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June 26, 2005
Batman Begins
Like good people everywhere, I spent last night in a dark room watching Christian Bale kick unbelievable amounts of ass. The verdict? Batman Returns is undeniably the best Batman film ever made, and is probably one of the best action flicks I've ever seen.
First, I'm a comic geek. Not so much anymore, but for years, young Ezra received his allowance entirely in comic books, five a week. When I was in Vermont working for Dean, the mosquito-infested flop house I lived in was 150 feet from a Borders -- an air-conditioned, open-till-11 Borders where I read every graphic novel in the store. And so, for me, the last few years have been good. Franchises have been hitting the screen in peak form. The X-Men movies were great, Spiderman was fun, LOTR (not originally a comic, I know), was superb, etc. But Batman's the toughie, few powers but heaps of psychological trickery. And my did they ever get it right.
Bale is a fantastic Dark Knight. His storyline -- and this is a shocker -- actually makes sense, not only in making him a hero, but in making him the sort of hero he is. Liam Neeson, playing the villain, is similarly superb (maybe more so), and his plot twist is fantastic. Morgan Freeman is in top form, as is Michael Caine. Whoever plays Gordon does great work (and his ending monologue on escalation is brilliant), and Katie Holmes, for what it's worth, does the best she can. The Scarecrow and his fear-inducing toxin are handled beautifully. The violence honors the Batman mythology by refusing to let you see it, it's all fear and trickery and appearance and illusion. Some dislike that (including my girlfriend, brother and sister-in-law), but I found it an essential ingredient in the film's tone. In short: see this. Twice. Like I will.
As for quibbles, they've got spoilers, so I'm putting them behind the jump. Trust me, don't read on if you've not seen the film. They're too minor to enter the theatre thinking about.
• What was up with the toxin? Rather than transforming the Arkham inmates into terrified creatures desperate to rip each other apart, they just became stumbling zombie hordes. If it had really dispersed all through the city, Gotham would've just looked like Thriller, it would'nt have torn itself apart as promised.
• And what about all the toxin vaporized before Wayne Towers? I recognize it didn't make it through the city, but it certainly infected a fair number of folks -- what happened to them? Freeman said he didn't have time to produce the antidote for a large scale attack. He said weeks. the poison hit that night.
• That Bruce Wayne must be a damn bright guy to have engineered his takeover in the week or so he was home. No easy shakes to set up those fronts and charities between nocturnal adventures.
• When's the next one due out?
June 26, 2005 in Film | Permalink
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Bale is a fantastic Dark Knight. His storyline -- and this is a shocker -- actually makes sense, not only in making him a hero, but in making him the sort of hero he is. Liam Neeson, playing the villain, is similarly superb (maybe more so), and his p... [Read More]
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Comments
Wow. Really? I haven't seen the reviews for this, but I thought Batman Begins was a major let-down, and I was very prepared to be enthralled. They lost me, I think, somewhere in the Shaolin temple with the line: "To conquer fear you must become fear." Gag me. I'll stick with the original Tim Burton Batman and his stylized Gotham, thank you. The one bit I enjoyed though, as you said, was that criminals really feared this Batman; although even that could have been put to better effect, and the editing was sort of shoddy and amateurish at parts. That sounds overly technical, but for a movie like this, it's the whole can of worms (or cave of bats, whatever). Watching Bruce Wayne carouse about in high society was a nice touch, though. And... I'll probably go see the sequels. What the hell. But as an action movie, as a superhero movie, or even merely as a fun flick to kick off the summer, I found this one very underwhelming.
Posted by: Brad Plumer | Jun 26, 2005 4:52:15 PM
[ spoilers ]
One of the things I liked is how well the story sets up the world that we know from "core" Batman - Gotham City with lots of insane criminals running around.
You didn't recognize Gary Oldman as Gordon? He does his usual excellent job.
I like the symbol of Batman saving the city by destroying a key part of his father's legacy. It plays nicely with Neeson's blaming of Bruce's father.
I disliked the batmobile. I understand the idea. If Bruce is going to use appropriated military tech from Wayne Industries, it's more likely the car will be tank-like than that it will be something good-looking and fun. Still, this thing seemed a bit too boring.
They should have found a woman, rather than a girl, to play Rachel Dawes.
Posted by: Misplaced Patriot | Jun 26, 2005 5:09:32 PM
I may just be crazy, but there were times when he was doing his drunken-billionaire-playboy shtick that Bale looked disturbingly like George Bush. Something about the expression on his face, and the eyebrows... I just hope nobody at the White House notices this. "Yeah, I'm Batman!" Brr.
Posted by: tatere | Jun 26, 2005 5:16:53 PM
Did you find it at all sexist, genius?
Posted by: olivia | Jun 26, 2005 5:21:42 PM
First, absolutely agree that this was the best Batman movie ever. Here are my quibbles:
Katie Holmes is beautiful, and she's a competent actress, but I just can't accept her in adult roles. She's still got the face of a 15-year-old. Sweet, though.
I had mixed feelings about Bale. I thought he was most convincing as a Bad Ass in the early prison scenes and during the "training" scenes. Once he put the costume on, I found him less intimidating.
The Batmobile: Very interesting as a generic super-vehicle, but not as the Batmobile. In fact, it came across more like the Hulkmobile (if there was such a thing).
All in all, a highly enjoyable movie. Doesn't crack my top 10 or anything, but I'd certainly watch it again.
Posted by: Toast | Jun 26, 2005 5:35:19 PM
Did you find it at all sexist, genius?
It's a freakin' comic book. Get over it.
Posted by: Toast | Jun 26, 2005 5:44:33 PM
I found this one considerably less sexist than just about every other superhero movie ever made.
Rachel (the Katie Holmes character) was very well done. She was never egregiously dumb. She never pulled that "I'll abandon all my behavioral, moral and professional standards just so I can be with you, baby" horsesh*t. She called Bruce on his moral blindness and didn't back down. She made it clear her life would go on even if he wasn't her boyfriend.
One of my favorite bits was when she came out of the tranked sleep, she didn't sit up and do any "Ooh, where am I? What happened? Somebody save me!" nonsense. She grabbed the anti-toxin and hauled ass to find Gordon.
Despite the sad fact that Rachel had no sexual chemistry with Bruce (which utterly baffles me. I mean: Christian Bale? Yum!) she ranks right up there with Marion Ravenwood and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman as one of the few, the proud, the main female characters who held their own in adventure hero/superhero epics.
Posted by: CaseyL | Jun 26, 2005 5:52:07 PM
"Did you find it at all sexist, genius?"
I think you meant: "did you find it at all sexist, chauvinist?"
Posted by: Ezra | Jun 26, 2005 6:05:32 PM
I agree with EK. This is BY FAR the best Batman movie yet. Makes Tim Burton's look like two steaming piles of you-know-what.
And I think the Batmobile was the coolest one yet as well. WAAAAY more badass than that glorified Corvette that Michael Keaton drove.
Also, I actually think Katie Holmes was quite good in her role. Yes, she is sort of child-like, but I think that was kind of the point.
Posted by: Dadahead | Jun 26, 2005 6:36:48 PM
One of my big quibbles with K. Ho was that I found it hard to believe someone her age could make it through her undergrad and law school and work up through the district attorney's office by the age of what, 26? 27? They should have gotten someone around Sandra Bullock's age. Come to think of it, they should have gotten Sandra Bullock.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 26, 2005 6:41:52 PM
Did you like the complete marginalization of female characters? How none of the female board members had lines? How the mother barely had any? How KH became a passive physical body and then Batman just announced that he was giving her a sedative, as if her consent were completely unnecessary? How she doesn't get to do anything important but carry out a minor task, without getting to see the full picture? How she ends the movie by babysitting, cowering and waiting to be rescued? Sure, she was more moral, but that's the oldest excuse in the book for excluding women--it goes way back to Suffrage. Seriously, Ezra, have you nothing to say about this?
P.S. I'm so impressed by your substantive response to my original question.
Posted by: olivia | Jun 26, 2005 7:36:47 PM
On the whole, this movie was the best portrayal by far of Bruce Wayne on film - treating him as a character whose gradual evolution into a masked vigilante almost makes sense - and the only real attempt in a movie to treat Batman's origin story with any sustained level seriousness. It works very well as a comic book movie, with some excellent characters and nice drama; much less so as an action movie, as the fights and set pieces are pretty subpar.
Like Brad, I would've liked a more stylized Gotham, and the Batmobile was indeed clunky and ugly, but for some reason ever since "The Dark Knight Returns" you get writers who periodically want Batman to drive a tank. Its design was far more forgivable than [spoilers!] the sequence where Batman uses it to drive over a bunch of rooftops [end spoilers].
My biggest complaint was a plot point I haven't seen remarked on much yet, namely [spoilers again!] the way Batman decided that, while it wasn't okay to kill people, it's kosher to leave someone to die. The real Batman (of the comics) would never consider anything like that, and has explicitly rejected this as immoral and out-of-bounds, even when dealing with mass-murderers like the Joker and Ra's al Ghul [spoilers done].
Posted by: Iron Lungfish | Jun 26, 2005 7:48:37 PM
I'd hate to compare this movie with Tim Burton's - they are such different experiences. Burton's movies are very visual, fun-house dark. I have some very strong visual memories of the first two films - the battle at the top of the tower, the Joker-white hand reaching up from the water, etc. Merely for the hilarious sight of Gotham City's newscasters forgoing cosmetic products, I'll always cherish the first Batman film.
Mostly, the second film is memorable for Catwoman, who Pfeiffer creates as such a wonderfully damaged sad character that it is hard to imagine the character any other way. I actually hated most of the Penguin plot (as well as the design of the character.) Also, somehow, Gotham seems a very small place in the second movie - partly because they keep re-using the square over and over again. Still, the sight of the abandoned zoo in the snowfall is, again, quite a strong, eerie, beautiful image.
Honestly, I don't think there is any moment in "Batman Begins" that is remotely as memorable. Perhaps Falcone on the spotlight is close - a neat idea. I loved the scene where Batman spooks the guys at the drug pick-up, but it is not particularly inventive or visually memorable.
That said, "Batman Begins" is very well told with a great cast. All those damn Brits. Michael Caine can convey so much with his eyes that even when he's doing bad dialogue, you believe with your eyes. On the American side, Morgan Freeman is similar. You always know Freeman's character is watching, thinking.
I really hated Neeson in Star Wars I - he seemed colorless, washed out, - but I liked him here. He's edgier. He gets to use his voice to good effect in the training scenes.
Posted by: Misplaced Patriot | Jun 26, 2005 7:49:59 PM
Whoever plays Gordon does great work
Dude, seriously? You don't know who Gary Oldman is? I know he's chameleon-like in his ability to disappear into various roles, like, um, Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy, and Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK. Not to mention Sirious Black in the last Harry Potter movie. Guy's been in about a million films.
Otherwise, I totally agree with you.
Posted by: sam | Jun 26, 2005 7:59:15 PM
Did you find it at all statist, genius? Write my targeted-to-libertarians review, and write it now, dammit! DC Comics has not sated my rage!
(repeat for socialists, copyfighters, Tories, anarcho-syndicalists, Rosicrucians, and zombies)
Posted by: Iron Lungfish | Jun 26, 2005 8:01:36 PM
I don't care what you think, Lungy. I'm just waiting for Ezra to decide if he's going to try to maintain his status as feminist-friendly. I'm rooting for him.
Posted by: olivia | Jun 26, 2005 8:07:32 PM
I know he's chameleon-like in his ability to disappear into various roles, like, um, Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy, and Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK.
Wow. I'm sitting here reading this with my wife, and she pointed out that Oldman played Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula. I was blown away. That was a physically imposing character, whereas Gordon was kind of the geeky, wimpy cop.
Emotional range is one thing. But when an actor can convincingly project physical range -- conveying a totally different human presence -- that's amazing.
Posted by: Toast | Jun 26, 2005 8:11:25 PM
I wrote up a long response but deleted it. In answer to your question, no, I've nothing to say about that. It was an excellent adaptation of a comic book with a predefined plot and cast of characters. I loved it. And if I lose my status as feminist-friendly by refusing to condemn Batman (who knew it was so easy?), then I fear you're going to be losing lots of allies in the coming weeks. Including, unfortunately, my staunch feminist girlfriend and Bell Hooks-loving sister-in-law.
Posted by: Ezra | Jun 26, 2005 8:49:45 PM
On Oldman, you have to realize that I've no idea who any actors are. I thought Batman was Christian Slater (not for any reason than that he was the only Christian I knew) and spent the first 45 minutes of the movie arguing with my girlfriend that the villain couldn't possibly have been the guy who played Kinsey, whoever that may have been (Liam Neeson in both roles, as it turned out). Michael Caine I know because of The Quiet American, Morgan Freeman because, well, he's Morgan Freeman, and he's got those cool spots around his eyes, and Katie Holmes is the girl dating the freaky scientologist.
I'm going to be really uncool when I get old.
Posted by: Ezra | Jun 26, 2005 8:54:28 PM
when you get old?
dude... wake up and smell the decaf. :-p
Posted by: adithemopur | Jun 26, 2005 9:02:42 PM
Ezra: Tim Burton. Sorry, but the Burton movies were more compelling in character development, as well as dramatizing a decay of a city.
It was a good movie and a good update to a franchise that became tiresome with stunt casting and horrific writing, but not as good as the first two (Pfeiffer in the second was about as clever depiction as a superhero character can be).
PS: Has anyone heard anything about either the new Bad News Bears movie (one of the truly underrated movies of the 1970s, this time with Billy Bob Thorton) or Firefly?
Posted by: Chris Rasmussen | Jun 26, 2005 9:08:11 PM
Disappointing-- once again, a total failure to address my claim in any substantive way. I'm so impressed that your staunch girlfriend agrees with you, that's quite a rebuttal. Third try's the charm?
I've actually met you in person, and mistakenly thought you were a decent guy. Too bad you think the marginalization of a class consisting of half of the world's people doesn't even merit a mention.
Would you let your love of comic books blind you to racism in the same way?
Posted by: olivia | Jun 26, 2005 9:08:14 PM
Chris: I don't know, I loved Batman Returns with impressive ferocity, but I liked this better. Tim Burton's vision was fun and quirky and weird, but it was never the conception of Batman that I preferred. That, however, may have something to do with being a big fan of the current "whats wrong with these heroes and how did they get this way" bent of comic writing.
Olivia: Sorry you don't think I'm a decent guy.
Posted by: Ezra | Jun 26, 2005 9:13:48 PM
Ezra: Sorry you don't think gender equality is worth the trouble of posting a rebuttal you claim to have already written. Could you at least say something about how Batman sedated her without even asking permission? You don't have to be a raging feminist to get on board with that one. Or how about, boards are better when the women on them are allowed to speak?
Posted by: olivia | Jun 26, 2005 9:17:58 PM
Ezra: agree to disagree. You know, I never really got into comic books as a kid. I will say, though, that if you ever get a chance to see Firefly the TV series on DVD before the movie comes out, do so (same with, btw, Newsradio, just because of the genius of Tierney/Root/Hartman/Foley).
Can I pile onto the criticism of Olivia:
Uh, it's A GOD-DAMN MOVIE ABOUT A COMIC BOOK. You can actually like something, or not like something, without it meaning that you are marginalizing 1/2 of the world's population.
I choose to marganilize more than 1/2 of the world's population by buying Maxim at Wal-Mart. So there. Forgive me. I'm going to have a cigarette now and think thoughts about Jessica Alba, so I can really piss you off.
Posted by: Chris Rasmussen | Jun 26, 2005 9:21:45 PM
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