Originally published 6/21/2005
Batman Begins
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Story by David S. Goyer, Screenplay by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on characters appearing in D.C. Comics and “Batman” created by Bob Kane
Producers: Charles Roven, Larry Franco, Emma Thomas
Stars: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Mark Boone, Jr., Linus Roache
With Batman Begins the emancipation of the superhero movie is complete. It began with Bryan Singer’s X-Men movies, unironic popcorn delights not afraid of granting dignity to their story themes, and grew with Sam Raimi’s version of Spiderman, which surged joyously against the boundaries of its frame and proudly wore its turmoiled heart on its sleeve.
It is fitting that the process comes to maturity with a new iteration of the character that cast the longest shadow over superhero movies in this generation. While spotty from a story perspective Tim Burton’s Batman movies were eccentric and beautiful operas of the grotesque, Gothic edifices for Rococo freaks to trash. But subsequent sequels and imitators embraced the outsized aesthetics and cartoonish antics but without Burton’s quirky zeal for the damaged, and the whole genre suffered. This version, a collaboration between Blade trilogy author David S. Goyer and Memento and Insomnia director Christopher Nolan, purges the Batman myth of all the cancerous style-over-substance claptrap which polluted it and other would-be superhero franchises and gives it a fresh, exhilarating beginning.
It is the re-telling which makes myths culturally powerful; it speaks to how they thrive on interaction with the audience. Each storyteller gets a chance to reinvent details for a new generation while reinforcing those broad strokes which made it resonant to begin with. For the Batman myth, it is that Bruce Wayne, only child of a billionaire industrialist, watched his parents murdered by a simple mugger on the crime-ridden streets of Gotham City. Lonely and guilt-ridden, he grew up obsessed with the nature of evil and trained himself to fight it. And with deadly sparring skills, brilliant scientific detective work and cutting-edge gadgetry produced through the resources of Wayne Industries, he struggles to protect the streets of his home and make them safe again.
There are other necessary notes – the Batmobile, the BatCave hidden away beneath Wayne Manor, the kindly butler Alfred Pennyworth who cares for him, the honest policeman named Gordon who calls on him when times are at their most desperate, and the carnival of psychotic villains who challenge him – but it is these broad strokes that create the emotional framework of a Batman story. The rest is in the voice of the storytellers and the details they choose.
The Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) we start with here is younger, less sure of himself. He has yet to discover his legacy and is at the far stinking ends of the Earth serving some masochistic self-imposed penance in a Bhutanese prison camp. There, a mysterious warrior who calls himself Ducard (Liam Neeson) appears and offers Wayne the opportunity to overcome his fears and learn to fight them.
High atop a mountain Wayne trains with the League of Shadows, a secret society led by the enigmatic Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) that studies the ways of the ninja and purports to provide an invisible guiding hand to civilization whenever justice is too out of balance. Eventually Wayne learns how they intend to bring about this balance and that he doesn’t exactly agree with it. Not without effort, he leaves their order.
He returns to a Gotham City rotting from its underbelly up. While his father used Wayne Industries’ wealth to try and help – building low-cost mass transit and investing in the inner city, the board of directors led by Mr. Earle (Rutger Hauer) has been more concerned with having Bruce declared legally dead and taking the company public so they can make a killing on the stock market.
Wayne is focused on the crime and drugs on the streets, and mobster Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), who seems to have his fingers in it all. There is an aggressive assistant District Attorney, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) working overtime to put Falcone away, and this puts her life in danger. Rachel and Bruce were close as children, and neither quite lets themselves say how much they have missed each other.
And behind it all, an experimental psychiatrist named Dr. Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy), whose unorthodox treatment techniques involve hallucinogens and a Scarecrow mask, has some larger scheme in the works. For a first job out, Batman ha a lot to take on.
Fortunately he has the dry, decent, ever-loyal Alfred (Michael Caine) watching over him – as well as a rather brilliant engineer toiling in a forgotten division of Wayne Industries, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). Lucius has designed some impressive combat gear, knows it, and has a good enough idea why Bruce Wayne wants to borrow it that he doesn’t ask questions.
This is a more expansive Gotham City than in past movies, still stylized but more colorful, more real and breathing. The exteriors are mostly Chicago with some digital graft work, and for the first time you get a real sense of its geography, the distinction between the glittering towers and the slums. I do wonder where it is meant to be located in America, as Gotham was always a sort of dark parallel to New York, but Alfred reveals the tunnels beneath Wayne Manor used to be utilized to house runaway slaves as part of the Underground Railroad, and one has to think that if they had made as far North as New York there wouldn’t be much need for hiding anymore.
But these are small concerns – Batman Begins is a serious superhero adventure, with a serious story which rather fearlessly taps into the apocalyptic anxiety of the post-9/11 era. It lets Batman perform heroic, astonishing stunts and use cool gadgets – I like the way his cape can be locked into a glider shape by running an electric charge through it, and how he actually uses his cowl ears for holding eavesdropping equipment – but it also shows how every Batarang he throws is another one he has to machine to an edge back in his workshop. More of the action has a physical basis, so there’s a weight and verisimilitude to it digital effects cannot duplicate. We see the bruises and the fatigue of all those nights prowling the streets – Alfred suggests he take up polo as a way to explain his injuries.
Multiple layers of identity are also a theme here – Bruce decides to pose as an irresponsible billionaire wastrel in public, but the more Batman’s heroics charm the beloved Rachel, the more Bruce’s gauche boozing and playboy antics disgust her. Whether either represents the Bruce Wayne she loved years ago is a key question.
Bale has the right blend of passion and mystery to carry off the character, although when projecting his voice into gruffer regions while behind the mask it can sound forced, since he’s a British actor doing an accent already. Around him Nolan has worked hard to secure a well-traveled cast of professionals, and it’s easy to see that while they are not playing complex characters, Caine, Freeman, Hauer, Wilkinson and Gary Oldman (as the incourriptible Sgt. Jim Gordon, future Police Commissioner of Gotham) are able to take the respect and dignity Goyer and Nolan have invested in their parts and work the magic you hire them for.
Holmes is a weak link, trying to project warrior-champion determination and legal smarts through her apple cheeks and it doesn’t carry – the metamorphosis from teen queen to grown-woman does not happen overnight and so she seems trapped in transition. At first Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) seems too young, his features too sculpted and pretty, for the role he must play – but the more his childlike malevolence seeps out of his human mask of cool professionalism, the more the casting seems smart.
Christopher Nolan has shown level-headedness and mature enthusiasm across each genre he has traveled so far, he doesn’t sensationalize or trivialize Batman Begins, but lets it breathe. It has room for humor, and heartbreak (the death of Bruce’s parents has never been more wrenching), and terror. It is smarter, deeper and more patient than you might expect a summer action movie to be, and that’s its message to all superhero movies: This is how good it can be.