Review: Batman Begins

[jeriendhal]

Saw it last week on DVD (Oh, and thanks WB for the most bare-bones major DVD release I've ever SEEN.) Overall it's vastly superior to any previous Batman film, including Tim Burton's first.

Which isn't to say it doesn't have its quirks.



Bruce beats up a shitload of ethnic people in a prison.

Bruce: I'm Batman.

Liam Neeson: Not yet. Let me introduce you to this Wizened Chinese Guy named Ra's Al Ghul.

Bruce: You mean you aren't Ra's Al Ghul?

Liam: No.

Bruce: You're sure? Because like your name is second in the credits after mine.

Liam: No.

Bruce: And you've got the beard and everything.

Liam: Look, just drop it and let me give you some training with my, I mean his, group of elite Ninja.

Bruce: Ninja? But we're in friggin' Nepal.

Liam: We're more of a multinational group.

Bruce: Oh, and I hate to bring this up, but why would you give the one guy who would most oppose you to trashing Gotham all the training he needs to defeat you?

Liam: Um, we're very tricky... and mysterious... yeah, that's it.

Bruce: Okay.

Liam: Oh, and what scares you the most?

Flashback to Bruce's childhood. With BATS and the TRAIN and OPERA and it's all very SYMBOLIC! Then Bruce's mom & dad DIE and he's sad, then he fails to shoot the guy who did it, and he's even sadder.

Liam: So you're dad built this whole funky train system for Gotham that penetrated stopped in his own office building? Well, at least frelled up psyches run in the family.

We have a very keen scene with many Prancing Ninja and a fight between Liam and Bruce.

Liam: I have nothing further to teach you.

Bruce: Mind if I blow up your building then?

Liam: Go ahead.

BOOM

Bruce: Boy, I hope saving your life doesn't come back to haunt me later.

Alfred meets Bruce at Nepal International Patch of Dirt Airport.

Bruce: I'm Batman.

Alfred: Not yet. But I am willing to play along with you, despite you having gone missing for seven fricking years without a word. [1]

Bruce visits his dad's old company.

Bruce: What's shakin'?

Sleazy CEO: Nothing, ABSOLUTELY nothing, I'm NOT selling out your father's ideals or making deals with the bad guys.

Bruce: No worries. Where do you keep the cool tech stuff?

CEO: Down in the basement, next to Morgan Freeman.

The Basement of Cool Shit

Fox: Hi, don't ask me what I'm doing in this film.

Bruce: Don't worry, I didn't bug Liam about Star Wars, Episode One either. Ya got any stuff I can borrow?

Fox: For what?

Bruce: (insert lame excuse here)

Fox: Well, despite the fact that it would normally be my ass for letting incredibly expensive prototypes out of the lab and into the hands of a trust fund brat, I'm sure you'll take good care of them.

Bruce: L8r.

Bruce visits Gordon.

Bruce: I'm Batman.

Gordon: In that getup?

Bruce: The mask is on backorder, 'kay?

Back with Fox

Bruce: I need a car.

Fox throws him the keys to the Tumbler, which is the COOLEST BATMOBILE EVAR! [2]

Bruce: Does it come in black? (QUOTE!)

Bruce hits a warehouse where a bunch of goons are offloading drugs stuffed in kiddie toys.

Thug: Hey, where'd everybody go?

Bruce: NOW I'm BATMAN!

Audience: About freaking time!

Gordon: I want that car. (quote!)

Arkham Asylum

Rachael: Dr. Craine, I suspect you of no good.

Craine: Just because I let one or two (or ten) criminals off due to insanity pleas doesn't mean I'm evil.

Rachael: I want my own shrink to examine your patients.

Craine: WTF weren't you doing that before? I was working for the Defense y'know.

He goes into a cell where a mob boss is waiting and puts on a scarecrow mask.

Craine: This means I'm evil. BOOGA-BOOGA!

Bruce runs into Craine as the latter is about to torch the Narrows... for some reason

Craine: Eat this. Puts on Booga-Booga Mask and sprays Bruce

Bruce: I'm Bat... woah, this some lousy shit.

Bruce wakes up in bed with Fox and Alfred... Um, wait a moment.

Bruce: Ow. No more of those "Special Brownies" for me man.

Fox: Dude, I like totally saved your life for no reason. Did I mention I'm a top flight structural engineer and a chemist?

Bruce: Dude, thanks.

Alfred: Dude, you pull shit like this again and I'm totally giving you my resignation.

Bruce: You mean you're quitting?

Alfred; No, I'm resigned to you being an idiot.

Later, back at Stately Arkham Asylum.

Rachael: Say, you wouldn't happen to be running a nefarious scheme down in the basement, would you?

Craine: Why yes, I would.

Rachael: Bummer.

Bruce: HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAAAAAAAAAAY!

Bruce beats on people, the cops come, Gordon chats with Bruce, Racheal goes "Man, this is some bad shit." Oh, and there are BATS. Then he zooms off in the Amazing Rooftop Hopping Batmobile.

Rachael: I'm gonna hurl.

Bruce: Not on the leather seats, man! Why are you even in this movie?

Rachael: To show you're not gay.

Bruce: Gotcha.

They get back to the Batcave.

Alfred: Your birthday party started without you. I'll drag the girl home if you promise not to do or say anything stupid.

Bruce (crosses fingers): No worries.

He heads upstairs.

Liam: Boo! I really am Ra's Al Ghul.

Bruce: I knew it!

Liam: And just to show you how evil I am, I'm going to kill everyone in the room.

Bruce: Not if I totally ruin my reputation first! (gets everyone's attention) Guys, you all suck and I never liked you. Now scram!

Guests: Screw you, we were just here for the canapes anyway. (They leave)

Liam: I'm totally going to destroy Gotham now.

Bruce: Why?

Liam: Everyone needs a hobby.

Bruce: 'kay.

They fight, Bruce is knocked out but Alfred comes back to rescue him as Wayne Manor gets torched.

Alfred: I can't leave you alone for five fucking minutes...

The Narrows is turned into The Land of Amazing Zombie Loonies.

Rachael: Bummer. I think I'll try and protect this kid from the nutcases to show my maternal side.

Kid: Woah, this is some bad shit.

Bruce: I'M BATMAN, BITCHES! (Saves Rachael and the kid.)

Craine: I'M SCARECROW, BITCHES! (Runs around looking scary and not doing much else.)

Bruce: Gordon, here are the keys to the car. Blow up the Thematically Important Train for me while I have a fist fight with Liam.

Gordon: KEWL!

Bruce fights Liam on the train. Gordon makes trestle go BOOM!

Bruce: Excuse me while I cut out without saving you again.

Liam: Why?

Bruce: It allows me to stay with the Cannot Kill part of my canon while still allowing you to get wasted like a sterotypical Hollywood villian.

Liam: Gotcha. (Watches with dismay as the train approaches the broken trestle.) I really hope there's a Lazurus Pit in the parking garage.

Train goes BOOM in Wayne Tower's parking garage (and surprisingly doesn't collapse the building). The next day Sleazy CEO gets a nasty surprise when he goes to work.

Fox: You're totally fired, dude.

Slimy CEO: Crap.

Bruce and Gordon meet.

Bruce: We did good.

Gordon: Yeah, aside from an entire borough looking like Romero's Land of the Dead now, and this guy with the Joker playing card coming out of the woodwork.

Bruce: We can only pray he's finally played onscreen by Mark Hamill.

Heath Ledger: Keep dreaming, dude.

THE END


[1] Aside One: I heart Michael Caine as Alfred. It would have been easy to just play him as the loyal but slightly snide upper-crust butler like he was in the first four Batman films and Batman TAS. But Caine's portrayal of Alfred with a mild working class accent seems to hint that he's got a bit of the football rioter in his background, and makes it plausible that he could hold his own against some of Batman's opponents.

[2] The mind boggles at the contradictions here. Yes, it's a nod to plausibility that Bruce did not invent and build all those gadgets by himself. On the other hand, how the fuck did he drive the Tumbler out of there without someone noticing?

Comments

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

While I thoroughly enjoyed your writeup, almost every one of your "quirks" was explained on screen.

Liam's character (renee ducard) *is* a crucial part of the organization in the comic books, and casting an actual martial arts action star as the head of a ninja organization was a decent bit of misdirection. As for why he's saved? Well he does have a lot in common with Bruce -- he's just far more extreme in his plans and far more willing to kill to do it. And for all we are clearly meant to disagree with his philosophy, Ducard's the one who gives direction to Bruce's quest to understand and fight criminality. They are friends and partners and Bruce is being groomed as a successor; of course Bruce would save him if he could.

Alfred was, in the books, a former member of the British Secret Service, who retired to serve the Waynes. Caine was a *fantastic* Alfred, especially for this movie -- you can see why Bruce loves him so much, because Alfred's his surrogate father.

Morgan Freeman plays Lucious Fox, who *also* comes from the comics, and serves pretty much the exact same role. In various stories, he helps Bruce pry the company away from the board and is complicit in Bruce's harvesting of Wayne Tech stuff for the Batcave. He's always been a friend of Bruce's parents, a Wayne company loyalist with old skool feelings about right and wrong.

How'd they get the Tumbler out of there? Plausible paperwork from the man in charge. They probably drove it into a shipping container, had it shipped somewhere neutral with appropriate paperwork ("Tumbler shipped to ___ for demo c/o ___"), and then had someone else pick it up from there. Remember, there's even a scene where Alfred describes how they'll order parts and stuff through dummy organizations. A few bribes here and there as necessary, a few "Go on home, I'll lock up" nights from Fox, who clearly works nights to begin with because he's a research division chief, and you're golden. Fox has every reason to help Bruce and every reason to hate Rutger Hauer, who has buried him in the basement to keep him quiet -- probably because Fox, as a trusted friend of the founder, would have been a vocal critic on the board.

Absolutely LOVED the Scarecrow -- fantastic choice, well written (start with unethical but charismatic and respected researcher with ties to crime, add overdose of crazy gas) and it sets up a whole horde of reasons for so many costumed loonies to be in Gotham, and for Bats to feel partly responsible for them.

Rachel's there to humanize him and ground him, and to connect him to the *good* cops, and to show that the law isn't entirely broken.

I hope in the next movie we see Rachel paired up with District Attourney Harvey Dent, and that we see Bruce and Harvey as friends for a movie or two before that goes sour. They did a brilliant job with that in TAS, as Harvey slowly crumbled under the pressure of being a DA in Gotham...

[siderea]

*applauds*

[wolfstormdancer.livejournal.com]

Well we can tell who the bat man fan is..... frankly I find the entire movie series boorish and tiresome. I enjoye the comics a whole lot more.