Welcome to this series review, as Yanni and I uncover a lot
of Batman and Superman Movies that came out from the past decades. She’s in
charge of Tim Burton’s Batman, I am extremely grateful for that, because
there’s a lot of movies to cover before Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
comes out on March 24th. Here I am, uncovering one of the most
underrated Superhero movies that was extremely important, since it saved a
franchise from being completely destroyed: Batman Begins.
But first, let me tell you something…
It’s funny to say this, because, as I was saying how
underrated this movie was, it was like that to a point I don’t even know this
movie existed. It’s ridiculous! At first I thought The Dark Knight (a movie I
would be uncovering soon) was the first Batman movie since Batman and Robin.
Ugh, I don’t want to mention that abysmal mess.
It wasn’t until I got older when I last watched The Dark
Knight (I watched that movie in cinemas when I was around six years old, and I
was really scared of the movie. I’m just not ready for crime thrillers and The
Joker and burnt faces) that there is actually a predecessor to that movie. I
was surprised at how well Batman Begins interpreted Batman. The last
interpretation that went well was George Clooney’s Batman. I really don’t…I
hated it. I just hated it.
Like I said, this movie was underrated. It didn’t perform
well in the box office. It had a budget of 150 million and it made
approximately 374 million, which is only twice as much than the usual budget. I
am surprised by the lack of money it made and the amount of people who watched
this movie. It must have been very little, and in my opinion should have been
watched by comic book fans and audiences worldwide, because this movie’s
amazing!
Without further ado, let me “begin” this movie review. And
yes, this review may contain spoilers.
You have been warned.
Film Synopsis -
When his parents were killed, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne relocates to Asia
when he is mentored by Henri Ducard and Ra's Al Ghul in how to fight evil. When
learning about the plan to wipe out evil in Gotham City by Ducard, Bruce
prevents this plan from getting any further and heads back to his home. Back in
his original surroundings, Bruce adopts the image of a bat to strike fear into
the criminals and the corrupt as the icon known as 'Batman'. But it doesn't
stay quiet for long.
The Pros
New Interpretation of
Batman – So far we have two kinds of interpretation of Batman. The good one
goes to Tim Burton who made the first two, and the one we all wanted to forget
is Joel Schumacher’s Batman.
Director Christopher Nolan and Screenwriter David S. Goyer
aimed to create darker and more realistic tone to the rebooted franchise, which
is a great departure from the comic books. It has more humanity in every
individual character that we care about in the film, and realism is the basis
of this movie.
I’m always down for anything that is closely related to the
Batman Universe. I didn’t care when this movie departed from the comic books.
The way Christopher Nolan executed this movie was amazing, and I’ve always been
expecting that before I watched this movie. It gave so much to the characters
in the Batman Universe, and especially Batman himself. There’s layers in each
of them, they all have a backstory, and they are people we care about. This
interpretation made the movie more realistic and more relatable. There’s more
grit in this fictional Gotham City, and it felt real, not something that comes
from the Comic Book.
Movie aimed to
uncover how Batman came to be – This is the movie that bothered to give
Batman a bit of backstory. The previous movies had Batman jump straight into
scenes scaring criminals away, while slowly uncover Bruce Wayne’s backstory.
In Batman Begins, they chose to build up the vigilante by
starting off with Bruce Wayne being trained his mentor Henri Ducard, played by
Liam Neeson, who worked for the League of Shadows. The movie built up in a
fast-paced way, showing us trainings of Bruce Wayne, and when the time came,
Bruce Wayne donned the suit and became the famous superhero we’ve always wanted
to see.
I loved the execution. Every bit of it. The Batman didn’t
work out at first, as he goes around finding partners and finding someone
reliable to supply him with gadgets and weapons and vehicles, so there is more
build up in the creation of Batman. As the movie title suggested, Batman Begins
shows us how Batman came to be in the most realistic approach. As the franchise
has never really uncovered Batman’s backstory properly, it felt like a new
direction, and I enjoyed it.
Atmosphere of Gotham –
Christopher Nolan’s vision of Gotham City is perfect. The atmosphere was
exactly just like the comic books, as most of the locations took place in the
dirtiest places in Gotham, where the corrupt and the citizens of poverty lived.
The dirty stations with its hanging railways and the look of the building of
Wayne Enterprise added so much significant depth to Gotham City and any other
major cities. As realistic Christopher Nolan tried to make Gotham, he added
details coming from the comic books of Batman into his franchise, and it worked
so well, because some comic books don’t work, especially Batman’s. Gotham stood
out as one of the most realistic fictional city ever put into a movie
franchise, and one that many people can remember well.
Christian Bale as
Bruce Wayne / Batman – Poor Christian Bale. He had to play 3 roles in this
movie.
Christian Bale is possibly the most perfect choice in this
movie (in fact, all the casting choices made were perfect. Christian Bale’s
only one of them). He gave the humanity in Batman when needed, the strength of
Batman when needed, and also the humanity of Bruce Wayne in particular. As I
was saying, he didn’t only play just 1 role; he played all 3.
To start it off, there’s Bruce Wayne and his interactions
with Alfred Pennyworth, Rachel Dawes and Lucius Fox.
And then came along his 2nd role in the movie: Being the Batman.
Batman in this movie was actually the most frightening depiction I’ve seen. As he was trained in the League of Shadows, he was slinking around in the shadows, going to one place and suddenly appearing in the other… it was just like watching a Bat Ninja slinking around in the dark, taking down and snatching criminals away. Even the audience felt insecure, it was absolutely unpredictable on when Batman is going to show up and show the criminals some business.
Christian Bale’s voice change as he talked to them was nice.
The criminals were scared to death as they stared at a man who donned a mask to
strike fear among many criminals around Gotham City, and his voice change added
to more fear as they faced the Batman.
Just imagine for a second, you were in a horror movie, and
Batman is coming to hunt you down. Come on, you’ve always wanted that to happen
in a movie. Well, here you go!
The 3rd role was actually kind of unnecessary,
but it made more sense. Bruce Wayne came back to the city the same time Batman
appeared in Gotham, so Bruce Wayne had to do something about it, so that he can
hide his identity away from anyone. He acted as a douchebag and an absolute
playboy in front of Gotham City’s citizen’s eyes, so nobody would ever think he
would be the Vigilante that has been saving Gotham. It was such a smart idea,
and I adored it. I’ve honestly never thought of that before.
Liam Neeson as Henri
Ducard / Ra’s Al Ghul – Perfect casting choice also. I’ve always loved the
idea of Liam Neeson training someone as a mentor. Why the fuck did that not
work in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace? Seriously, it worked so well
in this movie. Why can’t it be for Qui-Gon Jinn also?
As you saw Liam Neeson training Bruce Wayne to become a
member of the League of Shadows, you can tell he believed in him, and trained
him by trying to unleash his anger and physically destroy him, because Liam
Neeson wanted Bruce Wayne to get better. The backstory of Henri Ducard was also
interesting, as you discover that he had a wife that was taken away from him.
There wasn’t a lot of significance to that story, not until the 3rd
movie, but it something worth noticing.
You also saw the motivation for Liam Neeson to destroy
Gotham City. That is what make great villains. They are not there for the sake
of being bad, but to do things they believe in doing. There has been countless
villains who have all done the same thing who were amazing: The Joker, Darth
Vader, and Kylo Ren. Now, of course, Ra’s Al Ghul.
Christopher Nolan did well fleshing out villainous
characters that has not appeared in the previous Batman movies before. Christopher
Nolan knew possibly two things while making this movie: This movie might not be
good, so he didn’t bring out the big guns yet. Another thing Christopher Nolan
decided is the fact that this is Batman’s personal movie. It’s always important
to flesh out Batman’s character first, and also the people Bruce Wayne care
about, before making a sequel 3 years later that blew us all away. By doing
that, he had to get the depths of some characters that may appear consecutively
on the next few movies out of the way first. Christopher Nolan truly knew what
he was going for in this movie.
Cicilian Murphy as
Dr. Jonathan Crane / The Scarecrow –
I don’t know if this is just you guys, but I know that some people will be
disappointed by the depiction of Scarecrow in this movie. He’s sadly not made
out of straw, I know, he’s more human. After all, that is what Christopher
Nolan has been aiming for from the very beginning. That doesn’t mean he
couldn’t bring a comic book character that has never appeared in a Batman movie to the screen though. Cicilian Murphy played a psychopathic yet clever psychiatrist, attacking people with his fear gas and inflicting them onto victims like Rachel and Batman himself. The comic book-ish vibe started happening as the victims started hallucinating, and Scarecrow’s face started acting weird and horrifying, like maggots crawling over the face or bats coming out of his mouth. Christopher Nolan did that in honor of Scarecrow’s character, which is pretty cool. I mean, yeah, he uses fear gas already from the very beginning, but by doing that in a realistic world? Cool enough.
The supporting
characters around Bruce Wayne – Everyone around Bruce were perfect. With
Michael Caine playing as Bruce’s faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth, he played
as a funny man who cracks jokes while also doing things around Wayne Manor.
There’s not too much of him, which I guess is a good thing, because sometimes
old people can get annoying. But honestly, Alfred was such a great character,
and someone you adore. There’s layers to his character, and he doesn’t want
Bruce Wayne to become the Batman, and wanted him to become more like father.
Then there is Jim Gordon, played by Gary Oldman. You see, you don’t need sidekicks like Robin in some Batman movies; Jim Gordon is good enough. Christopher Nolan gave importance to Jim Gordon’s character, as his character kind of failed in the previous Batman movies. He was a good character with a family. You rooted for him as you saw him give his jacket around Bruce after his parents died a short while before. That is also why Batman chose him as a sidekick, which is cool screenwriting.
Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, was a minor character
in this whole movie, but that’s good enough. He didn’t exist in the previous
Batman movies, and I’m glad they finally introduced him. Morgan Freeman’s
always a good actor. He looked and felt like Lucius Fox already from first
glance. Bruce trusted him from the very beginning to not to spill he’s Batman.
You can’t help but feel like without Lucius Fox, there wouldn’t be a Batman
around to give him gadgets. See, he’s important as well, and Christopher Nolan
knows it. 
Katie Holmes plays Rachel Dawes in this movie. Even though she’s not as good as Maggie Gyllenhaal from The Dark Knight, Katie Holmes still delivered a confident and strong women who is still a damsel in distress at times, but you wanted her to be alive, mainly because as you saw from the beginning of this movie, she was Bruce’s childhood friend. You saw her importance to Bruce, and that is why Batman really needs to save her. She’s not someone Bruce met when he came back to Gotham. He knew her his whole life. Rachel was someone important in Bruce’s life, and I liked the way some scenes were handled when they were together. Although I would prefer Maggie Gyllenhaal in the next movie, Katie Holmes was perfect for this kind of movie she was in.
Practical and
traditional stunts and miniatures – The movie’s most underrated issue is
the action. The action was amazing in almost every way. I would actually
consider the action in this movie to be a landmark action movie, but it was
overshadowed by The Dark Knight. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel
like this movie should have been recognized for its action as well.
The tumbler escaping from the cops sequence had actual
practical effects and stunts performed with a real Batman vehicle. The editing
was great as we see it pace through Gotham City with a bunch of cops behind his
tail.
The cinematography in this sequence is particularly apparent
that Christopher Nolan takes the best shots for scenes like this. Most scenes
were put together with quick and clean editing that has steady camera set-ups
that makes us want to watch the scene again and again. My mouth is dropped on
the entire sequence, it’s filmmaking at its finest.
I also loved the way how Christopher Nolan risked the
dangers of using the practical effects onto action sequences. It is mostly practical, and computer generated imagery were
used to the minimum. To make a great action movie, good filmmakers use practical effects
as the main focus of the movie, and computer generated is more on the
secondary focus, a tool to make some impossible scenes work. Action
movies these days reeked of lazy and used CGI to do the lazy work, because they
don’t want to risk injuring anyone. That is not how action movie works. It is
supposed to feel apparent that the people in that scene are in danger and
vulnerable at that moment. Practical effects are there to make you feel like it
is there, and that gives the scene more grit. Those scenes are the most memorable.
That’s
not to say I want people to die in the scene, no, but
having CGI as the main focus in movies that look better with actual
stunts is
probably the laziest and the shadiest parts of filmmaking. Christopher
Nolan knows, and he delivered so much action-packed charisma
in this Batman movie.
Conclusion
Batman Begins astounded me. This underrated movie should
have been easily recognizable as simply the movie that gave Batman CPR again. It’s
unbelievable that even I don’t know this movie existed, and I regretted not
watching this movie when I was younger. This movie was gritty, dark, but
ultimately the most involving movie between the characters of Bruce Wayne and
his friends and family. There’s so much humanity and depth in every single
character. Compared to Batman & Robin, that stupid mess, this is more than
just a cool superhero movie. It’s actually a
movie. With sets. With filmmaking. With writing. With actors. With
practicality. With characters! Things we haven’t seen in a Batman movie for a
while ever since the atrocity Joel Schumacher created.
The Pros – 8
Neutral – 0
The Cons – 0
Rating: CINEMATASTIC
(6/6)
After watching this movie, The Dark Knight started to make a
lot more sense now. It is a perfect kick-off to a beloved superhero that also leads
up to one of the greatest movies ever made. The Dark Knight will be coming
soon.
Please comment on whether you feel like this movie is underrated. Thank you!
Please comment on whether you feel like this movie is underrated. Thank you!
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