For my moviegoing public -- Batman Begins
Nov. 23rd, 2005 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylI'm not a big fan of the Batman franchise. The first two were good. The second two I have little to no memory of, so they must have sucked. But hope springs eternal, and this one had a lot going for it (for instance just off the top of my head, Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan).
More than just those two, it turned out. By 30 minutes into the film I was appropriately dazzled by the all-star cast. I actually said out loud, "Jesus Christ!" despite being alone. Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Linus Roache (both of whom were in Priest), and last but far from least, Cillian Murphy. My heart stopped when he appeared on screen, then started beating again very, very fast. It was difficult at first to overcome the waves of lust crashing through me enough to identify him. I mean, look at him:
It is simply not fair that a man should be so beautiful.
It also amused me that, with the exception of Morgan, almost the entire cast was made up of UK actors affecting American accents with varying degrees of success (Cillian and Christian were the best. Tom Wilkinson, not so much). Oh yes, and Katie Holmes. I can't stand Katie Holmes, mostly because of her thing with Tom Cruise, whether that's justified or not. Fortunately the rest of this outstanding cast far overbalanced her, or she could have ruined it for me. I also felt absolutely no chemistry between her and Bale at all (kind of the same I feel about her and Tom Cruise).
Amusingly, the biggest scuttlebutt over on Imdb.com is whether or not Christian Bale has a "strong enough jawline" to be Batman. This very thought crossed my mind more than once throughout the movie. Michael Keaton undeniably has a better look for the mask, but I think Bale more than makes up in intensity what he lacks in facial structure. He was an angry Dark Knight. Keaton was just "too cool for school." It was also nice to see Christian with a regular body shape again (after The Machinist).
But enough about the cast. Onto the film itself. From the opening shots I felt that this was what Batman was meant to be. The only other chapter that used this more suitable monochromatic palette was probably Batman Returns. I realize the earlier Batman comics were colorful and bright, but I much prefer the dark, grim graphic novels of the past 10 years. I perked up a second time when they mentioned Arkham Asylum; Dave McKean's bleak masterpiece by the same name is the only book I own. Making Arkham a tangential plot point was a shame though. For being an "origin" story, I felt they did nothing to touch on the most interesting aspect of Batman's character -- the thin line he himself walks between insanity and rationality, how he and the "theatrical" sociopaths he fights against are two sides of the same coin. Yes, his parents were murdered right in front of him as a child, but I really didn't see a believable transition from there to the splintered, tormented man Bruce Wayne becomes. Again, this was covered best in Returns in his relationship with Catwoman.
This didn't detract one bit from my enjoyment though. I loved watching the elements of the Bat persona coming together. From the ninja training to assembling his costume, it was all very well done (although it seemed to be a tiny bit of a cheat that all his gadgets were ready-made and just sitting in a forgotten basement). The scene when he finally faces down his fear of bats gave me CHILLS (helped a lot by the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard). I also can't get enough of shots of him perched against a building with his cape flapping iconically in the breeze. And the new Batmobile made the original look like a Ford Focus in comparison.
I loved this movie all the way through, loved it passionately, until it literally and figuratively became a train wreck. After all the buildup, I really didn't think it was a fitting end for Kaiser Nazgul (or whatever the hell his name was). And after the truly creepy and frightening Scarecrow effects seen earlier, the prospect of dousing the entire city with psychotropic toxins held such enormous CGI promise, but essentially went nowhere. Most disappointingly of all, the only really interesting character in the whole movie, Dr. Crane/Scarecrow (Cillian), gets zero development, zero depth, and is dispatched almost as an afterthought. (Of course, my fascination with him might have only been hormones talking, but still. WTF???) Yes, they briefly allude to him getting away, but it seemed at the end they were much more focused on paving the way for a certain special other villain in the next movie. A cool conceit, but extremely unfair.
As a sign of how quickly I lost interest at the end, Tery had gotten home by then and was talking over the final scene between Christian and Katie, and I didn't even bother to rewind. Or perhaps this is because I will most likely be buying it. 3.5 out of 5
More than just those two, it turned out. By 30 minutes into the film I was appropriately dazzled by the all-star cast. I actually said out loud, "Jesus Christ!" despite being alone. Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson, Linus Roache (both of whom were in Priest), and last but far from least, Cillian Murphy. My heart stopped when he appeared on screen, then started beating again very, very fast. It was difficult at first to overcome the waves of lust crashing through me enough to identify him. I mean, look at him:
It is simply not fair that a man should be so beautiful.
It also amused me that, with the exception of Morgan, almost the entire cast was made up of UK actors affecting American accents with varying degrees of success (Cillian and Christian were the best. Tom Wilkinson, not so much). Oh yes, and Katie Holmes. I can't stand Katie Holmes, mostly because of her thing with Tom Cruise, whether that's justified or not. Fortunately the rest of this outstanding cast far overbalanced her, or she could have ruined it for me. I also felt absolutely no chemistry between her and Bale at all (kind of the same I feel about her and Tom Cruise).
Amusingly, the biggest scuttlebutt over on Imdb.com is whether or not Christian Bale has a "strong enough jawline" to be Batman. This very thought crossed my mind more than once throughout the movie. Michael Keaton undeniably has a better look for the mask, but I think Bale more than makes up in intensity what he lacks in facial structure. He was an angry Dark Knight. Keaton was just "too cool for school." It was also nice to see Christian with a regular body shape again (after The Machinist).
But enough about the cast. Onto the film itself. From the opening shots I felt that this was what Batman was meant to be. The only other chapter that used this more suitable monochromatic palette was probably Batman Returns. I realize the earlier Batman comics were colorful and bright, but I much prefer the dark, grim graphic novels of the past 10 years. I perked up a second time when they mentioned Arkham Asylum; Dave McKean's bleak masterpiece by the same name is the only book I own. Making Arkham a tangential plot point was a shame though. For being an "origin" story, I felt they did nothing to touch on the most interesting aspect of Batman's character -- the thin line he himself walks between insanity and rationality, how he and the "theatrical" sociopaths he fights against are two sides of the same coin. Yes, his parents were murdered right in front of him as a child, but I really didn't see a believable transition from there to the splintered, tormented man Bruce Wayne becomes. Again, this was covered best in Returns in his relationship with Catwoman.
This didn't detract one bit from my enjoyment though. I loved watching the elements of the Bat persona coming together. From the ninja training to assembling his costume, it was all very well done (although it seemed to be a tiny bit of a cheat that all his gadgets were ready-made and just sitting in a forgotten basement). The scene when he finally faces down his fear of bats gave me CHILLS (helped a lot by the score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard). I also can't get enough of shots of him perched against a building with his cape flapping iconically in the breeze. And the new Batmobile made the original look like a Ford Focus in comparison.
I loved this movie all the way through, loved it passionately, until it literally and figuratively became a train wreck. After all the buildup, I really didn't think it was a fitting end for Kaiser Nazgul (or whatever the hell his name was). And after the truly creepy and frightening Scarecrow effects seen earlier, the prospect of dousing the entire city with psychotropic toxins held such enormous CGI promise, but essentially went nowhere. Most disappointingly of all, the only really interesting character in the whole movie, Dr. Crane/Scarecrow (Cillian), gets zero development, zero depth, and is dispatched almost as an afterthought. (Of course, my fascination with him might have only been hormones talking, but still. WTF???) Yes, they briefly allude to him getting away, but it seemed at the end they were much more focused on paving the way for a certain special other villain in the next movie. A cool conceit, but extremely unfair.
As a sign of how quickly I lost interest at the end, Tery had gotten home by then and was talking over the final scene between Christian and Katie, and I didn't even bother to rewind. Or perhaps this is because I will most likely be buying it. 3.5 out of 5