Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 4.0
The Dark Revenger's Time Has Come!
Batman Begins is the fifth live-action movie since 1989 to bear the name of the Caped Crusader, but it might as well be the first. So completely does writer-director Christopher Nolan reinvent, reimagine, and reinvigorate this franchise, you may well entirely forget about the campy casting (Clooney as Batman! Ah-nuld as Mr. Freeze!), leaden dialogue, and nonexist plotting that Joel Schumacher used to try to kill off the series in the 1990's. (And please, don't even get me started on the Batsuit nipples.) Nolan, the auteur behind Memento and Insomnia, likes his thrillers dark and twisted, and this one is no exception. The incredibly talented Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Machinist) is riveting as Gotham billionaire Bruce Wayne, whose anger over the murder of his parents leads him into an intense study of the nature of evil, and ultimately to his emergence as a cowled and caped vigilante. The film touches relevantly on both corporate corruption (Wayne Corp. is run by an ultrasleazy Rutger Hauer) and on post-9/11 urban fear. Images of derailing trains and clouds of poison gas enveloping Gotham will bring chills to anyone who has watched the news in the last four years (or been unfortunate enough to have lived it.) The supporting cast is full of heavy hitters in fine form - Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, a sweetly subdued Gary Oldman (as Jim Gordon), an Oscar-worthy Michael Caine (wonderful as wry, indispensable manservant Alfred) - but for me the real standout is Irish actor Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Cold Mountain) as the fiendish Dr. Jonathan Crane, who runs the local asylum; in his supervillain guise as the Scarecrow, he is truly the stuff of nightmares (and just one reason I have to warn you, DON'T bring the kiddies to this one!)