Directed by Christopher Nolan Written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan Batman created by Bob Kane Produced by Emma Thomas, Larry J. Franco and Charles Roven Music by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer Cinematography by Wally Pfister Edited by Lee Smith Production Design by Nathan Crowley Costumes by Lindy Hemming Cast Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman) Liam Neeson (Henri Ducard) Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth) Katie Holmes (Rachel Dawes) Cillian Murphy (Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow) Gary Oldman (Sgt. James Gordon) Tom Wilkinson (Carmine Falcone) Rutger Hauer (Earle) Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) Ken Watanabe (Ra’s al-Ghul) Linus Roache (Thomas Wayne)

Is it possible that Batman Begins could exist in the same universe as Joel Schumacher’s wretched double-feature of Batman Forever (1995) and Batman and Robin (1997)? This new Batman film even seems to exist worlds away from Tim Burton’s gothic and stylized nightmares, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). Director Christopher Nolan (Memento) and writer David S. Goyer (Blade, Dark City) have daringly re-imagined the character into the realistic mode of the recent Spider-Man films, placing the Dark Knight into a world far too recognizably our own, but so extraordinarily grim and ghoulish as to make the creation of a dark clad avenger a prerequisite…indeed, almost a necessity. Batman Begins is a film of primal human emotions and actions that explode into the comic book world we all know and realize may not be far from our own. Except that we don’t have heroes like Batman, and for that we are unfortunate.

For the first time on the big screen, the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman takes the central role. The previous films have put the spotlight on the crazed costumed villains, and given the Batman an aura of mystery. This makes a viable and legitimate approach, and Burton made good use of it in exploring the costumed psychotic freaks of Gotham City, but Joel Schumacher ruined the premise completely by overdoing the villains into camp parodies and leaving Batman nothing more than smirking, unimpressive drone in a be-nippled rubber suit. Nolan and Goyer go back to the beginnings, clean up the derbis, and then re-build Batman brick-by-tortured-brick, placing the villains in the shadows until they leap out suddenly to threaten the good people of Gotham.

Unlike Burton’s original Batman, the new film keeps its titled crime-fighter off-screen until nearly an hour into its running time. It is to the filmmakers’s credit that not once during this long build-up, where we see Bruce Wayne receive training in the Far East from the mysterious vigilante group The League of Shadows and witness flashbacks to the childhood incidents that scarred him, do we feel the absence of The Bat. The anticipation of Wayne’s transformation into the Dark Knight keeps these early scenes filled with edgy anxiousness; but even on their own, these sequences contains some of the best material in the movie. The killing of Wayne’s parents, Thomas (Linus Roache) and Martha, arrives with shocking impact, especially since Roache achieves great warmth and kindness with his character in only a brief time. The murders also prepare the viewers for the type of violence to come: quick, brutal, and shocking. Viewers expecting a lot of kung-fu fights and goofy action set-pieces will leave the theater disappointed. Nolan crafts the action as if it takes place in a horror film.

When Christian Bale finally flaps out into crumbling nighttime landscape of Gotham City (based on and filmed in modern-day Chicago), his Batman hits the screen like none before. This Batman is feral, a monster. He attacks without warning, making criminals literally disappear in blasts of darkness. Batman growls and howls, he snarls like a demon. The underworld’s fear of “The Bat” makes complete sense. Bruce Wayne has taken the fear that tormented him and externalizes it…Batman isn’t merely justice, he’s fear personified.

The theme of fear runs through the movie: both how people overcome it and how they use it. Fear turns Bruce Wayne into Batman. The League of Shadows, under the control of their ninja master Ra’s al-Ghul, plans to destroy Gotham in a ‘plague of fear.’ Dr. Jonathan Crane, a psychiatrist with a psychopathic bent, uses his fear toxin to drive people mad, and then rejoices in his power over them through his costumed persona of Scarecrow. Crane’s fear toxin turns into the central conceit of the movie, not only as a plot device to fuel events, but also as a means to let the audience see the different ways fear can manifest itself in the characters’ minds. The scenes filmed through the point-of-views of victims suffering from the fear toxin are the most frightening in the film. Batman turns into a fire-breathing monster. The Scarecrow oozes maggots. Both Wayne and Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) find their minds turned nearly inside-out from the maddening fear gas. Even as Wayne eases into his superhero persona, the fear that has plagued him and the city of Gotham refuses to vanish.

Christian Bale nails perfectly the very difficult part. Actually, he plays three parts: Bruce Wayne, spoiled millionaire. Batman, avenging beast. Bruce Wayne, tortured and struggling soul looking for justice and unsure how best to find it. Of the three, the first two are masks that the third, and real, Bruce Wayne has fashioned to protect himself in his quest. As he explains to his butler and confidante Alfred when he starts down the road of vigilantism, the real Bruce Wayne can do little against the forces of crime, but if he made himself into a symbol, he just might achieve his task of taking Gotham City away from the criminals who control it.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, even Katie Holmes as Wayne’s childhood friend turned Assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes. Holmes’s recent bout with popularity in the press has reached levels of utter annoyance, but it has no effect on her performance here. Her wholesomeness contributes a light romantic touch that the film needs. Rachel is an individual with true heart and generosity who lives among cold souls and mad monsters. She even manages to act convincing as an Assistant D.A. despite her youth. (Katie, you are wasting your time with Tom. You’ve got bigger things ahead of you.)

The other actors who contribute a sense of sanity and normalcy in the madness are Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Wayne Tech’s head of applied technology, Lucius Fox. Caine perfectly captures the man who has had to humanize the tortured Young Master Wayne over all these years. Freeman, who plays the part similar to Q in the James Bond films as he supplies Wayne with his fantastic gadgets, delivers the usual dignified and slyly humorous performance that we’ve come to expect from this great actor. Gary Oldman again vanishes into a part; his Sgt. James Gordon (not Commissioner yet)—the good cop of Gotham—has a larger role in the story than in any previous incarnation of the franchise, and his tense scenes with Batman contain some of the best acting in the movie. It’s a joy seeing these two crusaders for justice finally interact in a way that matches the special relationship they have in the comics. Expect more great developments with Jim Gordon in future movies.

 None of the “big name” villains appear in Batman Begins: no Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Catwoman, etc. (Although the coda tells us which one of them will appear in the sequel.) Instead, we have four different baddies who meld together into a solid story: gangster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson, his English origins invisible beneath a snarling, wise-cracking performance), League of Shadows leader Ra’s al-Ghul (Ken Watanabe), HEnri Ducard, Wayne’s sinister mentor in the League (Liam Neeson), and the aforementioned Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. “Scarecrow” (Cillian Murphy). Ra’s al-Ghul and Scarecrow are well-known villains for Batman fans, but the casual viewer won’t know anything about them. Scarecrow delivers the film’s most frightening moments, although he does peter out toward the end. Murphy’s velvet creepiness and saturnine eye-wear make him terrifying even before he puts on his horrid mask and hits anyone with his fear toxin. Ra’s al-Ghul comes across as a bit of a red-herring in the plot; Watanabe does a riveting job with his one major scene, but the leader of the League of Shadows remains deep in those shadows and lets Ducard do most of the work. And it is Ducard who, in an identity plot twist that will have fans arguing for years, emerges as the principal heavy of the movie when he takes over from Scarecrow’s warm-up act. Neeson turns upside-down his dull Jedi-mentor performance from Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace and layers his portrayal of Ducard with pedagogical sophistry and sinister arrogance. It ranks as one of the actor’s best performances. And he get a packet of wonderful, elitist villain lines in the James Bond-baddie mold: “Gentlemen, spread the word…and the word is panic!” and “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city to destroy.”

Although not truly an action film—more a highly violent film noir drama—Batman Begins does contain a rip-roaring chase with the re-invented batmobile. The beautiful sleek roadsters of the earlier movies give way to a vehicle that befits the realistic and brute-force approach of the new film. Rumbling along like a tank on a caffeine high, the new batmobile looks like the wrath of demon god as it rips across roofs, fires missles, and rolls over other cars with monster truck wheels. The lengthy chase sequence highlights middle of the film and will certainly rank as the most memorable action set-piece from any movie this year. The thundering score from the combined efforts of James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer helps make the sequence extra propulsive. The other fight sequences are shot in a rapid, delirious style that a few people have accused of creating complete confusion about whom was hitting whom with what. I believe that is exactly the feeling that Goyer wanted to achieve: no martial-arts movie clichés here, just the true hallucinogenic confusion of getting your body beat all to hell by a violent beast in a bat costume. Batman doesn’t fight…he strikes!

 Return to the Reviews Page     Return to The Realm of Ryan