Part 6 in our countdown to the release of The Dark Knight Rises, in which we stock up on our throat lozenges…
THE BAT-FILM: It took a long time, but finally someone came along and decided that Batman was just as interesting as his many rogues, and worthy of the spotlight in his own film. Which you’d think would be fairly obvious, but such is Hollywood. When the original teaser for Batman Begins was released, it wasn’t immediately apparent that it was a Batman film - full of moody character shots and an ominous voiceover, the audience could only discern it was Batman by the quick flash at the end. It signaled a far different take on the material - more concerned with developing its characters and world than it was with selling toys. It was a massive sea-change for a Batman movie, and while it wound up being not quite as deep and serious as we all maybe would have liked, it was certainly a step in the right direction.
Christopher Nolan was not yet the mega-budget filmmaker he is today, still known primarily for 2001’s Memento and only really working for a studio with 2002’s Insomnia. He was the perfect choice for the dark, thrilling world of Batman, but still had much to prove when helming a summer blockbuster. Working with long-time comic film scribe David S. Goyer, Nolan sought to take the story back to the beginning. We all knew what happened to Bruce Wayne’s parents, but what about the ensuing years? How exactly did he go from orphan to superhero? The various Batman stories over the years have filled in bits and pieces here and there, but we’ve never gotten the full scoop: just what does it take to become Batman?
As played by Christian Bale, I don’t think there has ever been an actor who has taken the role of Batman more seriously. The previous films played around with the fairly weak split-personality angle, but Bale’s take is one that lines up with the comics, and the fans’ - that “Bruce Wayne” is actually the mask, and Batman the true persona. Bale sublimely captures a man lost at sea, hurting from the deep scars of his childhood all the way through to his transformation as an adult. One of the more novel aspects of Nolan’s film is his grounding of the character in realism - we see the elements that come together that make a man become a Bat-man, the reason chief among them to make himself more than just a man in the eyes of his opponents. To become a symbol, to both instill fear and inspire hope in a city so corrupt, even the cops are in deep with the criminal element. Bale plays all of this as any actor would a serious thriller, while also not above having a little fun in the role - the scenes were Bruce plays up his billionaire playboy persona are nice little moments (especially the birthday party scene, where he insults his guests to save their lives).
Another tactic Nolan employs is to stack his deck with truly some of the best actors working today, even for small, throwaway roles. As perfect as he was in his dry portrayal, Michael Gough just never got any real emotion to convey in his four Batman movies as the stalwart butler Alfred. Michael Caine would probably not be the first person to immediately spring to mind for such a role, but Caine fits the mold of the new Alfred perfectly. He’s wry, he’s funny and he’s not just a servant doing the Batman’s bidding - Alfred is very much the emotional center of Bruce’s life, and the most important of the many father figures he takes on throughout the movie. Alfred keeps Bruce grounded, and in many ways is what’s keeping him from sliding into complete madness. Caine is wonderful in the role, alternately getting both the film’s funniest lines and its most touching moments - the actor could illicit tears from an audience just by reading from a restaurant menu.
Also lending weight and gravitas by his mere presence alone is Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, sort of the Q to Batman’s James Bond. Freeman doesn’t get to do a whole lot other than deliver exposition about all the various gadgets and gizmos Batman employs, but if you’re going to give exposition, you might as well get an actor of Freeman’s stature to deliver it. There’s also a nice hint of mischievousness to Freeman’s performance, such as the twinkle in his eyes when he tells Bruce, “The Tumbler? Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that…”
Also finally getting his due here is Jim Gordon, the not-quite-yet police commissioner played by Gary Oldman. Known for his wild villainous roles in the past, it’s a wonder Oldman was never tapped to play one of the Batman villains himself in the earlier films, but here brings much humanity and a strong, noble core to one of the most important of Batman’s supporting characters. Completely washed over in the previous films, Gordon is a key figure in Batman’s life - fulfilling a fatherly role for the caped crusader along with Alfred and Lucius, as exemplified in a key scene early on where he consoles a young Bruce after his parents are murdered. Oldman’s played so many lunatic villains over the years we kind of forget just how great an actor he really is, and his nuanced, down-to-earth portrayal of Gordon cuts directly to the heart of the film.
Katie Holmes plays Bruce’s childhood friend and now assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, and if you asked most people to point out a flaw in the movie they would probably pick out Holmes’ performance. I never thought she was particularly bad in the role, but there are times where she feels like a kid playing at being a grown-up - there’s a certain vindication of maturity lacking in her performance. The character of Rachel is nicely drawn, for once giving Batman a romantic foil that isn’t based purely on the physical. Much like Alfred, Rachel is the moral center of Bruce’s life, grounding him early on and setting him on the path he eventually takes, and still a strong determining factor in his life. With Rachel, Bruce has a small glimmer of hope that one day he can stop his war and put the mask away for good. It sets up a relationship and conflict that will be further explored in The Dark Knight, to magnificent effect.
Nolan sets up a world that’s far more grounded in reality than his predecessors (albeit still a heightened reality), eschewing the over-designed Gothic look for a more earthy feel. We open on Bruce in a Bhutanese prison camp, and the film overall has a more global feel as we follow Bruce on his early journeys - giving the film the epic sweep of a David Lean or an Akira Kurosawa as Batman trains with a league of ninja in an undisclosed Far-East country. Nolan’s Gotham also feels far more organic, a real city combining elements of all the great American metropolises.
There’s also a refreshing lack of CGI throughout the film, as Nolan favors real locations instead of green screen - no amount of computer wizardry can quite compete with the site of real ice glaciers in the background of the League of Shadows’ headquarters. There is CG utilized - such as the swarms of bats and the monorail sequence at the end - but it’s always used to enhance what's already there, which is the best use of it anyway.
It’s also nice to have the action played out by real stuntmen, although Nolan sort of stumbles in its portrayal onscreen. This was his first real action movie, and - like many directors today - Nolan feels very unsure of himself, preferring to shake the camera incessantly and edit set-pieces so quickly you can never really discern what exactly is gong on. The only really standout action scene is the expert mayhem staging of the police chase with the Tumbler, but other than that the action leaves much to be desired.
And for all the realism and psychological complexity of the first hour or so, Nolan and Goyer essentially throw all that out the window and give us another rote “Batman must save Gotham from some mad scheme” ploy at the end. I mean, this is a Batman film, so I can’t be too harsh on the decision as that’s what Batman typically does. But my problem lies mainly in the execution, as all logic is thrown out the window in favor of mindless, shaky-cam destruction. The script never congeals the fascinating set-up of Batman’s character early on, resolving all conflicts in the most rote ways possible, while also peppering in some really stupid moments (like Gordon driving the Tumbler). It’s not so much that it’s bad as it is disappointing.
THE VILLAINS: For a change, the villains take a backseat to Batman, and actually become the weakest element of the film overall.
Tom Wilkinson plays mob boss Carmine Falcone, and is far too underutilized. He only appears in a handful of scenes, but is great as Gotham’s undisputed king of the underworld. He also gets a key scene with a younger Brue Wayne, where he shows the young billionaire just how little he knows of the world he’s trying to fight, inspiring him to ditch his inheritance and traverse the seedier parts of the world (there's a great close-up of Wilkinson during this scene where he looks like a bulldog looking for something to bite down on).
The only real “super-villain” of the film is Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow, a doctor at Arkham Asylum who uses a special fear toxin to experiment on his inmates. Cillian Murphy plays him creepily enough, but the villain never really feels all that important overall. His mask is also suitably nightmare-inducing, but that’s undercut a bit by the fact that he's wearing a business suit.
The main heavy of the film is Ra’s al Ghul, the leader of the League of Shadows, a secret organization of assassins devoted to restoring the balance of justice to the world by whatever means necessary. In the comics, Ra’s is a 200-year-old immortal who bathes regularly in the Lazarus Pit, which allows him to keep his eternal youth - think of a cross between Vincent Price and Errol Flynn, and you’re not far off. The immortality angle was a bit too far outside the hyper-realism of the rest of the film, so instead Ra’s is played by Ken Watanabe as the mysterious leader of the League of Shadows - the actor doesn’t get much screen time, but plays him expertly as a stoic, formidable martial arts master in the great kung fu movie tradition.
Of course, it turns Watanabe was only a dupe standing in for the real Ra’s al Ghul, the final piece of the father-figures in Bruce Wayne’s life, as played by Liam Neeson. In the hands of a lesser actor, the character could have easily been played too broadly - especially at the end, when he becomes an out-and-out villain. But Neeson couldn’t deliver a bad performance if he tried, and here lends much weight and simmering menace as Batman’s primary antagonist.
It turns out all three villains are in league with each other, all working together (to various degrees) to destroy Gotham City from the inside out - the League of Shadows has always been around to eradicate hives of civilization that become too corrupt to function properly. All well and good, and kind of a cool way to put the city in jeopardy, but the delivery is very lazily put together. There’s no real reason that Falcone, Crane and Ra’s would be in league together, except that it ties up all the loose ends of the script for the last act. Not to mention the abrupt removal of Falcone from the plot, and the completely underwhelming defeat of the Scarecrow as Rachel tasers him in the face.
THOSE WONDERFUL TOYS: The new Bat-suit is composed of a similar black rubber material like the last few, but what’s novel is that everything now has a practical application. The ears on the cowl hide a long-distance mike/radio, the spines on the gauntlets were a part of Batman’s ninja training, designed to block sword blows and the cape is a “memory fabric,” which hardens into a wingspan when an electrical current is passed through it - handy for gliding about town. The suit overall is more flexible, allowing Batman to fight and crouch and generally move around a lot easier. Much improved over the last few, which often felt like Batman had a stick running through the whole suit.
Also getting a complete overhaul is the Batmobile, here known as the Tumbler. The vehicle is stripped down of all decoration, becoming a mean beast of a machine that looks like the bastard love child of a Lamborghini and a tank. Finally we have a Batmobile that can actually make a turn, and Nolan takes advantage of its versatility in a chase scene that sees the Tumbler racing across the rooftops of Gotham.
Batman’s arsenal is also scaled back, including the smaller, shuriken-esque batarangs and a gas powered grapple gun. Rounding out Batman’s weapons are mini-grenades, a periscope and a nifty sonic device that calls up swarms of bats on command.
THE BAT’S IN THE DETAILS: Nolan’s Bat-films have always had one ear to the ground to the politics of the day, and here at the beginning is no different. It’s not really a coincidence that a movie focusing so squarely on fear would come out during a so-called “War on Terror,” is it? None of it ultimately goes anywhere due to the muddied climax, but the next installment gets right into the nitty-gritty consequences of having an individual taking the law into his own hands… But that’ll have to wait for tomorrow.
I keep coming back to the helicopter shot that pans around the building, revealing the silhouette of Batman standing on one of its spires. It’s a shot that really grounds Batman and makes him feel like a real part of the world, but more importantly ties Batman to his mythic roots. Gargoyles (or grotesques, if you want to get more specific) were often placed on cathedrals - carved as hideous and scary as they could be to ward off evil spirits, or at least to make parishioners think they warded them off. That’s what Batman is: a self-made gargoyle, a hero who looks like a villain in order to scare off the real bad guys.
The training montage with Bruce at the League of Shadows headquarters is especially cool, filled with kung fu movie tropes like fighting on wooden poles and uber-cool dialogue consisting of “The training is nothing; the will is everything!” and Liam Neeson brutally kicking Bruce in the ribs while he squirms on the floor, informing him, “This is not a dance.”
The scene of Bruce’s parents death is especially harrowing. Instead of the more operatic staging in the previous films, Nolan plays it for real - and although we don’t actually see the Waynes get shot, the sound design and immediacy of the scene makes it both horrifying, violent and abrupt - drawing us in to Bruce’s story immediately.
A better way to handle the whole dual Ra’s al Ghul identity-thing would be to have it as a name passed down through the generations, so when Ken Watanabe dies, Neeson’s character takes up the mantle in his stead. That also would nicely line up more with the character’s original portrayal as an immortal.
The master-plan at the end involves using a “microwave emitter” to vaporize Gotham’s water supply, which has handily been laced with the Scarecrow’s fear toxin. One of the many gaps in logic of the finale: wouldn’t it also vaporize the 60% of water that makes up the human body?
Alfred mentions the cave beneath Wayne Manor was used by Bruce’s ancestors during the Civil War to escort freed slaves - a nice bit of history showing the Wayne family has always bred heroic members.
Rutger Hauer gets a chance to shine as the slimy Wayne CEO William Earl, providing Batman with some villainy to deal with on the corporate side.
Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija gets a brief cameo, where Batman compliments him on his coat.
Also in the movie: Prince Joffrey! Jackie Gleason here is very far away from being one of the most hated villains in television history, as a kid who catches Batman climbing a wall outside his fire escape. And here he looks so sweet and innocent…
“I’m not going to kill you, but I don’t have to save you.” Kind of the same thing there, Batman.
Batman fights ninjas! Almost makes up for the weak third act in and of itself.
BEST QUOTE: “What is the point of all those push-ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log?” That’s what I love about Alfred: he never lets Batman get too caught up in himself.
THE LAST LAUGH: Though failing to live up to the promise of its early moments, Batman Begins creates an immersive world with fascinating characters to populate it - setting up the beginnings of a fresh, new take on the character.
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