As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.
#6: Batman Begins (2005)
Trade Paperback Tickets: God, 2005 was really a good year for comic book movies, huh? (So was 2011, for my money. Which of course, I spent willingly on a lot of Vertigo/DC movies in 2005 and a lot of Marvel movies in 2011.) I honestly believe The Dark Knight is a better movie than Batman Begins but in lots of ways I enjoy Batman Begins more. (If I could put Heath Ledger’s Joker into Batman Begins somehow, it would have almost everything I’d want in a Batman movie.) I’m a sucker for origin stories and the Jeph Loeb/Time Sale books The Long Halloween, Haunted Knight, and Dark Victory) are among my favorite Batman comics (not Hush. Oh god, not Hush), all of which factored into this movie in some ways. (Of course so did Frank Miller’s Year One Batman story) The inception of Batman (aghhhh, if you’ll pardon that awful joke) is something Christopher Nolan and his team clearly cared a lot about developing in a realistic fashion and it’s actually nice to see a realistic version of Batman out there.
What I truly like about this movie version:
- Christian Bale. I love how frequently Christian Bale plays some form of sociopath, social outcast, crazy whackjob, whatever. When this movie came out, I was expecting a dose of film version Patrick Bateman as Bruce Wayne. (How many Bateman/Batman jokes can one really make before it grows wearisome?) The voice (which was far more pronounced in The Dark Knight than in Batman Begins) alleviated some of the psycho serial killer vibe I was expecting, and just made the movie comical. Michael Keaton may have been a better Batman in many ways but Bale wasn’t a bad choice.
- Ra’s Al Ghul! He’s one of my top favorite Batman “villains.” One of the nice things about him is that he’s not entirely a villain and he’s not entirely an ally. I’ve always liked his nebulous status and enjoy the fact that by canon, he knows who Bruce Wayne is. He knows he is Batman. And it’s not his interest to “out” him. Liam Neeson was a good choice for this role (though nobody is ever going to outdo David Warner in my book) but the diversion of Ken Wantanabe was the best. We all really thought he was going to be the actual Ra’s Al Ghul and I’m glad that Chris Nolan, et al. played this ‘joke’ on the audience. We also don’t know what becomes of Ra’s Al Ghul by the end of the movie and we’re never really sure if he can come back as he claims. (Canon says yes but does Christopher Nolan? Liam Neeson is listed in the credits for The Dark Knight Rises but this could just be archive footage.)
- This brings me to the point about how this is a Batman movie featuring largely non-American actors. I really just like this piece of trivia.
- Setting up a Batman movie where the big villains weren’t the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin… that was a brilliant move, really. Audiences were sick and tired of seeing those same villains being played off again and again. I love the Joker and Batman dynamic and could go into a lengthy discussion of why they need each other and how they feed each other but it’s probably best saved for the Dark Knight review you know I’m so totally planning, but that’s not what this film was about. The Joker is created as a mirror to Batman after Batman is established. Batman needed the other villains (including the homage to mob crime that was part of the original Detective era stories!) to get his start. Ra’s Al Ghul, though one of my favorites (I’m a geek) wasn’t well-known to audiences. Scarecrow may have had some play but certainly less than the other villains. Using them in conjunction to develop an origin story was a sweet move.
What I think may not be so good:
- Everyone’s pronunciation of “Ra’s Al Ghul.” Ugh.
- Katie Holmes. Do I actually have to elaborate?
- There are some moments in the plot where we really could have sped things up. Some slow moments and so forth. Namely some of the hearkening back to little Bruce and the bats.
Endorsements & Prohibitions:
I’m pretty sure Batman would be after me in a heartbeat if I didn’t rank this movie well. (It’d be a crime.) That said, I vote 8.5 of 10.
Dumpster Jedi 