Unable to deal with the death of his parents and the evil of men, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) joins the League of Shadows. With his training complete, he rejects their call to mercilessly kill all criminals, instead returning to Gotham to become Batman. There with the help of Alfred (Michael Caine), technical genius Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), district attorney Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), and not-yet-Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), he fights to stop crime lord Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), and the leader of the League, Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson).
Batman Begins copies wholesale from the 1994 film, The Shadow, to the point that it is nearly a remake. Scriptwriter David Goyer acknowledged his pilfering. It’s fair, since in 1937, Batman was created as a Shadow rip-off. Well, you can’t say that the thieving was done haphazardly or cheaply. This is a meticulously made film and everything that was stolen was done so lovingly.
There’s plenty of action. While others have found the fight scenes to be the weakest element of the film, I thought the choreography was more than adequate. But Batman Begins is more drama than fight-fest anyway. Luckily, the story is coherent. Character interaction is a high point of the flick, with one exception. Rachel follows in the tradition of bland love-interests. She speaks in platitudes. But even if she was well written, Katie Holmes lacks the maturity for the role. It’s a kid playing dress-up.
In attempting to remove the cartoon elements, the villains end up underwhelming. Falcone is a stereotypical crime boss. Earle (Rutger Hauer) is a stereotypical evil businessman. The Scarecrow looks like a teenanger. And Ra’s Al Ghul is just some British bloke. Do you think that perhaps someone named Ra’s Al Ghul should be Arabic? I suppose the Lazarus Pit and ancient mystic powers don’t belong in this world, but something should have been found to spice up the bad guys.
Like all of Nolan’s Batman films, the movie is message-heavy; it’s all about what makes a criminal and the nature of fear. The fear theme is overdone and too often repeated. At times this feels more like Green Lantern. Yes…a man without fear. Yes, will can counter fear. Yes, fear can be a weapon. Yes, I get it. Move along.
For a film that is the antidote for camp, Batman Begins can be pretty silly. The bat-summoner and microwave bomb are devices best suited for Adam West. The finale is goofy, which is a fatal flaw in a film begging to be taken seriously. No one bothers to search out where that military vehicle came from? How many people at Wayne Enterprises had to know about it? Fox makes a drug antidote like he’s a super scientist? And let’s not talk about how all the water would be vaporized if the microwave bomb made it to Wayne Towers. This is all silly stuff.
For a film that’s been given the label “gritty realism,” it ends up being a fanciful superhero flick, with 50% less fun.