After his wealthy and well-meaning parents (Linus Roache, Sara Stewart)
were killed in a hold-up, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has sworn to fight
crime each and every way possible - something that eventually lands him in
a Bhutan prison. There though, Wayne attracts the attention of one Henri
Cucard (Liam Neeson), who breaks him free from jail to have him trained to
become a part of Ra's Al Ghul's (Ken Watanabe) Shadow Army. But when Wayne
finds out about the evil intentions of the army, he burns down the army's
Himalayan headquarters, killing pretty much everyone, but he saves
Ducard's life. Eventually, Wayne returns to his hometown Gotham City and
decides to put everything he has learned at his Shadow Army training camp
to good use, building himself a scary outfit (that of a bat) and using
ninja techniques to stir up Gotham's underworld - with the help of one
good cop, Gordon (Gary Oldman) and one honest DA, Rachel Dawes (Katie
Holmes) - who just happens to be his childhood sweetheart. But there's
something big going on in Gotham, someone named the Scarecrow - who will
eventually turn out to be Dr Crane (Cillian Murphy), head of the Arkham
Asylum - is spreading fear ... which is not just a figure of speech, he's
actually using a fear-inducing drug. But someone wants to spread fear on a
larger scale than the Scarecrow has ever dreamed of, and that someone is
... Ra's Al Ghul, who now turns out to be not the Oriental Wayne killed in
the fire after all but none other than Ducard, whose life he saved. And
Ducard has long seen through Batman's/Wayne's disguise, and burns down
Wayne Manor to get rid of his chief opponent - but to pay back a favour,
he does not actually kill Wayne himself but just leaves him to die. Of
course, Bruce Wayne does not really die, and he makes it to Arkham Asylum,
Ra's Al Ghul's new headquarters, just in time before the villain and the
scarecrow can spread fear for good ... and with the help of just a few
cops, he takes all the baddies out, and saves Gotham City for good ...
until of course the Joker will strike (see The Dark Knight for
that). Michael Caine is wasted as Wayne's well-meaning butler, Rutger
Hauer as the chairman of Wayne Industries, and Morgan Freeman as the token
black man ... er, head scientist of the company.
First of all, in my humble opinion, Batman Begins has one of the
least poetic film titles ever. I mean, couldn't they have thought of
something more original? Second of all, why - apart from the obvious
reaason, money - Christopher Nolan, former (overrated) arthouse darling
has signed on to do the film is somewhat beyond me. Doesn't he give a
ratfart abvout his credibility? Third of all, couldn't they have gotten
better actors for the lead roles than pretty face Christian Bale as Batman
and sugar sweet Katie Holmes as his love interest? And fourth of all - why does this film
take itself so goddam seriously, when all it's telling is a simplistic
tale versus good and evil? And why does it play more like an epic movie
than anything else, wasting almost an hour with the Batman's origin
everybody watching the film must know anyways? Instead of having some fun with its source
material like the classic Batman,
it just goes on and on about only allegedly big themes liek crime and
punishment and guilt and redemption, but giving them nothing but the
tried-and-true treatment. Add to all this an over-complex but simplistic
plot that doesn't seem to be able to make its point (and in over two
hours, too), botched-up action sequences, some way-too-obvious CGI-effects
and a bland directorial effort that wouldn't touch atmosphere with a
stick, and you've got ... well, not very much, just a waste of time. Rather
annoyingly though, this film did really good at the box office.
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