Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 4.0
Beginning Again
"Batman Begins" is the best of the franchise, beating Tim Burton's first film, which was better than his sequel; both were certainly better than the last two directed by Joel Schumacher. All were bound by comic book fantasy, full of superheroes battling bogeymen. Writer-director Christopher Nolan chucks that formula and gives us a real man in a real city up against his own insecurities and, to be sure, real villains. The script returns to the beginning, when Bruce Wayne was a boy, and the missing seven years before the young man dons cape and cowl.Burton showcased Jack Nicholson's sideshow mugging; the other films also focused on outlandish bad guys and gals, almost sidelining The Caped Crusader. Here the villains are life-size; it is Batman who looms large. It is he in whom we invest our understanding and emotion. Nolan and his production staff owe a debt to Ridley Scott's futuristic Los Angeles ("Blade Runner.") But the success of his movie rests on the shoulders of its star, Christian Bale, who now owns the role if he wants it.Bale gets boffo support from Linus Roache as the do-gooder father; Liam Neeson as his Ninja trainer and mentor; Rutger Hauer and Morgan Freeman, who run his father's financial empire; Michael Caine as his butler and conscience; Tom Wilkinson as the city's crime boss; Cilian Murphy as a creepy asylum keeper; and Gary Oldman as a cop, his first good guy role. Even Katie Holmes is passable as an assistant DA, a damsel able to handle any distress. But the resourceful Bale, physically and emotionally, is the whole show.Well, maybe not the whole show. The locations, the plethora of bats, and detailed sets are a marvel, especially the batcave. CG imagining is used sparingly, so real environments interface impressively with the actors. The fight sequences could have been edited better and the menus on this two-disc DVD are a challenge. Although there is no commentary tract, there are enough extras to satisfy any Batman fan. Thanks to "Batman Begins," there may be a lot more of them than before.