That Irascible Bat-Dressed Guy Commences
Batman began . . .Again.
My first impression of the movie is that whoever made the decision to cut the first sequence of scenes together—about the first twenty or thirty minutes of the movie—needs to be hit with something large and mostly solid. The actual scenes themselves, Bruce Wayne’s childhood and training, weren’t bad scenes, themselves, but they put them together in the most retarded fashion possible, that ends up being jarring and a tad confusing. Somebody needed to take a lesson in the art of the segue, because the only clue they gave to a chronological shift was a little bit of a music cue.
Aside from that small amount of poor cinematography, I have to say that, overall, Batman Begins was a very enjoyable experience. It did justice, in many ways, to the franchise of Batman—the comics and the cartoons—with an innumerable quantity of nods towards the aesthetic of the Batman forefathers: much of the character design, most notably to me being Gordon’s, was intentionally true to the original. Morgan Freeman was probably the most perfect Lucius Fox possible; Michael Caine as Alfred was an interesting take on the character, breaking with the usual “prim and proper, uppity British” Alfred and going with a more “warm and friendly, cockney British” Alfred.
Going into the movie, I was already rather certain that Christian Bale would make a good Batman, and this was solely based on his performance in Equilibrium—and, he did just that. One of the most outstanding aspects of this interpretation of the Batman character was that Bale made a very clear-cut distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman, instead of what had been done in the past, wherein Bruce Wayne and Batman were only separated by a mask and cloak. As Batman, Bale changed his voice significantly—with much effect, too, as is apparent in certain scenes (like the obligatory “interrogation of a criminal” one). There’s a lot of play in the movie with the idea of “true” identity and which is what mask and whatnot, which wasn’t new or astounding or anything, but, at least, was an interesting undertone.
Katie Holmes . . . Do I care? In short: no. I’m not quite sure why they felt it was necessary to insert another love interest for Bruce into the Batman continuity, because there are only fifty thousand already, but they did. She played Rachel Dawes, a rather uninteresting character that served a pretty blatant Hollywood-type role: the boobs, per se. A constant excuse for romantic tension and melodrama, I don’t think it really added much to the story (nor did it, fortunately, distract too much); I’m just not wowed enough by perky breasts to actually be impressed, here. I was hoping for some sort of tie-in with Harvey Dent, but, no . . . No, nothing. Just them going, “Here! Random hot girl! We need the stereotypical idealist for any Batman movie, right?”
Something different that was done in Begins was to actually give the Wayne parents a bit more characterisation than usual: this time around, you actually have a more substantial grasp on why it’s such a tragedy the Wayne folks died, outside of “Oh, no, the kid’s dad and mom got shot!” This added a little extra dimension to the story regarding Bruce’s past and motivations, which is really what the movie is all about, so that’s good.
Villains. Every Batman movie has to have its villains; this time, it was Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul (as imDB tells me they spelt it). Oh, I have always been rather fond of the Ra’s Al Ghul character, and I do have to say they mostly did it justice—Neeson looked exactly like him, for one. Secondly, he talked and acted precisely like the Ra’s Al Ghul I knew and loved from the Adventures of Batman cartoon series . . . I was quite happy about that. Scarecrow? Scarecrow was Scarecrow, albeit a very accurate and spot-on interpretation of Scarecrow . . . But, in the end, Scarecrow is one of the “backseat bitches” of the Batman villainy club. “Ooo, I’m skinny and scary! Ooo. I dress like a scarecrow! Ooo. Fear and psychology and stuff!”
I’m not honestly how sure exactly how much liberty was taken with the Batman continuity with this movie, whether or not certain aspects of Wayne’s training was true . . . I definitely don’t recall Lucius Fox being a scientist, nor do I think the Dawes character existed prior to this movie. Batman has probably been given eighty hojillion backgrounds in the course of the comic and cartoon, so I don’t really care how “accurate” it may be to the original—since the original is probably not accurate to itself. That’s fine. It was a good enough story, all in all, and that’s what matters to me.
Some may note that the evil plot of Batman Begins is nearly identical to the evil plot in Batman, the first movie by Burton, give or take a few accoutrements . . . Not sure if this is an intentional parallel or not, but who can really say that it’s not true that every evil plot in every Batman story boils down to, “We wanna destroy Gotham or its people!”
Uh, the music was pretty much Batman music. Duly noted.
What’s the big question? Did it make up for the last two Batman movies. My answer? Yes. Failure Rating: 6%.
My first impression of the movie is that whoever made the decision to cut the first sequence of scenes together—about the first twenty or thirty minutes of the movie—needs to be hit with something large and mostly solid. The actual scenes themselves, Bruce Wayne’s childhood and training, weren’t bad scenes, themselves, but they put them together in the most retarded fashion possible, that ends up being jarring and a tad confusing. Somebody needed to take a lesson in the art of the segue, because the only clue they gave to a chronological shift was a little bit of a music cue.
Aside from that small amount of poor cinematography, I have to say that, overall, Batman Begins was a very enjoyable experience. It did justice, in many ways, to the franchise of Batman—the comics and the cartoons—with an innumerable quantity of nods towards the aesthetic of the Batman forefathers: much of the character design, most notably to me being Gordon’s, was intentionally true to the original. Morgan Freeman was probably the most perfect Lucius Fox possible; Michael Caine as Alfred was an interesting take on the character, breaking with the usual “prim and proper, uppity British” Alfred and going with a more “warm and friendly, cockney British” Alfred.
Going into the movie, I was already rather certain that Christian Bale would make a good Batman, and this was solely based on his performance in Equilibrium—and, he did just that. One of the most outstanding aspects of this interpretation of the Batman character was that Bale made a very clear-cut distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman, instead of what had been done in the past, wherein Bruce Wayne and Batman were only separated by a mask and cloak. As Batman, Bale changed his voice significantly—with much effect, too, as is apparent in certain scenes (like the obligatory “interrogation of a criminal” one). There’s a lot of play in the movie with the idea of “true” identity and which is what mask and whatnot, which wasn’t new or astounding or anything, but, at least, was an interesting undertone.
Katie Holmes . . . Do I care? In short: no. I’m not quite sure why they felt it was necessary to insert another love interest for Bruce into the Batman continuity, because there are only fifty thousand already, but they did. She played Rachel Dawes, a rather uninteresting character that served a pretty blatant Hollywood-type role: the boobs, per se. A constant excuse for romantic tension and melodrama, I don’t think it really added much to the story (nor did it, fortunately, distract too much); I’m just not wowed enough by perky breasts to actually be impressed, here. I was hoping for some sort of tie-in with Harvey Dent, but, no . . . No, nothing. Just them going, “Here! Random hot girl! We need the stereotypical idealist for any Batman movie, right?”
Something different that was done in Begins was to actually give the Wayne parents a bit more characterisation than usual: this time around, you actually have a more substantial grasp on why it’s such a tragedy the Wayne folks died, outside of “Oh, no, the kid’s dad and mom got shot!” This added a little extra dimension to the story regarding Bruce’s past and motivations, which is really what the movie is all about, so that’s good.
Villains. Every Batman movie has to have its villains; this time, it was Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul (as imDB tells me they spelt it). Oh, I have always been rather fond of the Ra’s Al Ghul character, and I do have to say they mostly did it justice—Neeson looked exactly like him, for one. Secondly, he talked and acted precisely like the Ra’s Al Ghul I knew and loved from the Adventures of Batman cartoon series . . . I was quite happy about that. Scarecrow? Scarecrow was Scarecrow, albeit a very accurate and spot-on interpretation of Scarecrow . . . But, in the end, Scarecrow is one of the “backseat bitches” of the Batman villainy club. “Ooo, I’m skinny and scary! Ooo. I dress like a scarecrow! Ooo. Fear and psychology and stuff!”
I’m not honestly how sure exactly how much liberty was taken with the Batman continuity with this movie, whether or not certain aspects of Wayne’s training was true . . . I definitely don’t recall Lucius Fox being a scientist, nor do I think the Dawes character existed prior to this movie. Batman has probably been given eighty hojillion backgrounds in the course of the comic and cartoon, so I don’t really care how “accurate” it may be to the original—since the original is probably not accurate to itself. That’s fine. It was a good enough story, all in all, and that’s what matters to me.
Some may note that the evil plot of Batman Begins is nearly identical to the evil plot in Batman, the first movie by Burton, give or take a few accoutrements . . . Not sure if this is an intentional parallel or not, but who can really say that it’s not true that every evil plot in every Batman story boils down to, “We wanna destroy Gotham or its people!”
Uh, the music was pretty much Batman music. Duly noted.
What’s the big question? Did it make up for the last two Batman movies. My answer? Yes. Failure Rating: 6%.
posted by c.Jay Wrong at
9:34 AM
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