Movie Review

Batman Begins

Here we have it: Batman Begins...or more accurately, Batman 1 all over again. The word "Begins" refers to the origin of the story and the fact that Warner Bros. is "re-starting" the mammoth franchise with no connection to the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher films. So we have a "completely new take" on the Bat going on here. But is it really a new take, or is it just the same thing we've seen before in many other films, dressed up in the fine fabric of British thespianism?

The plot is the same as every other Batman film. Young Bruce Wayne sees his parents murdered in a dark alleyway of Gotham City. This leaves him with a gargantuan fortune and a revenge-complex driven by intense guilt and anger. He makes a personal vow to enact justice upon every criminal in the world, and thus purposely lands himself in an Asian prison. After a brawl in the yard, Bruce is thrown in solitary, only to be confronted by a mysterious and powerful British guy who looks a lot like a suave Liam Neeson. He tells Bruce to go to a mountaintop where he will be trained in the cleansing vigilante ways of the League of Shadows (sounds like a really benevolent organization, huh?).

After Bruce trains at the LoS compound, he returns to his hometown of Gotham to combat all the corruption that has taken root there since his savior-like parents died several years before. He finds himself up against thugs who work for a mob boss, who in turn works for Bruce's former mentors. It's a vast interconnected game of cops and robbers, with the Big Black Bat prowling around as the wild card. And underlying the standard unlawful activity is a sinister plan to turn Gotham into the world?s largest nuthouse.

The plot points are well executed but they feel less than fresh; there's nothing greatly original about these proceedings. I know that the filmmakers want us to forget that there have been four previous films that competently set up the mythology, but the fact is that they exist and cannot just be erased in the collective mind of the public. Does every single superhero movie have to be the same bland origin story? Who out there doesn't know how Batman became Batman? There is no need to re-tread this familiar territory other than to disguise the lack of imagination with which this film is beset. This movie doesn't take it to the next level, it's almost as if it could have been made in 1989 and not have been much different; there are no effects or anything to truly show us that we have reached the next evolution in Batman filmmaking.

But the most egregious flaw of this movie can be boiled down to six simple letters: A-C-T-I-O-N. Anyone who has read my previous reviews of action films knows that I have a giant gripe with the way almost every director handles their combat and set pieces. I'm sorry, but choppy close-ups with no flow or coherence do not cut the mustard; I don't care how good the rest of the production is. This is downright epidemic in movies, and I know I'm not the only one who's damn brassed off about it. If they keep ramming this piss-poor form of filmmaking down our throats, people are literally going to forget what great action looks like, if they haven't already.

This is why I loved Spider-Man 2: it has great action, and it's sad that we can't expect such a thing from all comic book movies. The climactic set piece of Batman Begins is a fight on an elevated subway train. Compare this scene with a similar one in Spidey 2; it is inarguably done way better in that movie, with much more kinetic excitement. The fact that there is a scene in Batman that rips off Spider-Man further shows the true lack of originality on display here. And you can't forget the big car chase scene - we haven't seen that one since Mr. & Mrs. Smith a week ago. Isn't there something these multimillion-dollar Dream Factory operators can concoct which isn't totally boring and uninspired?

The producers seemed to think that if they signed a bunch of world-acclaimed British actors onto this movie, it would make up for the many deficiencies of the overall experience. They were not totally wrong, only mostly. We have Tom Wilkinson, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, and Christian Bale, not to mention Morgan Freeman (although he is not British). They all play their roles very well and do about the best job one could hope for with this script.

But the writing is pretty clunky and doesn't really translate well to the screen; it is more at home in a comic book from about forty years ago. But the movie has a genuine feeling that doesn't appear in many of the other comic adaptations. I liked the interplay and connectivity between good and evil that is shown; it's much more intelligent than the stereotypical "superhero fights bad guys who are totally different from him morally" dynamic.

There's also some really good reversals and twisting ideas about fear, the nature of morality, and the price of doing the right thing. I like how screenwriter David Goyer uses the ninjutsu concept of "the elements" as the backdrop for action scenes: Bruce fights a villain on a frozen lake, and later in a burning house. Air and earth are also covered, as Batman emerges from his cave only to fly around the heights of Gotham. There's also some good story mirroring, like how a burning wooden plank falls on an important bad guy while fighting Bruce, but later the exact same thing happens to Bruce during an epic struggle. These are the kind of things that make a story work for me, and Batman Begins has them. Unfortunately, bad action and a lack of fresh ideas downgrade the overall entertainment value.

Scott's Grade: B-

A	15.1%
B	59.2%
C	24.5%
D	1.2%
F	0.0%