Batman Begins

2005
Staring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman
Director: Christopher Nolan

Batman Begins is a complete reboot of the Batman movie series. What started off pretty promising with Tim Burton’s Batman quickly fell apart in each subsequent film that was made. Batman Returns is a generally decent film that, but it is too “dark” for darkness sake in some scenes, and far too cheesy and over the top in other scenes – the penguin army for example. Aside from the more cornball sequences, and far too “comic” design – harkening back to the 60’s Batman – Batman Forever is not that bad of a film, but it is not a great one either. While Batman & Robin was a box office success (it still made a handful, even if it was a slight disappointment over the previous films numbers), it was a dismal failure in every other arena: story, casting, set and costume design, editing, and directing.

Batman Begins sets out to fix this problem. As stated above, it is a complete reboot of the series and takes place as far back as they could possibly take the character in the Mythos. I’ve never really liked “origin” stories until now, because I feel that most characters we’ve had established enough in the past that it is a complete waste of time, this film changed all of that, at the very least it’s the exception to the rule.

You’d think that just a short flashback to that faithful night where his parents were gunned down would be enough, but this film, directed by the wonderful Christopher Nolan, frequently cuts from various parts of Wayne’s childhood and younger adult life. This film is more about Bruce than Batman, and more of both of them then the villains, which is actually quite nice for a change.

The Dark Knight is the only “superhero” comic book film I’m really anticipating, and it won’t be out till next year (Fantastic Four is a close second due to the Silver Surfer).

Verdict ****/*****