Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 4.0
"Begins" gets it right; should thrill fans, scare the kids
It's still early in the summer movie season, but so far two beloved-but-ailing film franchises have gotten radical, much-needed reboots.Barely a month after the Star Wars saga wrapped itself up with a worthy finale, "Batman Begins" arrives and it, too, renews a series many had written off.There have been four previous "Batman" movies in the past two decades: Tim Burton's "Batman" and "Batman Returns" were wry, stylish epics but they got hijacked by colorful villains who stole the show from the hero. By contrast, director Joel Schumacher's follow-ups ("Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin") were Day Glo affairs too campy to take seriously.But "serious" is definitely the operative word for this fifth, latest and best entry.Writer-director Christopher Nolan ("Memento") rejuvenates the Batman legend by first unveiling a chapter the other movies avoided - the story of just how the Caped Crusader got his cape in the first place.Origins are always the best parts of superhero movies (think of young Clark Kent racing trains in "Superman," or Spiderman coming into his own as a webslinger) and this "Batman" begins with as tall as tale as a comic book fan could want:After a mugger's bullets leave billionaire Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) an orphan, he dedicates his life to fighting crime. His quest leads him to Asia, where he learns martial arts from a terror squad called the League of Shadows and has to face some tough dilemmas about the divide between justice and vengeance.Upon his return to Gotham City, Wayne uses his wealth to become Batman with the aid of his trusty butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), and his Q-like weapons designer, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman); Fox's Batmobile is one of the movie's coolest touches.But Bats has barely even hung out his superhero shingle before he spots bad guys on the horizon: A powerful gangster whose vast network corrupts the city; a masked menace called The Scarecrow whose weapons give his victims terrifying hallucinations; and a murkier, more ominous threat from Wayne's past.This is clearly a comic book movie aimed at older fans and Nolan plays everything very, very straight, despite the fact that this is also still a story of a guy who runs around alleys in tights and pointy ears.Nolan's gritty, realistic vibe usually works, though, and it's aided by assured turns from some of the best actors around: Bale (definitely the most anguished of the Batmen), Caine, Freeman, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy and Gary Oldman, who can now add "Commissioner Gordon" to an acting resume that includes Beethoven, Sid Vicious and Lee Harvey Oswald.And though the movie's deadly serious tone prevents it from winking (which is good) it also robs it of a lot of the giddy fun of most comic book films - Batman may fly by night but by day Wayne is covered in bruises.In fact, as with the latest "Star Wars" movie, this is a joltingly grim adventure, a far spookier outing than most PG-13 films. While that edge will be exactly what most fans of the Dark Knight ordered, viewers in the Happy Meal demographic may find the movie's intensity and adult themes rough going.