I've always been a huge fan of Batman and his black pointy-ears-with-cape get-up even before he made his appearance in the cinemas; this was mostly thanks to my elder brother who owned a number of Batman comics, and as an impressionable adolescent, I was fascinated by this world of secret identities where good always triumphed over evil, where justice always prevails...
I was ecstatic when Tim Burton's Batman films came along in the late '80s and by the early '90s, when the Batman Animated Series started airing, I was already hooked. I think Batman as a comic-book superhero has always treaded the thin line between goth and camp but after Joel Schumacher took over the helm of the Batman films in the mid '90s (Batman Forever, 1995 and Batman & Robin, 1997), the Batman legacy plummeted straight down into the hells of intolerable campiness; even the tacky Batman drama series of the '60s which starred Adam West wasn't as distasteful.
After I discovered that Christopher Nolan was going to direct a Batman prequel and Christian Bale was going to don the cape, I became both excited and anxious; Excited because a Batman movie is long overdue and anxious because I was afraid the new film would disappoint. All I knew of Nolan was that he directed Memento, which I think, is one of the most psychologically intense films of recent times due to its ingenius editing style. I also thought Bale would make an excellent Batman because I saw his performance in American Psycho, and I knew he was capable of portraying dark and sinister characters. Still, I wasn't overly confident that Nolan and Bale could top whatever Tim Burton had done for the Batman film franchise.Fortunately, I was proven wrong; Batman Begins is indeed the definitive Batman movie which not only has revamped the Batman story for new audiences, but also remained faithful (in essense, at least) to its mature and dark comic-book roots. While Tim Burton's Batman films had a fantastic gothic look and feel to them, he never really made Batman as a characer truly three-dimensional; Nolan was able to do this by inserting a comprehensive "origins" sequence where we got to see how, what, where and when it all began. Moreover, his casting of a superb line of character actors in supporting roles implied that Batman Begins is not a superfluous summer-action-flick but a film to be reckoned with and taken seriously.
At first glance, Michael Caine may not be physically suited to play the loyal butler (the original butler was shorter and slimmer) but his likeable sardonic wit was a good counterpoint to Bale's intense portrayal of Bruce Wayne. Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson do not have much lines between them but I cannot imagine this film without the presence of these respected thespians. My only regrets were that Katie Holmes should have been replaced by a better actress (someone more feisty maybe?) and Cillian Murphy/Ken Watanabe should have been given more screentime.
Nevertheless, these are only minor quibbles if I were to consider the fact that Nolan has crafted a Batman story more engaging than its predecessors and Bale has successfully redefined Batman into a believable celluloid character. In the words of renowned movie critic Robert Ebert, "this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for..."
my ratings ---- 4.0/5 stars!!!
