Just yesterday, I managed to sneak away from the ever-busy world long enough to catch a showing of Batman Begins. I wasn’t sure what to expect, though the reviews I had read seemed very positive indeed. In the end, I was swept away back into Gotham City and extremely pleased with this latest treatment of the Caped Crusader.

Batman Begins resets the film series to the very beginning of the saga. The film spends a lot more time exploring the origins of Batman than any of the previous films did. It also returns to the darker tone of the character first explored on the big screen in Batman.

The Character
It’s important to note that the character of Batman has gone through various stages since his inception. First appearing in Detective Comics 27 way back in 1939, he was initially a dark, ominous, and brooding figure. He had to be, since he intended to strike fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere.

In the nineteen fifties, however, Batman underwent something of a change, and became a more lighthearted and comic character. This is perhaps best reflected in the nineteen sixties series starring Adam West. In the seventies, the darker version returned, and that return was cemented in the eighties by Frank Miller’s classic comic saga The Dark Knight Returns.

Batman is an enduring character for many reasons. He challenges evil in a way no one else can. But he has no super powers; he can’t fly, he can’t bend steel or jump tall buildings in a single bound. He’s an “everyman” sort of superhero, and therefore more accessible.

For a long while, Batman has been on hiatus. While Marvel Comics has been scoring success after success with its characters (Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk) and is gearing up again with this year’s release of Fantastic Four, DC comics characters have been neglected on the big screen, despite the fact that DC is owned by Time Warner and thus affiliated with Warner Brothers studios. Hopefully, Batman Begins signals the end of the famine period.

The Story
Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is on a quest. A quest to discover himself, and a quest to become the ultimate weapon in the war on crime. Searching for answers in the mountains of Tibet, he stumbles upon a secret order headed by a mysterious figure named Ras Al Ghul.

The order helps to heighten Wayne’s skills and increase his fighting prowess. Eventually, he returns to Gotham City. Gotham is hopelessly corrupt, but Wayne insists that it simply needs a symbol to strike fear into the hearts of the lawless. And that symbol comes to life in Batman.

But things are worse than Wayne had feared. The corruption has reached the highest levels, and Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), head of Arkham Asylum, is up to something very suspicious. Working with a local mob boss named Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and calling himself the Scarecrow, he’s hatched a sinister plot that only the Dark Knight can stop. But as Batman digs deeper, he finds that things are even worse than he feared-and fear might just be the one thing even he can’t overcome.

Analysis
This is an excellent treatment of Batman. Batman is a very complicated figure, and always has been, and that is reflected nicely in the film. We get to see an early Dark Knight as a mysterious, seemingly invincible character that has brought hope to Gotham.

The film moves along nicely with a gradually building pace. The scenes where Batman is bringing down the bad guys are very well orchestrated as he moves quickly and decisively to bring his foes down. When the Caped Crusader is on screen, you will be enthralled.

The villains are used wisely here, though Scarecrow could have been a bit more fearsome than he really was. The true villain, however, is done very nicely, though for the sake of the film’s enjoyment his identity will not be revealed in this review.

My one quibble with the film is the device used as the threat to bring down Gotham. A microwave emitting weapon used to vaporize Scarecrow’s fear gas would cook anybody in proximity as well as turning water to steam. But hey, this is a comic book film, and poetic license is allowed.

The Acting
I found Christian Bale to be an excellent choice as both Wayne and Batman. It is hoped he will stay on for more films, and that we won’t have an assortment of actors portraying the Dark Knight as we did in the last series. I was less impressed with Katie Homes as Rachel Dawes. Unlike Tom Cruise, I did not love this woman, though I suppose she was adequate.

Gary Oldman, however, was a stroke of casting genius as Jim Gordon, and I greatly enjoyed his performance. He truly looks the part. Morgan Freeman, one of my favorite actors, is lots of fun as Lucius Fox. Liam Neeson is, as always, superb. And Michael Cane is a real treat as Alfred. The biggest disappointment was a tried looking Rutger Hauer as Earle, though to be fair he has very little to do.

Comparisons
Comparisons with the previous saga are inevitable. But Batman Begins stands on its own. Those films were enjoyable in their day, and still are today. In my book Michael Keaton made a convincing Batman, and I dount anyone will ever top Jack Nicholson as The Joker (though I hope someone does try).

Overall
I’ve been collecting comic books for years, and Batman has always been one of my favorite characters. But you can enjoy Batman Begins without ever having read a single comic book. And you really, really should.

More Batman

Batman and Robin

Batman: The Ultimate Evil

More Comic Book Movies

Superman the Movie

The Return of Swamp Thing

Spider-Man

Spider-Man 2

Hulk

X-Men

X-Men 2

The Punisher

Daredevil








Recommended: Yes