Movie Review - Batman Begins
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2005 / 141 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn
The “Batman” series of movies were stopped cold by the horrible “Batman & Robin” neon-colored camp-fest shitburg of 1997. As bad as that movie was, people seem to forget that 1995’s “Batman Forever” was pretty much just as bad – only it had the uber-big-at-the-time Jim Carrey so the audience gave it a pass. Warners figured they could get away with murder a second time with “Robin” and were wrong.
Comic book movies were pretty much killed by the “Batman & Robin” plague. It wasn’t until 2000’s X-Men, and especially 2002’s Spider-man that audiences came back to the genre. Now we’re up to our eyeballs in superhero flicks and the genre will probably cave in on itself once again before too long.
Oh yeah I was going to write a review here. Ok so now the “Batman” franchise decides to “reboot” itself with “Batman Begins” from director Christopher Nolan. I haven’t seen his other films so I guess I’ll just call “Begins” as I see it. It’s really 2 movies in one: A very well done “origin” film and a not-very-well-done action movie.
Let’s start with the origin stuff first. Obviously we see young Bruce Wayne’s parents murdered, blah blah blah. Then he runs off to the Far East to learn the criminal mind and become an ass-kicking ninja (or something) Liam Neeson - perpetual mentor character - teaches him the fighting skills he needs and how to “overcome his fears” Overcoming your fear is to this movie as “with great power comes great responsibility” was to Spider-man – as in you’ll hear it over and over and over again. Eventually young Bruce decides to quit the ninja dojo thing and head back to Gotham.
By this time probably a full hour has passed. Now it’s a fairly interesting hour, using back-and-forth cutting between the present and the past to explain Bruce’s training and motivation, but that leaves only what, 1.5 hours to set up the entire “bad guy” plot for the end of the film. Anyway, back in Gotham Bruce enlists the help of Morgan Freeman who is one of those “outcast engineers” working for Wayne Industries, as in he’s paid to build stuff that has no intention of going to market. Naturally these gizmos are perfect for Batman and so we see Bruce obtaining and adapting all of them, while also easing back into the billionaire playboy life and becoming reacquainted with his old sweetheart Katie Holmes. (Who really has no point in this film except to be “the girl”)
Alright so Batman has all his gizmos, and a car, and is now ready to “begin” (We have a title!) His methods of sneak-attacking are kind of neat, he takes out criminals in a “from the shadows” method similar to 1979’s “Alien” But it’s the fighting action scenes that aren’t up to snuff and I would qualify as downright crappy. Since we’re living in a post-Matrix Hollywood the fights have to be super fast and “kinetic” Some movies pull this off, others go for “fantasy” and use wire-work for interesting fights. Batman is grounded in reality (ie: there’s only so much he can really do) so all his fights must be “exciting” because of speed and editing.
But they’re edited like crap. Fists whirls, limbs flail, bodies hit the floor – and I can’t figure what the hell is going on. The overt darkness doesn’t help. The camera is 5-7 feet closer than it should be for every fight, and there’s enough edit cuts to make Michael Bay blush. I was sitting in the back row of the theatre so I can’t really find an excuse. These guts probably edit on 19” Avid screens and don’t realize when a picture is the size of a house it takes MUCH longer for the human eye to catch it all. Even an early fight in the film - Bruce against Chinese prisoners in a muddy field – it’s impossible to know the score because on top of the choppy editing everyone’s dressed the same and covered in mud. Basically whoever’s left standing is the winner, because the scene itself doesn’t cover who is.
I know it seems a bit trivial to complain about the fight scenes but dammit – Batman fights people! That’s what he does, let’s see it clearly! The fights in Burton’s first Batman might be slow and a little lethargic compared to modern cinema but at least you could tell what was going on. It really pains me that bad fights really bring this down, an otherwise really good (well, except for the ending, I’ll get to that) movie.
To illustrate the close up choppy nature of the fights in “Batman Begins” I have prepared these special photos. Each is a fight scene from a famous movie, but with the camera “zoomed in” way to much to simulate the way Chris Nolan shot “Begins” Try and guess what each movie is! (Answers at end of review)
My other big problem with this movie is the ending. So much time is spent setting up Bruce Wayne, why he becomes Batman, then HOW he becomes Batman that the “villainous plot” seems like an afterthought and becomes rushed at the end. Granted the other Batman films focused too much on the villains but let’s face it, you have to have the villains in it a certain amount to create the conflict and drama required. The bad guys in this film are kind of weak and since there’s really 3 of them (Crime Boss, Scarecrow and Ras Al Guhl sp?) quite diluted as well. And for all the high-brow talk and crap in the beginning the ending of this film becomes just another big chase and explosion-filled spectacle like every other movie you’ve seen. It’s also very improbable (why a train must be stopped and all, for instance) and the massive damage done in Act 3 is not even addressed afterwards. Perhaps solely to set up all sorts shit to go down in “Batman Begins Again”.
This started out as the greatest Batman film but in the end, in my opinion, stands behind Tim Burton’s first film because of badly done action scenes and of course, no awesome Danny Elfman score. Goofy as Burton’s Batman was at least it was “alive”. Silly as the Joker’s plot was at least the Joker was entertaining. Here we still get a silly bad guy plot but with uninteresting bad guys to deliver it. A second “Begins” film will probably be much better, but hell, Spider-Man managed to do it all on the first shot. Why couldn’t this one?
ANSWERS TO “GUESS THE MOVIE”:
A) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
B) The Matrix
C) The Matrix (same fight, 30 seconds later)
