well, i saw batman begins last night (what else are you going to do when you don't like drinking and you're stuck in a place that's not your hometown?). anyway, the movie was quite good...batman good, in fact. you know, i had high hopes for the movie once i heard that christopher nolan, director of memento, was on board, but skepticism reigned. i mean, come on...batman forever and batman and robin were drivel. my hope surged again when i heard that christian bale had been tapped as bruce wayne.
that's probably the news that solidified my chance of seeing the movie. the first thing i saw him in was american psycho and i thought he was great as the pompous, effluent rich guy. he had the bruce wayne look. that whole movie had the batman look that the previous two had lost. if i can compare, think of batman forever and batman and robin as avatars of that campy batman tv show...the one i hated (with adam west as a batman i never liked). those movies were campy, over-the-top, and just plain not good. now, i'm not going to compare the first two movies (batman/batman returns) to anything because they stand alone in their own right. the latest movie, however, is more akin to the dark and gritty, more serious batman: the animated series. so that's the overview, what about the movie itself?
first of all, plot and story are excellent. this story has nothing to do with the previous batman movies, so don't even think of them. instead, think more toward the comics. you see characters in this movie that have been integral in past comic storylines like knightfall/knightquest, no man's land, and the long halloween. if memory serves, the latter is what provided us with the movie's storyline. back to characters, though. we get to see scarecrow, falcone, the murderous mr. zsazz, and ra's al ghul as the villains. the plot of the movie flows on without a hitch, but includes flashbacks to further show the motivation of wayne and how he got to where he is today. by the way, ra's al ghul is one of the most ruthless villains in the dc universe. if you want proof, he took down the justice league single-handedly in order to further his world domination plans (check jla: tower of babel trade paperback).
scenery and costuming worked really well, too. i really like this batman costume over most, but the cape "logistics" leave a little to be desired. it's moot, anyway. gotham looks like i thought it should, not as gothic as tim burton's vision, but still excellent. think of a city that was once the pinnacle of technology and money, but collapsed over the years and degraded into a cesspool...kinda like a dirty and street-crime-ridden metropolis. wayne manor and the bat cave were also nicely done.
this movie has an abundance of good actors: christian bale, morgan freeman, michael caine, gary oldman, and liam neeson. i'll touch on the latter in a little bit, but that list i just wrote are the great performers of this movie, in no order whatsoever. the guy who played dr. jonathan crane (cillian murphy, lead from 28 days later) gets a runner-up vote. katie holmes, however, didn't impress me. i can't help but think it's because there's a nagging voice in the back of my head saying how much she now sucks just because she's attached to tom cruise and scientology. michael caine didn't have the air of nobility that i expected from alfred (think geoffrey from the fresh prince of bel-air), but he had the benevolent grandfather-figure to bruce down in spades...and besides, he's michael caine which means he automatically rocks.
side note: the guy who played bruce's father looked way familiar to me and it's because he was the necromonger with a conscience from chronicles of riddick.
like i said, christian bale as bruce/batman was excellent. i think he played it to a "t," especially when speaking as batman (which sounded awesome). gary oldman as younger jim gordon (future police chief) was great, too. and finally, liam neeson's character was done well...his accent and language is spot on for who he is.
lastly, the effects, while huge and blockbusterly, weren't over-the-top and actually related to the story instead of just being there because...we probably would have experienced that if this were a lucasfilm production. anyway, this movie was great and, as a fan of the comic, i can say it's close to the top of the comic book movie hierarchy (which should be updated with all these comic-related movies coming out). score? 9.7
Posted by godemperor at June 28, 2005 10:11 AM