Product: Batman Begins (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (2005)
Rating: 5.0
Best Batman Movie Ever
I know that a lot of people think that the Tim Burton Batman movies are masterpieces, but I didn't like them. And it is true that Batman and Robin was pretty stupid and hackneyed. I basically thought that the Batman series was dead, but then Batman Begins provided a fresh outlook on the whole Batman concept.This movie tells the origin of Batman, a subject that no previous Batman movie had whole-heartedly attempted to do. In the movie, a young Bruce Wayne falls down a well and is frightened by bats, establishing a chronic phoebia. His fear of bats leads him to persuade his parents to exit an opera that they are attending featuring bat-like costumes. Tragically, Bruce witnesses his parents being mugged and shot to death in the alley outside the theater and blames himself for their deaths. Their killer is caught and imprisoned but Bruce cannot allay his angust. Several years later he travels to Asia to understand the criminal mind. There he meets Ducard, who trains him to control his fear and anger. Bruce takes these skills back to Gotham and becomes Batman. And in Gotham, he finds that he really has his work cut out for him....I thought that the actors in this movie were well cast. Christian Bale carefully balances Batman as a strong hero who has dark inner troubles. His Bruce Wayne is young, consequential, and above all a inheritor of the powerful Wayne name. Katie Holmes was also fitting as Rachael, a childhood friend of Bruce's and a future love interest. She was at times a damsel in distress, yet still a firmly grounded force to be reckoned with. Liam Neison was great as the mysterious mentor Ducard, and Morgan Freeman (Fox) and Michael Caine (Alfred) both served as perfect father figures for Bruce.Finally, the plot was one of the best that I have seen in a Batman movie. The main motiff of the movie is fear. Batman learns to use fear to his advantage, while others fall victim to the Scarcrow's hallucingenic toxin that causes them to be tortured by their personal demons. The villians in the movie are well characterized and conduct their devious plans with the uptmost guile. As the movie progress, the viewers sees Batman's accretion as a hero and will be routing for him to win in the end. This is an action packed movie with a get hero and even a more austere yet still powerful Batmobile.This movie ends by adumbrating that sequels are in the works. I sure hope that this is true because if Batman has such a promising begining, I can't wait to see where the journey will take him, even if future movies involve re-inventing characters that are present in existing Batman movies. Let's hope that Batman's legend will continue for years to come.