, but I don't see the appeal. The plot is incredibly stupid and worthy of a lame James Bond feature. Ras Al Ghul wants to use the Scarecrow's fear gas by dumping into the water supply and evaporating it into a gas using some giant Microwave Emitter. When you care about nobody in the film, it dosen't help too much to try and cobble together some silly ticking time bomb plot. They should have taken the time to make Batman an actual flesh and blood character and gave people credible dialogue which dosen't constantly hammer themes in. I love Nolan's formula of close ups, the banal Hans Zimmer score blaring, and then tossing in some fortune cookie sayings to make the film intelligent. Sorry Nolan, it didn't work on me. Let actions speak for themselves and let the audience decide.Overall, this is an okay action film but if you want great Batman films, look no further than Tim Burton and Bruce Timm's freshman Bat outings.