Film Review: Batman Begins

"If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely." - Liam Neeson

Following the works of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan presents a new and improved Batman movie more heavily grounded in reality (or about as real as a comic-book hero film can be), and with a strong emphasis on in-depth storytelling and style.

Despite the emphasis on character development and drama, the film is entertaining. It might even be more entertaining than all the other films before it. Action is frequent and impressive. Some of the fights might be hard to see with the shaky cameramanship and fast editing, but the car chase, the stuntwork, the (few) special effects, and the finale are all very noteworthy. In between the major action scenes, the story moves with a fast and tight pacing. There’s hardly a dull moment.

At its core though, this telling of Batman presents a very strong story, filled with deep characters, strong themes, and detailed nuances. The story itself is pretty solid, for as the mystery unravels it proves to be cleverly sublime and tight. What is most important is the character development though; Bruce Wayne’s origins are explored in depth and with solid reasoning behind his ascension into a masked vigilante. Going hand-in-hand with this portrayal are strong themes about fear, morality, and ultimately the value of decisive action. And as the Batman character comes into a fully-realized being, a lot of interesting concepts are poured into it like hot iron filling an ingot; using fear as a weapon, the principles of ninjutsu, the power of symbols, to name a few. And on top of all that, the physical genesis of the character is explored more thoroughly than ever before; we finally see where he gets all his cool gadgets from, where his costume came from, how he gained the trust of key law enforcement officers, among other things. All of these concepts work together to make the story more believable, whereas in previous movies nothing was defined and everything about the character simply existed without any basis. The movie gets high marks as it is for utilizing previously unused opportunities. I’d give it even higher marks for its strong themes.

As a film, it is interesting. Photography is superb throughout, with plenty of unique imagery and camera angles. Editing is very rough, with some choppy action scenes, but most of the time it works to create a unique and frenetic style. Acting is excellent all around; Christian Bale shows both aggression and subtlety in his dual-natured role, Michael Caine makes for a wise and witty butler, Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson are cool as the villains, and Gary Oldman is perfect as Jim Gordon. It’s also pretty cool seeing Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman, Rutger Hauer, and Ken Watanabe in the mix. Production value is very high, with loads of excellent sets, props, costumes, weapons, cars, gear, and everything else. The music score is epic!

5/5 (Entertainment: Very Good | Story: Perfect | Film: Very Good)