Batman Begins (2005)

 

Just to get the elephant out of the way and into another room: this is a pretty decent Batman-film. But it is not the absolute masterpiece some people would have you believe, not by a long shot. To be fair, after the clusterfucks that were the Schumacher-Batmans, the bar was set pretty low for us all to be excited, so when this arrived, everyone breathed a sigh of relief at a competent version, seeing as it has been since the Burton-films that we got that. 

'Batman Begins' is just that: the beginning of the Batman in a city that is so corrupt, it's hard to find someone that is legitimately straight. 

I could insert a political joke here, but I'll refrain for now.

Quick flashback to child Bruce Wayne, fear of bats, cue adult Bruce who is stuck in an Asian prison/work camp for some reason, where he is picked up by members of the League of Shadows. Why? Well, these assassins want to make the world into their image without corruption or crime and if you discover the multibillionaire son of an empire, that's pretty big leverage for your goal if you can convince him to join you. So Bruce gets trained by a guy called Ducard, who apparently works for a mysterious person named Ra's Al-Ghûl. 

Minor disclaimer: if you didn't instantly know that Liam Neeson's character was the real Ra's Al-Ghûl, surely you jest. That is a twist that isn't even a twist because it's so bloody obvious and director Nolan hits you over the head with it. I'm not even kidding. 

But when Bruce has to execute a man without due process, he rebels and flees to Gotham, where he decides he wants to fight crime in the guise of something fearful. 

Cue the bats. 

Now it seems as though a new film has started up, where Batman is trying to stop the main crimelord Falcone (sheesh, could your Italian mobstername be any more clichéd?), but it turns out Falcone is working for psychiatrist Crane, who both runs Arkham Asylum and is also the Scarecrow. I like Cillian Murphy in the part of Scarecrow, but they did waste his character in this film. At least Scarecrow got some redemption in the Arkham videogames. Anyway, Crane has been polluting Gotham's watersupply with a toxin that disperses when some doohicky instantly vaporizes the water, thus making everyone go crazy and paranoid. This way, the city will tear itself apart. 

Hey, exactly what the League of Shadows were planning. No, it wouldn't be... could it? (notice the sarcasm here)

Of course, Ra's is not dead and now Batman has to try and stop him with the help of not-yet-commissioner Gordon and his friend (and sort of love interest) Rachel. 

It was so refreshing to see a gritty Batman again after the neon splurged outings of yore, but this film does have its share of problems. 

For one, the first half hour or so, when Bruce is still finding himself in Asia, is downright boring. A shit ton of exposition thanks to Liam Neeson, but it just isn't engaging. They could have easily cut this and it wouldn't really have mattered. Fortunately, once Bruce gets to Gotham, it's a lot better and snappier. I like most of the casting and characters. Like I said: Cillian Murphy is great, but you don't get to see him a lot and he does get defeated in a rather silly way near the end. The setup of Bruce becoming Batman with techno-gadgets from his own company is fun and Michael Caine is a great Alfred. 

But they woefully underdeveloped the League of Shadows and Ra's Al-Ghûl. Maybe Liam Neeson wasn't the right man for the job. He is just plain boring, which is a shame. Katie Holmes as Rachel is also rather bland and it's a good thing they changed her for Maggie Gyllenhaal for the next one. Christian Bale is okay as Batman (except for that ridiculous raspy voice that has been parodied - and rightly so - a million times already), but nothing special. In the next outings, he will be sidelined in favour of the villains, because he is a bit colourless. But hey, at least he tries. 

What I find woefully inadequate, are the fight scenes. They are shot in such a jumbled and messy way, you can almost never tell what is happening. The rapid cutting and horrible layout means you know people are getting their butt whooped, but you can't tell what's going on until everyone is lying down and Batman is standing in the middle looking smug. A real shame, because they could have easily fixed this in editing. 

Nevertheless, despite the growing pains (the next outing would rectify most of the issues present here), this is still an enjoyable film and it's nice that once again, comic book adaptations were taken seriously. But it's not the brilliant piece of cinema some people make it out to be.