I have always been a geek. Whether it’s a computer geek, a music geek, a comic book geek, they have been my secret passion. And I arguably just saw one of the best Batman movies in my life thus far, so I had thought I would like to say a lot about it. But I actually would like to leave most of the review in the hands of another review that I saw. Everything that has been already said is what I would like to said.
http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/b/batman_begins.html
Of course, I do have thoughts of my own to add to the discussion. I am absolutely delighted at the treatment of this latest installment to the caped crusader’s saga. The world’s greatest detective’s humble beginnings is revealed in truest form to what its creator, Bob Kane had intended.
The casting of Christian Bale, a relative unknown, is actually the best decision of the movie. Comic characters have made stars out of actors, not the other way around. Looking at the history where Superman made Christopher Reeves (god bless his soul), and most recently, Spiderman made Tobey McGuire. Stars have never made the characters work, there was too much of that star power there. We expected those actors like Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney to be the star power they represent, rather than the characters that they’re supposed to bring to life.
Having sang the movie’s praises, I am not pleased that the length of the movie was kept short perhaps to maintain audience interest. The director/studio should have realize that to do an epic movie requires the length of time to tell its story. The edits and scene cuts in the movie made important events out to be flashing glances, and the disjunction of the story telling can really benefit from better organization.
In the comic books, Batman has not just been about the story, but also the wonderful action sequences depicted by the penciler. These scenes differ from typical comic books because there are seldom force blasts or lasers or other supernatural abilities but rather relying on Batman’s human abilities. The comics would showcase his prowess of the martial arts in exciting poses and action sequences. The movie has failed to deliver this aspect of the comic. Many of the action scenes seems to be deliberately chosen to be shot as “close-ups”; negating the beauty of the bodily actions. This may be to compensate the actors lack of ability, but I feel it’s more a statement made by the director to put a stamp on his work, in order to differentiate this adaption from the campy 70s action of “kaplow”, “bam” and “zonk”. This decision should have be rethought with the help of a good action choreagrapher. The action sequences now resemble the old 60s, 70s chop-socky kung fu films where untalented kung fu actors and directors compensated by doing actions close-ups. Where as artists like Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan choose to shoot and show the full action in all its glory.
Batman is defined by his enemies as well as his heroics and quirks. The poor choices of villians in the previous Batman movies is contrasted this time by using the Scarecrow, and the league of Shadows. Laim Neesom breathed life into a Batman adversary by showing some depth to his character – a character that is both proud of his former student, but bent on advancing his own vision. Scarecrow remains understated in the movie and actually served his purpose better in his diminished sidekick capacity. This version of Batman also seemed to flow much better between his Bruce Wayne and Batman persona whereas previous incarnations always seemed to make this duality an awkward issue.
The token love interest, Rachel Dawes played by Katie Holmes did not strike me as a believable District Attorney, but she was not hyped up as a female lead in a Batman film, and that was actually a good thing! Michael Caine did well to introduce an aura of respect into the butler role of Alfred, whereas Morgan Freeman’s portrayal of Lucius Fox was a waste of this great actor’s talents. Finally, I was most intrigued by the choice of Sargent Gordon’s passivity characterization in this movie. It was refreshing to see the rough, tough, take no guff Comissioner Gordon during his humble beginning of a long lasting friendship with Batman.
On this note, I can only give 4 out of 5 stars for this great effort and a worthy beginning to a new series of Batman movie franchises. There were many refreshing things to the production, but the action direction and editing of the picture prevented an otherwise great vision from fulfilling its destiny.