Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 5.0
Don't Fear A New Beginning
I've never been much of a comic book fan, but there have definitely been superheroes that have intrigued me over the years. From the Marvel universe, I have found myself drawn to the character of Spider-man, while DC's Batman is my favorite hero from that universe. So far, both of those heroes have gotten (for the most part) great film adaptions. Both Spider-man movies have been amazing, while the Batman films under the directorship of Tim Burton have been great. The third one was enjoyable (to me at least), while the fourth was terrible; a very campy thing in the vein of the 60's TV show. So I guess that any halfway decent Batfilm would look good after that flop, so the fact that Batman Begins is in fact great (possibly my new favorite Batman movie) is all the better.This movie has effectively restarted Warner Bros.'s Batman franchise. Robin hasn't shown up yet, James Gordon (Gary Oldman) is still only a lieutenant, and the Joker is still a petty criminal (nowhere near his status as the Clown Prince of Crime). Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), the son of Gotham City's greatest benefactors, has been spending time in prison in order to beat on the criminals housed within. A two-bit thug killed his parents right before eyes when he was just a kid, and he wanted revenge, but circumstances prevented it. Now his anger drives him to attack criminals of all kinds in order to avenge his parents. Soon however, he meets a mysterious man named Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) he introduces Wayne to the mysterious Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanbe) and he begins training Wayne martial arts and dramatic theatrics. This training allows Wayne to manipulate the fears of his enemies and become a crusader against crime in Gotham City, which has degenerated into a crime-ridden hell where gangsters like Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) run everything. In a way, it's almost poetic that the film was shot in Chicago, seeing as how some friends of mine see Gotham as a parallel to Chicago, if things had gone differently back in the 30's (and hey, they refer to Gotham as "man's greatest city", which accurately describes Chicago).Upon his return to Gotham, Wayne moves back in with his childhood butler, Alfred Pennysworth (Michael Caine), and reunites with his old friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), who is now an assistant District Attorney. He also meets up with Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman), who is a sort of Q type character who provides Wayne with all of his bat-gadgets, including the batarangs, the body armor in the batsuit, the cape, and the batmobile (which is still awesome, even though it's an SUV instead of a sports car).Aside from Ra's Al Ghul, we also get the Scarecrow/Dr. Jonathon Craine (Cillian Murphy) in the villains department. Since he's one of my three favorite Batvillains (the others being the Joker and the Riddler), I was very happy to see him in this film. I think that the Scarecrow can be pretty cool if done right, and this movie definitely did him justice (unlike Two-Face or Mr. Freeze in some of the older films). The only thing is that they didn't really go into his backstory, which I find interesting. However, this movie was already 2 1/2 hours long, and the main focus was on Batman himself. This is actually the first Batman movie where Batman was the star of the film! In all of the previous ones, the villains were the ones who got more attention; in the first Batman, Jack Nicholson even got top billing over Michael Keaton, even though Keaton played Batman and Nicholson played the Joker.The main theme of the story was fear (which made the Scarecrow a very appropriate villain). It was about mastering fear, using fear to fight, and using fear to destroy. For those of you who don't know, the Scarecrow developed a serum that induces a paniced state in people who breathe it in, forcing them to see the things that they fear most, which led to some pretty cool sequences.It was pretty cool to actually see Wayne discover and prepare the batcave for use, along with being trained, both of which were passed over in the original Batman movie. In that one, Wayne was already Batman, and while we know that his parents were killed, we never saw all the hell that he went through to go from Bruce Wayne to Batman. In Begins, however, we see all the torture that occured that had to happen in order to create the Dark Knight.For a comic book movie, the acting was exceptionally good. Caine, Freeman, Murphy, and Neeson did the best in my opinion, in their respective roles. Bale did a great Bruce Wayne/Batman, and Gary Oldman was great as a good guy (no, I am not lying; Gary Oldman plays a good guy in this movie). Holmes was fair, but her good looks made up it.This is a film that everyone can enjoy, whether you are a Batman fanboy or a casual film viewer.