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Batman Begins
'What are you afraid of?' Liam Neeson's emissary from the League of Shadows asks Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), a millionaire seriously slumming it in a Mongolian prison camp. Bruce has an issue with flying rodents, as you might have guessed. But what he's really scared of is himself: the fear which paralysed him when his folks met their maker at the hands of a mugger, and the propensity for vengeance which has driven him ever since. Personally, while I can understand these anxieties, they pale beside the dreadful thought of having to watch another Batman movie directed by Joel Schumacher, a former window-dresser responsible for some of the sloppiest Hollywood atrocities in recent memory, including Flatliners, Dying Young, Bad Company and Phantom of the Opera. Inexplicably, it was to this man that Warner Bros turned when Tim Burton retired from the fray after the first two Batman features - and it was Mr. Schumacher who made such a sow's ear of the series that the studio had to give up on it after just two more episodes. 
Well, who says a movie studio can't learn from its mistakes, because there was little reason to suppose the Hollywood machine could still produce a blockbuster as good as this one. Eschewing Tim Burton's fairytale vision and avoiding Schumacher's terminal camp like the plague, Brit cowriter-director Christopher Nolan (Insomnia) devotes the first hour to establishing Batman's bone-fides in an exotic but naturalistic setting, painstakingly explaining where he comes from, how he can do what he does, and why. (In case you're wondering, ninjitsu training goes a long way - but it definitely helps to have the resources of an industrial design corporation at your disposal.) Nolan, who also made Memento, is no slouch when it comes to dovetailing flashbacks, so his ambitious prologue is as compelling as it is well-founded. Grounded, adult, psychological, it's the opposite approach to the one commercials director Pitof took with Catwoman for the same studio. Crucially, Nolan is a filmmaker interested in telling stories, not just another trumped up set decorator. The difference is most evident in the characterisation of Batman himself: where Michael Keaton, George Clooney and Val Kilmer were so many interchangeable chins, Christian Bale always plays the man underneath the mask. The strategy has the happy side-effect of restoring vulnerability, threat and violence - in a word, excitement - to a superhero who seemed invulnerable, safe, and a bit of a bore. 
There's a subtle difference in the supporting characters too. The cast Nolan has assembled is every bit as starry as the ones which graced the earlier films, but where Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey et al hammed it up panto style, here we get self-deprecating, sharply attuned performances from the likes of Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson and Morgan Freeman. Kudos to Cillian Murphy too, pretty scary as Dr. Jonathan Crane. Only Katie Holmes seems weak in a role that could have used more than a pretty face. 'You must confront your fear, and master it, to turn fear against those who prey on the fearful,' Liam Neeson's Ducard teaches Wayne. 'You must become a terrible thought. An idea. A legend.' 
Batman Begins lays a lot of store in establishing this logic of the legend: the power of the nightmare. Terrorised by a crime syndicate Gotham City has become corrupted from top to bottom. Can Batman renew hope by putting the frighteners on the fear-mongers? Or is the whole sorry state too decadent to salvage, as the League of Shadows decides. They would push the panic button and precipitate mass self-destruction. Gotham has always been a ringer for New York, and in this earnestly post-9/11 movie Nolan suggests the very American ideal hangs in the balance, perched precariously like Batman himself between the vigilante impulse for vengeance, and the infinitely more elusive quest for justice. By restoring resonance and relevance to this pop cultural war-horse, and aiming it at an intelligent audience older than the Toys 'R' Us crowd, Nolan provides some cause for hope. Tom Charity 
More information about Batman Begins » Critics' Reviews
The Daily Express
Generally it is solid, straightforward and looks fantastic. Memento director Christopher Nolan has done the character proud and there is one breathtaking shot of a brooding Batman perched on a vast skyscraper surveying the rotten city below. Just like Spiderman, the film leaves you with the feeling that everything is now in place for what should be a really terrific sequel.
An edgy, brooding drama that covers familiar ground but does so in an original way, concentrating on the interior life of a superhero who lacks super powers. It contains a rare, mythic power in its ideological confrontation of Old Testament retribution an The Daily Star Director Chris Nolan brilliantly brings the bat back with this dark and dangerous blend of thrills and suspense, and strikes the perfect balance to deliver a super show building to a brutal battle to the death. Members' ReviewsReviews Voted Most HelpfulMost Recent Reviews |
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