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rating)
Rated PG-13 ; running time of 140 minutes
Genre: Action
Written By: Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, based on characters created by Bob Kane
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer
WARNING- SPOILERS BELOW.
The Digest
As a child, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), witnessed the murder of his parents. This brutal act left him an orphan and the sole heir to billion dollar industry – at the age of 12. Raised by the family’s trusted butler, Alfred (Michael Caine) , Bruce grows up and does what he is supposed to, but he never deals with his grief and he’s hollow inside because of it. After he is denied revenge for the deaths of his parents, he disappears and shows up in Asia. He tries to lose himself by joining a gang and just living day to day. At some point he lands himself in prison where he fight for his life, or rather in spite of it.
Basically content to fight himself to death, all of this changes when a mysterious stranger shows up in the prison and introduces himself as Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). Ducard challenges Bruce to give up his meaningless wandering and focus on figuring out exactly what he is searching for. He even offers to help. But he must embark on a quest first. This quest leads him to The League of Shadows of which Duchard is a ranking. Run by Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), The League of Shadows is dedicated to combating excess and restoring "balance" to the world when corruption has the upper hand
Bruce trains hard under Ducard and under his tutelage he confronts his fears and is able to find some inner peace which is good for Bruce, but horrible for Ducard and the League of Shadows because he no longer subscribes to their notion of eradicating the whole of society to start fresh. Bruce leaves the group and heads back to Gotham City, determined to fix the problems himself.
But he certainly can walk out there as a very human Bruce Wayne. He realizes that he must create a symbol that people will fear he digs deep and choose what he has feared for years – bats. With the help of Alfred; the head of Research and Development for Wayne Industries, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman); one of the last good cops, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); and his childhood girlfriend/friend assistant DA, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), Bruce tries to clean up Gotham and bring justice to it.
But he has some powerful and in once case mysterious enemies. Enemies that may be too strong for him to defeat.
The Dish
When dealing with movies about superheroes, one has to suspend belief because, well, it’s a superhero. But Batman Begins doesn’t want you to suspend belief. It walks you through the crevices of Bruce Wayne’s life so you can fully understand where he’s been and where he’s going and you want to go with him. You feel his pain and despair. You are taken on a ride through his life and spirit and you get a greater appreciation of who Bruce Wayne is as a man not just a superhero. Bringing this character to life is Christian Bale as he craftily weaves the tale of Bruce Wayne (in a weird accent he sounds almost like Dirty Harry). We were watching the story off a man’s journey, not some movie about a comic book character.
My main concern, besides the fear that it would suck, was looking at the cast list and realizing that someone was going to have to suffer. There wee too many names andf not enough space on the screen. Gary Oldman was pretty much sacrificed as was Ken Watanbe. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Oldman the next go around. The surprises for me were Freeman, Caine, and Neesom. I really enjoyed all of them, especially, Morgan Freeman. He was just kinda hanging in the background, ever ready with a one-liner and a wink.
Also underutilized was Katie Holmes, but at this point I really don’t care. Her name has been mentioned more than enough as of late. I just wish her parents would kidnap her and have her deprogrammed. Really enough is enough. It has really crossed over into creepy. So much so that I was almost ill when she was on screen. I don’t hate the girl, I just am sick of hearing about her.
Side note, how did they deal with all of those bats and not have any bat guano to battle with?
Bottom line, Batman Begins rocks. If it doesn’t end up a smash and runaway hit, there is not justice in the world.
The Directive
If you are under a rock or in a cave (haha) excavate yourself and head to the theater.
It should be called Batman: The Franchise has been rescued.
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Copyright Kamal "The Diva" Larsuel-Ulbricht, 2005
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