BATMAN BEGINS Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros
Grade: B+
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer, story by David S. Goyer, from characters in DC Comics
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Nesson, Morgan
Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian
Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauser,
Screened at: Warner, NYC, 6/6/05 Fear, guilt, and anger are explored in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of David S. Goyer’s story, but even more heady (for a comic-book movie), Nolan and Goyer toy with philosophic concepts drawn from Eastern religions as well as from Western existentialists: “You are not what’s underneath, but what you do that defines you,” according to Batman’s childhood friend–who fails to attribute her counsel to the likes of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. “Batman Begins” is Nolan’s way of getting back to the roots of one of the major super-heroes of my own comic-book days. The Batman legend had been explored previously by film-makers Tim Burton in 1989 and 1992, by Joel Schumacher in 1995 and 1997, and by Eric Radomski in 1993. Nolan takes us back to the Depression era when Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy determined to shed his high-society mask for a darker one, was eight years old and unable to conquer his fear of bats. Fearful of bats? You’d be too, if you fell into a well, attacked by hundreds of the vulgar, flying beasts, but there’s a compensation: if he could conquer his fear–and not just overlay his cowardice by anger as so many anxiety-ridden neurotics would do today--he might meet it head-on and even put it to ones own service. “Batman Begins” offers everything its targed audience of young men could want: explosions, car chases, gas attacks, a James Bond-like weapon that current managers of the axis of evil would like to get their hands on, a masked man who could swing across buildings like Spiderman and yet unlike Superman, threatened only by kryptonite, a mortal fellow counting on his bat suit to ward off his enemies’ bullets. Using frequent flashbacks to good effect, Nolan opens his tale on the eight-year-old Wayne who, suffering bat-phobia to such an extent that he is unwittingly responsible for the violent deaths of his parents at the hands of a mugger. With vengeance on his mind, the adult Wayne (Christian Bale) winds up in a horrendous Asian prison (a repeated viewing might straighten out how he got there) where he meets a strange fighter, Ducard (Liam Neeson) who takes Wayne under his wing. Understanding the young playboy’s need for vengeance, Ducard tutors his charge in the Eastern fighting arts, expecting to use him as a pawn in Ducard’s unusual quest. As a member of a thousand-year-old society devoted to destroying cities that have become like Sodom and Gomorrah, Ducard is now intent on destroying all of Gotham City, a corrupt municipality in which most of the cops, judges and D.A.’s are in the pay of gang leader Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson–who trades his king’s English for a Brooklyn accent). Wayne, a tragic hero, ultimately learns that Ducard’s extreme idea–to destroy civilizations in order to save them–is best tempered with justice. Making good of use of Wayne Enterprises’ Applied Sciences division’s Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), he sets himself up with a keflar suit and a batmobile that looks like the kind of hummer that the coalition forces could use in Iraq. Just as there are two Bruce Waynes–who plays the part of the womanizing playboy to disguise his real self, Batman–there are two major villains in this well-executed film. One is Carmine Falcone, a mobster who runs a city that has turned a blind eye to his importation of drugs; the other, the more menacing dude, is Ducard–who’d destroy not only Falcone but the entire town. With editor Lee Smith’s sharp cuts during the fight scenes (a technique we’ve seen too often in martial arts films); Wally Pfister’s lensing to give Gotham the needed noir ambience; and James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer’s loud and sometimes intrusive music, “Batman Begins,” which was filmed in Iceland, England and Chicago, stands up ahead of its predecessors by subordinating campiness and production design to an exploration of the mind of the titled figure. Katie Holmes lends her apple-pie looks as an idealistic assistant D.A. who was Bruce Wayne childhood friend and who, like Lois Lane, has vague suspicions of the human identity of the superhero. Other side roles are well-cast: Gary Oldman against type as the one good cop in the town; Ken Watanabe as the mysterious cult leader Ra’s al Ghul; Rutger Hauer as corporate head Richard Earle, Michael Caine as the Wayne family’s butler, who looks the same when chatting with the 8-year-old Bruce as in helping him some twenty years later; and especially Cillian Murphy as the spectacled psychiatrist known for getting vicious criminals out of jail and into the more relaxing confines of mental institutions. The movie does take itself too seriously, yielding only four of five laughs, the best one being when Wayne, inviting good cop Lt. Gordon to take over the controls of the batmobile, asks: “Can you drive a stick?” Rated PG-13. 134 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
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