4 gibbles out of 5

Director: Christopher Nolan

When Batman Begins announcements first hit and we knew who was attached, it was – as I’m sure it was for many – a dream come true.  Christopher Nolan, a director with, then, an awesome indie film in the bucket (Memento), and Christian Bale, an actor who’d shot to my list of awesome people with his perfect performance in American Psycho, adding to the belief that he’d be able to pull off not only the physical demands of Bats but the psychological weirdness to it as well… it was an equation that seemed bold and had no way to fail.  In this sense you could match it to Tim Burton and Michael Keaton.  Though Burton had made some big studio pics by that point, big action wasn’t part of his list of talents yet, and Keaton was a comedic actor, so it seemed an odd choice.  Though it obviously worked for that incarnation.

And after it came out, I would’ve claimed all forms of greatness upon the movie.  Though, if I’m being honest, I can admit there were some stumbles that weren’t as polished as I would’ve hoped.

Now some years have passed, Bats #3 by Nolan and Bale is about to come out as of this writing, and Nolan has delivered several other great films to prove his talents, so I can sit back a bit more comfortably and watch the film without feeling like I have to defend a comic book franchise.  Because, you know, comics are a-okay now and the internet has made us all films fans.

Batman Begins retells, in part, the Bats tale, which is familiar to pretty much anyone and everyone – kids parents are killed, he vows himself to a life of fighting crime, circumstances leading him to the obvious choice of dressing as a bat.  As Ebert points out in his review, you can’t really take the idea as serious, but the point is whether or not the film can move us out of reality for a moment to take it serious, and, on the whole, Batman Begins does that.  It does that by – shock – withholding Batman until at least halfway through the movie.  Instead we spend an hour flashing back and forth between an incident in Bruce Wayne’s childhood that would shape his decisions in the future, and modern Bruce Wayne, hiding from his famous identity in a round-world trek to punish himself and better understand the mind of the criminal.  Once Bruce Wayne returns home with his Batman idea forming, we get further insight into how he pulls off the life of playboy and vigilante, how he gathers his gear, how he bridges the learning gap from ninjitsu to jumping off buildings.  And this is where the film greatly succeeds, and does play into Nolan’s talents of weaving concepts into his films – everything builds off of and works around Wayne’s fears, and conquering those fears, and dual realities (a big Nolan theme in general).  The whole process is given a more logical and thought out feel, and though it can’t quite conquer the oddity of seeing a man in a giant bat suit, we feel more invested in this decision than just throwing it at us and telling us its because this guy don’t like bats.

Another challenge that the film uses to its benefit is the villain.  Previous Batman flicks have all relied on some sense of spectacle for the villain.  Ra’s Al Ghul is a classic Bats villain who has played into key moments in the character’s history, but would agreeably be a distant choice for a movie because he’s, on the surface, just a man.  He’s here well applied to not only keep the human elements of the film balanced, but is integral in the concepts developed along the way.  Sure, Scarecrow shows up later, but being all about the nature of fear, he was a logical idea for a middle-man between the rest of the world and Ra’s.  And by the time we get to him wearing his mask, we’ve already skipped over the line into comic reality, so it works.  (It helps that the mask is actually creepy.)

But the film isn’t perfect.  Being Nolan’s first stab at big budget action, it has a slightly insular feel, the shots remaining very close and generally low profile – only one or two moving parts in a scene – giving the majority of the movie a sort of humble feel.  Which isn’t a bad thing, per se, and is a good transition from this to Dark Knight in that it should feel humble, being an origin story, but it can’t maintain this sensibility when trying to upscale to the bigger action scenes, having some obligatory one-liners and scene-extending moments that feel more like a Hollywood expectation than something deemed fit for the movie.  It also never really makes seeing Batman in his full suit make sense, unfortunately.  I mean, we get the origin, and we saw how it came together, but it’s actually not a film of shadows – even the night scenes maintain an earthy color feel to them – so on the whole this frightening character of the night shows up fully lit, and we can see the makeup around his eyes.  They were also feeling out the suit in this film, trying to strike a balance between formidable and functional, but the cowl ends up looking very top heavy, and gives Bale a stooped look.  This all might very well have been purposeful.  After all, it couldn’t have been perfect on Batman’s first big adventure, and this should be a film that allows us more into the light in order to welcome us to the story… and true, if I were a street thug, I might cock my head at the guy dressed like a Bat, but when he kicks my ass and hangs me from a building I’d rightfully be frightened of him.  But all those exceptions being considered, it doesn’t seem like the film’s goal at those moments, and if I have to stop to consider that, then maybe I can rightfully say whatever the intention was, it didn’t fly for me.

Again, I remind that this is all in retrospect.  Batman Begins is still an amazing film.  Despite its sort of silly feel at moments, I can’t say I would’ve known how to find a more precise balance between the need for the introduction and the need for the big adventure story, and when viewed in context of it being a trilogy, it makes all the more sense that film 1 would act sort of like the younger brother to its sequels.  Nolan and co-scripter Goyer and all of the actors helped to legitimize this character, and divert Hollywood’s attention back to the wealthy source of stories that comics offer.  And they gave us a Batman movie to be proud of.