What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

With the new movie Batman Begins, the Batman movie franchise gets a much needed rebirth. As the title suggests, the movie shows how Batman becomes Batman. It is basically the same story that you will find in the comics and the first Batman movie. This movie takes it one step further and shows Bruce Wayne’s struggle to deal with his problems back in Gotham City and how he finally decides to deal with it. Of course this part of the movie is Batman-less, and thankfully, I wasn’t sitting there thinking “When are we going to see Batman?” That section of the movie holds its own. As soon as Wayne returns to Gotham, we witness how the physical presence of Batman comes about. For the rest of the movie Batman fights the baddies, saving Gotham and his loved ones.

There are some elements that make this a great comic book hero movie, but in order to discuss those I am going to get a bit spoilerish, so read ahead at your own risk. You have been warned, in bold even.

The creative folks behind Batman Begins gets a couple of things right that other superhero movies miss. (At least in my opinion.)

1. The movie is about Batman. Go figure, a Batman movie should be about Batman, but we really haven’t ever seen a modern Batman movie that was about Batman. Think about it. Starting with Burton’s first Batman movie, who really gets the most attention? I don’t think it was Batman, it was Nicholson’s Joker. The trend continued with Batman Returns except we get two super badies to marvel at, (a trend that I am not fond of) with the Penguin and Catwoman. The Riddler, Two Face, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and even a pathetic appearance of Bane all took the attention of of who the movie should really be about, Batman. Not so with Batman Begins, Batman is front and center. Which brings us to…
2. Villains are used properly.** Taking a back seat for this movie makes the villains more interesting. Ra’s Al Ghul seemingly meets his end (unlike the comic book character, who was immortal) quite early in the movie. Scarecrow only appears as Scarecrow for a few minutes. Despite the smaller roll, the villains are very effetive and gave the audience a few surprises.
3. Some of the villains are alive at the end of the movie. I really don’t like when movies kill off a villian. In the comics, characters have a chance to return to taunt the heros again, why not in the movies. The only reason I can think of is the creators feel that the villian’s death gives some kind of closure. Whatever. In BB, Scarecrow makes it through the whole movie (and I hope they bring him back, he was fun) and Ra’s Al Ghul could return, it would just be another person from the League of Assassins filling those shoes (a different kind of immortality from the comic, but a little more realistic than the Lazarus Pit.)
4. Batman is scary. In BB, you never know where Batman is going to POP out. Many of the initial fighting scenes, you really don’t see much of Batman, you hear him. When he strikes, it is fast. Some of those scenes almost have a horror movie kind of feel to them. Batman should be frighening.
5. Christian Bale. Christian Bale fills the cowel well. In BB, he really plays three seperate parts: Batman (though initially I though his low Batman voice was a little cheesy, not as good as Keaton), Bruce Wayne the carefree billionaire, and Bruce Wayne the tortured soul. Other great appearances: Liam Neeson (though in the beginning he had the whole Jedi thing going but that was quickly dispelled), Michael Crane (the comedy relief), Cillian Murphy, and Gary Oldman. Also making the first realistic appearance in the movie: Gotham City (neither Burton or Schumacher was able to do).
6. A good beginning to a series. The end provided a wonderful beginning to a movie series (Nolan and Goyer have already mapped out two sequals, I bet you can guess what villian will be featured). With all the crazies running around after having escapted from Arkham Asylum. That would be enough evil villains for a TV series.
7. It was thematic. Finally, the writers chose two major themes to explore and they stuck with them: fear and resposibility for descisions. Two things that set Batman apart from the villains that he fights. There have been other movie series that have chosen to explore a theme and been very successful rather than just tell a story, Spiderman II and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban are two that come to mind. I can only hope that this kind of story telling will continue in the new Batman series.
8. Oh and the new Batmobile completely rocked my face off.

My grade stands: A

** Not everyone agrees with me on this point, enter Movie Mom’s Review:

… There are too many villains running around with the result that none of them are developed enough to be interesting or vivid or even especially scary. The comic book did a much better job of exploring the potential for some of these eccentric madmen. Some of the fight scenes are well staged, but the big finish is both too serious to be fun and too diffuse and uncontained to be genuinely gripping.

Later taters!